Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate he has made of the total number of dairy farms throughout the country.
Answer
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
The number of dairy farms in England in 2021 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 |
2021 | 6,500 | 1,090,856 |
(a) Sourced from CTS. Defined as the number of holdings with more than 10 female dairy cows over two years old in the milking herd (i.e., with offspring).