livestock farming systems and cattle production orientation in eastern high plains of algeria, cattle farming system in algerian semi-arid region

this study was an attempt to devise productive orientations of cattle herds in eastern high plains of algeria. in this regard, 165 farms randomly identified were investigated. the selection of breeders was based to existence of cattle on the farm, and the farmer proposed to investigation must have at least two cows. the approach taken was to identify all systems adopted by farmers in a region through the analysis of the relationship between the maintenance of different types of cattle and preferred marketing policies. the model has been emerged as a result of functional typology established using the procedure categorical principal components analysis (catpca) of optimal coding in spss [19.2010]. following this approach, five types of cattle productive orientation have been identified, the balanced mixed system (dairy-beef), beef mixed system, dairy mixed system, dairy system and beef system. these results showed that the breeders were oriented towards specialization (dairy or beef) in less than 20% of situations. farmers in our context prefer mixed systems when beef mixed system was the model type frequently encountered in the region (over than 50% of farms).