2006 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 165-172
This study is intended to clarify the requirements for technological development of rice whole crop silage (RWCS) based on dairy farmers' evaluations. Choice Based Conjoint Model is applied for this purpose.
The main results are summarized as follows:
(1) The factors, in order of decreasing importance, for dairy farmers to promote feeding RWCS are the improvement of silage quality, secure supply for all the year-round feeding, and the knowledge and methods for rational rationing. The importance of price is comparatively low.
(2) Evaluation of factors differs among dairy farmers depending on the milk yield.
(3) The marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) is estimated as ¥1,471 per roll for quality improved silage, ¥1,356 per roll for the secure supply for all the year-round feeding, and ¥2,827 per roll when both factors are satisfied.
Prevailing production of RWCS is barely sustained under the governmental subsidy in order to supply it with affordable price to dairy farms. However, this study showed that the subsidy may be decreases, to a good extent, if requirements extracted are satisfied by enhancing technical developments.
