Dairy Farming No Longer Top Of Profit Tree

EU – Dairy farmers no longer enjoy higher incomes over their livestock and arable counterparts, a new report from the European Commission has shown.
calendar icon 5 August 2014
clock icon 1 minute read

This has been the case since 2009, according to the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) which works on Annual Work Units (AWU’s).

“Although their average income remains above the total average, they do not rank in the top three types of farming,” the report said.

Accompanying this was confirmation of the high volatility over the five years of 2007-2011 with input prices and milk prices affected.

While 2010 and 2011 saw prices rebuild after slipping in 2008, costs of production followed the increase.

Over this period, new member states, which joined in 2004, moved closer to the EU-15 in terms of operating costs and milk prices.

Benchmarking EU Dairy Holdings

EU – 15

Farms are larger and cows are higher yielding. On average, milk specialised farms have 54 cows producing 7337 kilos of milk per cow and 396 tons of milk per year.

EU – 10

19 dairy cows yield 5695 kilos per cow and produce 109 tons of milk per year.

EU – 2 Bulgaria and Romania

Five cows produce 3445 kilos each. Farms produce 16 tons of milk per year.

Further Reading

You can view the full report by clicking here.

TheCattleSite News Desk

© 2000 - 2024 - Global Ag Media. All Rights Reserved | No part of this site may be reproduced without permission.