초록
Accurate estimation of milk production cost is very important for dairy farmers in establishing strategies for business management (e.g. planning a program for milk production, deciding the size of business and investment, determining the milk price for sale). Since the estimated cost of milk production is used as an important index to determine the basal price of milk in Korea, there has been much interest and debate on the method used to estimate milk production cost among the stakeholder. This study was thus carried out to identify problems in the current methodology for estimating cost of milk production, and to find a better way to improve it. We propose several alternatives and better ways to improve the current method for estimating cost of milk production. Estimation of the income and cost per head should be based on the number of cattle converted to grown cows. Cost estimation per liter of milk should be made for both whole milk and 3.4% milk fat corrected milk. The value of purchased cows and raised replacement heifers should be the same as their market value. The productive life span of cows should be less 4 years, and the terminal or salvage value of cows needs to be 30 to 40% less than her initial value. When calculating depreciation of cows over the productive life span, however, the salvage value should be 0 or 1 Korean won. On calculating labor costs, the farm labor wage corresponding to the average wage of nonfarm industrial workers should be assumed. Beside of these, better estimation procedures for other items are also given. The proposed methods from this study should improve the accuracy of estimation of milk production cost and help to achieve consensus among the stakeholder.
