Optimizing the Nutritional Management of the Dairy Cow Grazing Improved Tropical Pasture

In respect of milk production from improved tropical pasture, it has been 'settled law' that: 1. Tropical pastures, by virtue of their greater photosynthetic capacity, are capable of twice out-yielding temperate systems in respect of annual tonnage of herbage production; thus establishing a platform for at least matching temperate countries in year round milk yield per hectare; 2. In sustaining unsupplemented individual yields of the order of 4000 litres per cow per year, the empirical evidence clearly supported the possibility of sustained international competitiveness in milk production by developing countries; 3. The key to the sustained transformation of this potential into economic advantage lay in developing a clear understanding of the dynamics at the 'sward-animal interface'. The interposing of the serially-discredited economic theory of 'Comparative Advantage' as the basis for global trading and economic relationships, effectively truncated the progress toward constructing a solid knowledge base as the foundation for sustained competitive advantage in milk production by developing countries; even as respected reviewers were systematically ignoring the supporting evidence generated by research over the past 60 years. Thanks to the innovativeness of Brazilian researchers, we are now at the juncture where the long accepted potential of tropical pastures for competitive milk production can now be transformed into sustained economic value. This work seeks to cohere the several strands of grassland research of the past five to six decades, into a template for optimizing the nutrition of the high-yielding grazing dairy cow on improved tropical pasture to the advantage of the peoples of the Caribbean tropics and beyond