French dairy herd to decline by 441,000 head by 2030

More than one quarter of dairy farms in France closed down over the past ten years, with a further decline expected in the next decade, new insights from the French Ministry of Agriculture have revealed. The ministry’s agricultural census, which is carried out every ten years, has shown that between 2010 and 2020, the number of farms in France decreased by 64,000, 13,000 of which were dairy farms. According to the French livestock farming institute (IDELE), in 2020 there were approximately 3.6 million dairy cows and 736,000 heifers in France, this was 82% and 15% fewer than 2015 respectively. This trend has been particularly prevalent in certain regions of the country including the Nouvelle-Aquitaine, where cattle numbers fell by 45% between 2000 and 2019, compared to a 19% decline nationally. The number of producers in this region has also plummeted, from 8,700 in 2001 to 2,500 in 2019. Furthermore, this trend is expected to continue as IDELE forecasts a further decrease of ...