Case study of cattle farming systems in Bulgaria

In the period of transition from central planned to market economy there are mostly small farms (on average 2.4 ha and 2 cows) in Bulgaria. Dairy farms with a capacity lower than 20 cows are located within the villages. Crop fields and pastures are rather far from farmsteads. Land in these farms is scattered into several small plots. Pastures are owned by communities and used freely by everybody. The low quality of forages and poor feeding induce low milk yield, approx. 3100 l per cow per year on the average. There is very weak cooperation between producers and almost no possibility to get a bank loan. In two regions 28 farms were selected for detailed study. They were divided into groups of family farms with livestock numbers lower than 5, 5-15, 16-50, and 56-140 cows, and co-operatives with 32-144 cows. For each group of farms, data of location, land use, animal raised, labour, crops and animal management, farm product sales, economy and measures for improvement and survival are reported. The main constraints of small farms are size and structure. However, common problems of both small and larger farms are lack of knowledge and experience of farmers, difficult credit access, cost/price ratio and insufficiently effective legislation. Co-operatives are suffering additionally from poor motivation, wastefulness, and clumsy organization. It is expected that a large number (proportion) of small farms will give up farming. Some of them will be enlarged, will begin organic farming to produce branded and organic products and/or will combine farming with tourism and other services.