GB producer numbers: Falling producer numbers alongside larger milk volumes evidence further consolidation

In our latest survey of milk buyers, it is estimated that there were 7,040 dairy producers in GB as of April 2025.

An estimated loss of 160 producers since the previous survey in October. When comparing to annual April figures, an estimated 190 producers (-2.6%) left the industry, indicating that the majority of exits took place over the winter months.

This has been an ongoing trend, with industry exits typically occurring before winter housing and additional input requirements, such as feed, become seasonally higher.

The 2024 winter period also saw changes to government support and additional supply chain requirements introduced for some producers.

Despite the decline in producer numbers, the average milk volume per farm in GB has now risen to an estimated 1.77 million litres per farm for the year, from April 2024 to April 2025.

Compared to the previous year, volumes were up by 4% showing the continued shift towards fewer but larger farms.

According to the Defra June 2024 census, the average cow population on a commercial dairy farm (farms with over 10 cows) in the UK stood at 165 head. This has increased by four cows per farm from 2023 and up by nine cows per farm compared to 2022.

Our latest forecast for the 2025/26 milk year is set to record a new high at 12.83bn litres, 3.1% more than the previous milk year.

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 82% of volumes in GB, and so the estimate has been adjusted accordingly.

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