Beef Production in Germany - Production Systems and Their Spatial Distribution

C. Deblitz, J. Brömmer and D. Brüggemann / Landbauforschung - vTI Agriculture and Forestry Research 1/2 2008 (58):29-44 29 Beef production in Germany - production systems and their spatial distribution Claus Deblitz*, Julia Brömmer** and Daniel Brüggemann*** Summary Zusammenfassung This paper provides an overview of the spatial distribu- Rindfleischproduktion in Deutschland - Produktions- tion of cattle, based on regional statistics as well as a sys- systeme und räumliche Verteilung tematic analysis of beef finishing systems in Germany and their spatial distribution, based on own expert surveys. Dieser Beitrag gibt auf der Basis von Regionalstatistiken Total cattle numbers have gone down in the last 15 einen Überblick über die räumliche Verteilung der Rinder- years, mainly due to the decline of dairy cows. The most bestände sowie auf der Basis von Expertenbefragungen important regions for dairy cows, in both absolute terms eine systematische Analyse von Produktionssystemen der and cow density, are Bavaria, Lower Saxony and North- Rindermast und ihrer räumlichen Verteilung in Deutsch- rhine-Westphalia. The regions with the highest density of land. suckler-cows appear complementary to the dairy regions. Der Rinderbestand ist in den letzten 15 Jahren vorwie- This holds especially true for Bavaria and East Germany. gend aufgrund des Rückgangs der Zahl der Milchkühe Only 13 percent of the total cow numbers are suckler- gesunken. Die Regionen mit der höchsten Zahl und der cows. This means that most of the beef produced in Ger- höchsten Dichte an Milchkühen sind Bayern, Niedersachsen many originates from dairy herds. und Nordrhein-Westfalen. Die Regionen mit der größten The main beef finishing system in Germany is bull fin- Mutterkuhdichte sind zu den Milchregionen größtenteils ishing based on Holstein and Fleckvieh animals of differ- komplementär, vor allem in Bayern und Ostdeutschland. ent ages at start - calves, starters, store cattle (all from Nur 13 Prozent der Kühe in Deutschland sind Mutterkühe, dairy cows) and weaners (from suckler-cows). Animals are d.h. dass der überwiegende Teil der Rindfleischproduktion typically kept in cubicle sheds with slatted floors, fed on a aus der Milchviehhaltung stammt. corn and/or grass silage basis and supplemented with con- Bullenmast ist das wichtigste Produktionssystem in centrates, grains, soybean meal as well as by-products of Deutschland und basiert auf den Rassen Holstein und the food industry. Thus, many systems are located in areas Fleckvieh, die als Kälber, Starter, Fresser (aus der Milch- where corn growing is profitable. The highest density of viehhaltung) und Absetzer (aus der Mutterkuhhaltung) finishing bulls and the production systems mentioned are aufgestallt werden. Die Tiere werden typischerweise in found in a band throughout Centre-South Bavaria and in Laufställen auf Spaltenboden gehalten und mit Mais- und/ the Northwest of Germany. oder Grassilage plus Kraftfutter, Getreide, Sojaschrot so- Finishing of steers and heifers only exists in isolated cases wie Nebenprodukten der Nahrungsmittelindustrie gemäs- and areas and is usually linked to a specific marketing pro- tet. Daher befinden sich viele dieser Systeme in Gebieten, gramme to be profitable. Further meat types produced are in denen der Anbau von Mais rentabel ist. Die größte Dich- rosé calves and veal from calves, both of which are rather te von Mastbullen befindet sich in einem Band im Zentrum restricted to specific areas in North and West Germany and Bayerns sowie im Nordwesten Deutschlands. one county in East Germany. Ochsen- und Färsenmast wird nur vereinzelt und regi- The paper could not close all information gaps, espe- onal eingeschränkt betrieben und ist normalerwiese mit cially about the spatial distribution of the systems. The einem speziellen Vermarktungsprogramm kombiniert. present changes in framework conditions (policy, prices, Weitere Fleischarten sind die Rosékälber sowie weißes bio-energy) make an update in due time reasonable. Kalbfleisch. Beide Produktionssysteme sind räumlich auf den Norden und Westen Deutschlands und einen Kreis in Keywords: Germany, Beef production, Production systems, Ostdeutschland beschränkt. spatial distribution Der Beitrag kann nicht alle Informationslücken schlie- ßen, insbesondere hinsichtlich der räumlichen Verteilung der Systeme. Dies und die Änderung der Rahmenbedin- gungen (Politik, Preise, Bioenergie) lassen eine Aktualisie- * Asian Agribusiness Research Centre, Charles Sturt University, Orange, 2800 NSW/Australia; Email: [email protected] rung in absehbarer Zeit sinnvoll erscheinen. ** Osterstraße 55, 30159 Hannover/Germany *** Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Rural Schlüsselwörter: Deutschland, Rindfleischproduktion, Pro- Areas, Forestry