Number of Danish farms with 1.000 cows on the rise

The number of dairy farms in Denmark with over 1.000 cows is increasing every year. This is evident from new figures from the statistical office Danmark Statistik. In addition, various license applications for these companies are pending.

The number of dairy farms with more than 1.000 cows grew from 2012 to 2018 farms between 6 and 12. The largest company of all is Rønhave, located near the village of Bramming in South Jutland. This company milks 3.600 cows and recently announced that it would replace some of the Holsteins with Jerseys.

More than 500 dairy cows
The number of farms with 750 to 1.000 dairy cows grew from 2012 to 2018 in the period from 8 to 25. The number of Danish dairy farms with 500 to 750 cows increased from 52 to 123. These large farms usually have more than 400 hectares of land. The total number of companies actually decreased between 2012 and 2018: from 3.886 to 2.884. In the country, therefore, 6 companies have disappeared in 1.000 years.

It is striking that milk production did not fall during that period. In 2018, the danish dairy farming 5,693 billion liters of milk, which is an increase of almost 700 million liters compared to 2012. The majority of Danish companies are located on the Jutland peninsula. South Jutland had more than 2018 dairy farms in 1.000.

Danish cost price
The cost price of Danish milk production has fallen to over €0,30 per liter of milk in recent years, according to the Danish branch of the European Dairy Farmers. The Dutch members of this European association of dairy farmers saw their cost price rise to €0,35 or more in recent years, mainly due to the introduction of the phosphate rights system. However, the difference in scale also plays a role in the opposing cost price development between the two countries.

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