Milk production characteristics in Southern Brazil

Resumo

This paper aimed to describe milk production in Southern Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, and to identify factors that affect milk quality at this region. The average age of regional dairy farmers is 49, and 67.9% has not concluded elementary school. Dairy farming is carried out on properties with an average of 26.06 hectares and 8.4 lactating cows. Most of them (32.83%) yield 50 to 100 L/day. Among the properties, 13.21% yield up to 30 L/day, and only 1.89% produces over 500 milk liters a day. Average yield was 6.8 L/day. Regarding to milking procedure, 39.3% farmers milk manually the animals, only 14.2% performed pre-milking teat disinfection, and 53.9% uses a single cloth to dry all animal teats. For infrastructure, 52.8% milks animals in wooden cowsheds. We observed that the average somatic cell count (SCC) was within legal parameters, presenting negative correlation with milk production (r = -0.23) and lactose content (r = -0.39). However, the total bacterial count (TBC) was above legal parameters. Education level seems to interfere in management and milk quality, because the less educated groups are, the less adequate are infrastructure, management, and product quality. Data show that there is a lower quality milk production where poor management techniques are adopted and owner education level affects milk quality.