and Fisheries (vTI), Institute of Farm Economics, Bundesal- lee 50, 38116 Braunschweig/Germany duktionssysteme, räumliche Verteilung 30 1 Introduction from extension, regional agricultural administrations as well as researchers. The approach and procedure of the 1.1 Situation and objectives survey can be summarised as follows: With framework conditions for agriculture changing - Regions were defined as administrative regions such as significantly, changes in production systems as well as the German federal states or the next lower administra- regional shifts of livestock production are likely to occur tive units, district and county. All German federal states in the future. As far as beef production systems are con- except the city-states Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin cerned, literature analysis and initial expert interviews re- were covered, adding up to a total of 13 regions. vealed that analysis of beef production systems and their - The regional experts were asked to provide the data spatial distribution in Germany was rather limited and and information characterising typical beef finishing scattered. Most of the information available came from systems in their region. For this purpose, a number of regional or state-wide extension services, breeding or cat- existing production systems were defined and specified tle marketing organisations or from textbooks referring to together with the experts (see Chapter 3). beef production (Wiedenmann et al., 1999; Matzke et al., - For the subsequent survey, a standardised questionnaire 1995; Pflaum et al., 1992; Geissler et al., 1984; Bogner, was used after being pretested with a selected group of 1978). Consequently, it was decided to carry out an initial experts. The experts were then advised personally or project to address this issue and close existing information per telephone on how to fill the questionnaire. gaps. Due to the lack of literature and statistics, it very - In a first step, the experts were asked to specify the soon became clear that an expert-based approach would dominating/prevailing systems in the region, measured best serve the needs and at the same time reflecting the by their share in total beef production. A quantitative time and financial constraints. definition of a minimum share in total production was, however, not provided, for example a share of at least The goals of this paper are to: 20 percent in regional beef production for a specific system. The reasons were a) a lack of regionalized and - analyse the spatial distribution of different cattle cate- production system related data (which was one reason gories and the herd structures in Germany, to conduct the study) and b) the authors did not want - define and describe the prevailing production systems to jeopardise the success of the survey nor significantly of beef in Germany, and reduce its output by imposing an additional task of as- - to analyse the spatial distribution of these production sessment on the experts. systems in Germany. - It was clear from the beginning that some of the production systems would probably not reach a significant 1.2 Data base and methods share in total production in any of the regions (for example steer production). Consequently, in the second Statistics available from the 2003 livestock survey (Vieh- step it was asked how important these systems were in zählung) of the German Statistical Office were used to a national comparison. Taking steer production as an ex- analyse the development and the spatial distribution of ample, the question was to estimate the share of the re- cattle in Germany as well as the herd size structure pre- gional steer production in the total German production. sented in Chapter 2. They are the latest data available to If experts assessed this system to be relevant for the na- the degree of detail required. Whenever more up-to-date tional production, it was specified. Again, no quantita- figures of single data were available, they were included tive thresholds were set for the reasons quoted above. in the analysis. - Once the production systems were specified, the ex- The classification and analysis of the production sys- perts were asked to assign each production system tems in this paper stem from the diploma thesis written to the administrative regions (counties or districts). by Brömmer (2005). They follow the concept of typical As production systems typically do not change in line farms and production systems applied in the agri bench- with administrative borders, the experts were addition- mark project and described in detail by Deblitz and Zim- ally asked to refer the production systems identified to mer (2005). The main reason for choosing the typical farm natural regions. concept is that

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