UK dairy herd productiveness has fallen over final decade – AHDB

Productiveness on the everyday UK dairy farm has fallen over the past decade, the Agriculture and Horticulture Improvement Board (AHDB) has stated.

In accordance with knowledge from the Worldwide Farm Comparability Community (IFCN), herds in different dairy producing international locations have seen secure, or rising productiveness, it added

Dairy productiveness is measured by the quantity of output produced in contrast with the quantity of enter required as a measure of effectivity.

AHDB stated that productiveness as pence per litre (ppl) of output versus enter for a typical 160-cow herd in northwest England exhibits a transparent downward development within the final 10 years.

Nevertheless, the UK is just not alone on this downward development, because the IFCN knowledge exhibits an analogous downturn in northern Germany, it stated.

Farms elsewhere are seeing productiveness development. This contains international locations corresponding to Denmark and Belgium, in addition to rising exporters like Spain, Poland and Belarus.

UK dairy manufacturing

AHDB has stated that worldwide productiveness comparisons like these within the desk elevate two questions amongst UK farmers.

The primary being that UK productiveness was greater to start with, so another international locations are catching up, however AHDB stated that the IFCN knowledge suggests farms in a couple of different international locations have now overtaken the UK by way of effectivity.

The opposite query is in relation to the demand for British milk. The board stated that some individuals might say that, as a result of nearly all of British milk is offered within the UK, farmers within the UK won’t care about their worldwide productiveness statistics.

Nevertheless, it added that the direct affect is that poorer productiveness means decrease earnings for farmers as a result of herds are utilizing extra inputs to provide much less.

“The oblique affect is that imports and exports expose the UK to world dairy costs, so UK herds are working in the identical market as herds in Poland, Spain and some other dairy exporting nation,” it stated.

“Weaker productiveness makes it onerous to provide at a aggressive value whereas nonetheless making a revenue, leaving UK dairy merchandise susceptible to being undercut by international locations with extra environment friendly manufacturing.

“With present excessive enter costs, farms might battle to enhance productiveness within the instant future, no less than by way of ppl outputs versus inputs.

“However pricey inputs do focus the thoughts on effectivity and farms can be rigorously contemplating whether or not the output is definitely worth the enter.

“The bottom line is to take care of that renewed give attention to effectivity ought to issues enhance, main to higher earnings, productiveness and competitiveness sooner or later.”