Regionale Vermarktung von Milch und Milcherzeugnissen - Eine Übersicht

The market price crises of 2009 2012 and 2015, with very low producer prices in some cases, seriously struck many dairy farms and posed a threat to their further existence. To reduce such negative impacts of market developments (risk management), regional marketing is being discussed as a possible instrument, also for dairy farms. However, regional processing and marketing of dairy farms has so far received little scientific attention, in contrast to other agricultural products. There are almost no findings on which factors influence the economic success of regional processing and marketing of dairy farms. The first step is to fill in this knowledge gap. In a second step, the suitability of regional marketing of dairy products as a risk management for dairy farms can be assessed. This paper focuses on the first step of the research. The official statistics provide limited information on the regional processing and marketing of dairy products by dairy farms. The relevant information had to be collected by ourselves. As part of this research, a total of 13 farm advisors and farm managers of dairy farms were interviewed as experts. Based on the findings, the factors influencing the economic success of regionally processing and marketing dairy farms can be grouped into two categories: intra-farm and extra-farm factors. The first ones include the farm manager, the family, workload, preparation and planning, marketing and distribution channels. The external factors include the staff, the location, the county veterinary authority, the consumers and the external dairy. For example, the initial economic situation of the dairy farm, the preparation and planning of the new business branch and, of course, the farm manager himself play a significant role in success. It also becomes apparent that the location, especially with regard to the federal state, canhave a crucial influence. This is because of varying regulations for the establishment and operation of regional dairy processing and marketing, as well as different offers of advice and funding schemes.