Typologies of dairy goats farms in Tuscany, Italy, according to livestock management and economic variables

The production of goat milk in Tuscany is based on the use of natural pastures and has been stimulated by the value of cheese, however, there is no tradition of production as in other European countries and these systems have been developed and deployed to other marginally productive systems and agrotourism. Dairy goat farms were studied through multivariate analysis to identify eventual association among technical social and economic variables within dairy goat system in Tuscany. This analysis was conducted on 21 farms in Tuscany region of Italy, which represent about 80% of the total regional goat farms. Initially, 100 technical, economic and social variables were analyzed, however, as the numbers of dairy goat producers in this region is small, it was used only 10 variables associated to cheese production in the multivariate analysis which provide 65% of tridimensional inertia. This multivariate analysis allowed the selection of principal components with the following correlation according to axis 1, 2 and 3, respectively: available area for goats in hectare (0.61, -0.17, 0.20), the total number of animals (0.62, 0.17, -0.61), length of experience in the activity in years (-0.40, -0.32, 0.73), distance from the property to the nearest town in kilometers (0.62, 0.17, -0.61), cheese types produced (0.56, 0.68, 0.18), annual amount of cheese produced in kilogram (0.72, -0.42, 0.44), revenue percentage of cheese sales (0.29, -0.38, 0.02), average price in euro by kilogram of cheese produced (0.39, 0.77, 0.32), number of employees (0.65, 0.17, 0.30) and average daily hours worked by them (0.64, -0.39, -0.22). The analysis showed that the larger the area for goat raising the higher annual cheese production and number of employees. The percentage of revenue due to the cheese produced is also associated with the area and the production of cheeses mentioned above. The longer experience with dairy goat system implied in less animals kept on the farm (which means higher productivity) and shorter distance to neighboring town (linked to viability). As a consequence, farmers with greater experience counted on less employees, less types of cheese, and less working hours, reducing cheese prices. On the other hand, farms which produced several cheese types, required more employees increasing cheese prices.