Great Britain has lost nearly 200 dairy farms in the past year — yet milk output per farm is still on the rise, according to new figures by AHDB.
As of April 2025, the estimated number of dairy producers in GB stood at 7,040 — a drop of 160 since the previous survey conducted in October.
On an annual basis, the industry has seen a reduction of around 190 producers, or 2.6%, compared to April 2024.
Most of these exits are believed to have occurred during the winter months, according to AHDB's latest survey of milk buyers.
“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 levy organisation's report notes.
“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, milk production per farm in GB has continued to grow.
The average annual milk volume per farm has now risen to an estimated 1.77 million litres, for the period April 2024 to April 2025 — a 4% increase year-on-year.
This marks a continued shift towards fewer, but larger, dairy enterprises, AHDB said.
According to Defra’s June 2024 census, the average herd size on commercial dairy farms in the UK — those with more than 10 cows — stood at 165 head.
This represents an increase of four cows per farm compared to 2023, and a nine-head increase from 2022.
The latest forecast for the 2025/26 milk year anticipates a new production high of 12.83 billion litres — a 3.1% increase on the previous year.
Further historical data is available on AHDB’s producer numbers page. However, the organisation notes that getting an accurate count of active dairy producers can be difficult due to varying reporting methods.
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, AHDB explains.
