Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the number of dairy farmers who have ceased trading in the last 12 months.
Answer
Data is only available on the total number of dairy farms each year so this only shows the net change, rather than the separate numbers of entries and exits from dairy farming. The latest data available on the number of dairy farms in England is for the period from December 2013 to December 2014 and is shown below. The change in the number of farms will include new holdings which are registered with dairy cattle, holdings that have ceased to have cattle and holdings that have merged together.
The number of dairy cows on these dairy farms is also shown below. This shows that despite a 2% decrease in the overall number of dairy farms in the past year, the number of dairy cows has increased by a corresponding 2%, suggesting consolidation within the industry.
Date | Number of dairy farms(a) | Number of cows in the dairy herd(b) |
Dec-2013 | 8,197 | 1,124,368 |
June-2014 | 8,092 | 1,128,548 |
Dec-2014 | 8,051 | 1,150,007 |
% change Dec14/Dec13 | -2% | 2% |
(a) Sourced from Cattle Tracing System. Dairy farms are defined as the number of holdings with more than 10 cows in the dairy herd.
(b) Cows in the dairy herd are defined as female dairy cows over 2 years old in the milking herd (i.e. with offspring).