GB producer numbers: declining due to a difficult year

Looking at year-on-year changes since April 2025, there was an estimated decline of 190 producers (-2.7%) indicating that the majority of the industry exits took place last winter.

Favourable dairy economics during the summer months would have stemmed the flow of producers leaving the industry. However, this accelerated during the winter months as margins were squeezed following the decline in milk prices, forage shortages for some and increasing input costs.

According to the latest BCMS figures, the GB milking herd totalled 1.59 million head as of April 2026, another lowest number recorded, and a 2.0% decline compared to the same month the previous year. The GB total herd stood at 2.46 million head, a year-on-year decline of 2.0%.

Average milk volume per farm in GB has now increased to an estimated 1.90 million litres (+7.6%) for the year from April 2025 to April 2026, denoting the continued trend towards consolidation and fewer but larger farms.

Milk deliveries have declined in the recent weeks putting a brake to the record-breaking milk volumes in the last milk season (2026/27). There is an estimated decline of 0.9% in May year-on-year. However, one should keep in mind, we are annualising against a year of record highs and there is still lot of milk in the market. We will be releasing our updated quarterly milk production forecast later this month.

Favourable cull cow prices (above 5-year average despite recent pressure) and continued inflationary pressure on key input costs incentivised some producers to exit the industry as farm margins tighten.

Farmer sentiment is largely negative with squeezes on both milk prices and costs of production, with now a falling beef price putting dairy farm businesses under increasing pressure. 

Milk prices have stabilised in the last two months, but will need to improve further to increase farmer confidence in the sector. Hopes for this are dependent on markets which remain uncertain.

Figure 1. GB dairy producer numbers and volume per farm (April 2021–April 2026)Source: AHDB

Figure 1 shows the number of dairy producers steadily declines over time, falling from just over 8,000 in 2001 to under 7,000 in 2026. In contrast, the average milk volume per farm gradually increases, rising from around 1.6 million litres per year to nearly 1.9 million litres. Overall, fewer farms are producing more milk per farm.

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.

Note: 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 84% of volumes in GB, and so the estimate has been adjusted accordingly.

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