GB producer numbers: decline slows but higher milk volumes indicate further consolidation

Note: The April 2024 data has been revised, now showing a higher figure.

In our latest survey of milk buyers, it is estimated that there were 7,200 dairy producers in GB as of October 2024. A small reduction of 30 producers was estimated since our last survey in April. In contrast, there was an estimated annual loss of 300 producers (-4.0%) since October 2023, indicating that the majority of industry exits took place last winter. Continued pressure on margins may have incentivised some of the decline last winter, alongside robust cull cow prices. However, better prices through the summer this year may have stemmed the flow of people exiting the industry for now.

The latest numbers suggests that the average milk volume per farm in GB has now risen to 1.7 million litres per year, showing the continued trend towards fewer but larger farms. With milk prices increasing since April, we expect the recent increase in GB milk production to continue for the remainder of the season.

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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