Milk production in Austria suffered from drought and expensive feed in 2021

The local dairy farmers milked exactly 7,817 kg of milk per cow, an average of all control cows or all breeds, according to the results of the control year 2020/21, which ended on September 30th. It is noteworthy that the result is falling again for the first time after decades of increasing average performance. Compared to the previous year, milk production decreased by an average of 79 kg per cow and year (-1.0%). The fat content of the milked milk averaged 4.16% (+0.02 percentage points), the protein content remained constant at 3.34%. Rinderzucht Austria cites the following reasons for the declining milk yield: regionally different amounts of precipitation, partly persistent dry periods and subsequently also increased concentrate prices. However, Rinderzucht Austria also emphasizes that genetic breeding progress has continued; environmental influences have had a slowing effect in the past year. In total, the evaluation is based on the control results of 435,426 dairy cows ...