Productivity on the typical UK dairy farm has fallen over the last decade, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has said.
According to data from the International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN), herds in other dairy producing countries have seen stable, or increasing productivity, it added
Dairy productivity is measured by the amount of output produced compared with the amount of input required as a measure of efficiency.
AHDB said that productivity as pence per litre (ppl) of output versus input for a typical 160-cow herd in northwest England shows a clear downward trend in the last 10 years.
However, the UK is not alone in this downward trend, as the IFCN data shows a similar downturn in northern Germany, it said.
Farms elsewhere are seeing productivity growth. This includes countries such as Denmark and Belgium, as well as growing exporters like Spain, Poland and Belarus.
UK dairy production
AHDB has said that international productivity comparisons like those in the table raise two questions among UK farmers.
The first being that UK productivity was higher to begin with, so some other countries are catching up, but AHDB said that the IFCN data suggests farms in a few other countries have now overtaken the UK in terms of efficiency.
The other question is in relation to the demand for British milk. The board said that some people may say that, because the majority of British milk is sold in the UK, farmers in the UK might not care about their international productivity statistics.
However, it added that the direct impact is that poorer productivity means lower profits for farmers because herds are using more inputs to produce less.
“The indirect impact is that imports and exports expose the UK to global dairy prices, so UK herds are operating in the same market as herds in Poland, Spain and any other dairy exporting country,” it said.
“Weaker productivity makes it hard to produce at a competitive price while still making a profit, leaving UK dairy products vulnerable to being undercut by countries with more efficient production.
“With current high input prices, farms may struggle to improve productivity in the immediate future, at least in terms of ppl outputs versus inputs.
“But costly inputs do focus the mind on efficiency and farms will be carefully considering whether the output is worth the input.
“The key is to maintain that renewed focus on efficiency should things improve, leading to better profits, productivity and competitiveness in the future.”
