Does the opinion of dairy farmers about grazing change with increasing societal pressure?

Two studies were performed in the Netherlands in 2010 and 2015 to get insight into dairy farmers’ attitudes to pasturing throughout the years. The preliminary results show that the intention of dairy farmers to keep on pasturing their cows is high for farmers who apply pasturing already. Farmers who do not apply pasturing have a low intention to start pasturing. Not surprisingly, farmers who apply pasturing emphasize advantages of pasturing and farmers who do not apply pasturing emphasize disadvantages. Whether farmers apply pasturing or not, to make dairy farms more sustainable they perceived reduction of antibiotics use, increasing longevity of cows and maintenance of pasturing as most important goals. However, farmers who applied pasturing seem to emphasize the maintenance of pasturing more. In addition to the three goals mentioned above, farmers who applied pasturing emphasized improving biodiversity more and farmers who did not apply pasturing lowering the emissions of greenhouse gasses and increasing nitrate efficiency. Farmers who do not apply pasturing then seem to emphasize other aspects of sustainability compared to colleagues who apply pasturing.