Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many dairy farmers there were in each of the last five years.
Answer
The number of dairy farms in England from 2011 to 2015 is shown below along with the number of cows in the dairy herd on these farms. The source of cattle population data is the administrative Cattle Tracing System (CTS) data.
Year | Number of dairy farms(a) | Number of cows in the dairy herd |
2011 | 9 041 | 1 112 459 |
2012 | 8 663 | 1 104 676 |
2013 | 8 342 | 1 098 610 |
2014 | 8 092 | 1 128 548 |
2015 | 7 982 | 1 148 089 |
(a) Sourced from Cattle Tracing System (CTS). Defined as the number of holdings with more than 10 female dairy cows over 2 years old in the milking herd (i.e. with offspring)