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GB dairy farmer numbers marginally reduce despite tough year
Wednesday, 2 November 2022
Our most recent survey of major milk buyers estimated that in October 2022 there were 7,850 dairy producers in GB. This is a reduction of 150 producers (1.9%) when compared to October 2021, and a decrease of just 30 (0.4%) when compared to April this year. Whilst input costs have continued to rise over the last year, increased milk prices have helped to offset higher costs. This may be why fewer farmers have left the industry when compared with previous years. However, variations between contract prices may have encouraged a number of producers to switch contracts over the last 6 months.
The latest figures suggest that the average volume per farm in GB is 1.57 million litres per year, in line with those seen in both October 2021 and April 2022.
Historic data can be found on our producer numbers page.
Why do we carry out the survey?
Getting a true picture of the number of dairy producers in the country is often difficult due to the different reporting methods used.
- The Food Standards Agency (FSA) can be used to track producer numbers across England and Wales, based on the number of farmers registered to produce milk. However, deregistering is voluntary, and therefore unlikely to be top of the “to do” list for a farmer leaving the industry. The FSA will often only capture this cessation when a regular check is carried out. These checks occur on a 10-year basis (for those registered with Red Tractor) or a 2-year basis otherwise. This means FSA numbers will often over-state the number of dairy farmers in the country.
- Defra carry out a survey on the number of dairy holdings across the UK, which returns a figure considerably higher than our estimate. This is because it includes all farms with a dairy cow over 2 years old with offspring. Around a third of those holdings had fewer than 10 cows, meaning they are unlikely to be commercial dairy farms, and would be excluded from our estimate.
Notes
AHDB’s estimate represents the number of producers actively contributing to GB milk production. It is based on the number of active producers and temporary inactive producers from the milk buyers that contribute to the Daily Milk Deliveries survey. This covers approximately 82% of volumes in GB, and so the estimate has been adjusted accordingly.
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