Netherlands: The same number of dairy cows, more young stock than in 2021

Just like last year, the number of dairy cows in the Netherlands is 1.57 million. However, there is 1.6% more young stock on dairy farms, a total of 982,000 animals. This is evident from provisional figures from the 2022 Agricultural Census of Statistics Netherlands. In 2021 there were 1,571,341 dairy cows in the Netherlands, on 1 April 2022 1,570,653, a minimal decrease of 688 animals. Dairy farms use 45% of the Dutch agricultural land. In 2022, a dairy farm will have an average of 60 hectares of cultivated land, 12 hectares more than ten years ago. More cows were also kept. This year, a dairy farm had an average of 110 dairy cows and 58 young female cattle, in 2012 there were 83 and 57 respectively. In 2022, a dairy farm had an average of 1.84 dairy cows and 0.97 female young cattle per hectare of cultivated land. In 2012 this was 1.72 and 1.19 respectively. Incidentally, there were fewer dairy cows in that year, namely 1.48 million. Since 2000, 2016 is the year with the most ...