The objective of the study was to propose a methodology of production systems analysis, considering intraannual quantitative flow and the qualitative characteristics of the milk delivered by the farmers to the industry. The data were collected from 1,196 milk producers from 2005 to 2006 using month production variables, fat content, protein, lactose and total solids, counting of somatic cells, and standardized counting in plates. The method of analysis used was the main component analyses and ascending hierarchical classification (typology). The most important variables in the construction of the first principal component (PC1) are fat content, protein and total milk solid contents, which explained 32.5% of the diversity of production systems, and they can be considered as the indicator of milk nutritional quality. In the construction of the second principal component (PC2), the most important variables are lactose content, counting of somatic cells and milk microbial counting, which explained 24.04% of the diversity and represent the hygienic quality of the milk. The intra-annual distribution of the milk production is not important to explain the diversity among milk production units. For the production system typology, it was considered the first three main components whose explanation of the total variability was of 70.52%. The 1,196 milk producing rural properties belong to the 17 groups of milk production systems with their own characteristics of milk quality.
ascending hierarchical classification; main components; multivariate analysis
