Fewer dairy herds but milking numbers rise

Confirmation that the Scottish dairy industry is now falling into fewer and fewer hands came yesterday with the announcement that a record 51 dairy farmers had left the industry in the past year.

This leaves milk production in this country with just over 1,000 producers, a fraction of the number that existed less than ten years ago.

However, the 1,051 producers who are still in the business bumped up their cow numbers last year by 2,340 with a total of 161,906 cows being milked.

The average herd size in Scotland is now 154 cows, one of the highest in Europe. All areas of the country have herds averaging well over the three-figure level with the exception of the Shetland Isles where the six herds average 56 milking cows.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is only one dairy herd in Banff but there are 410 cows being milked. There are two herds in the old Peebleshire area but they average 381 cows. Berwickshire has three dairies with an average of 363 cows.

The Scottish Dairy Cattle Association also reveal the number of cows being officially milk-recorded increased by 1,942, taking it to a record 7 per cent of the national herd and an average recorded herd size going up to 179 cows with most others doing ad hoc tests for somatic cell counts or disease monitoring during the year.

SDCA secretary Janette Mathie said the increased number of dairy cows might surprise many but there were a number of reasons for this.

"Looking back to 2006 due to low heifer demand at that time dairy inseminations dropped and the use of the beef bull increased which in the longer term caused a shortage of heifers in 2009," she said.

"Since then the use of dairy semen has increased and coupled with the growing use of sexed semen over the past three years more replacement heifers are now available.

"Another reason is that with the very tight margins in milk production at present, a record number have given up but a record number of others with younger families have made very large reinvestments with the help of the Scottish Rural Development Programme to modernise milking parlours, slurry handling and cattle housing and in the process increased the size of their herd to justify their long term optimistic investment."