Rising dairy cattle numbers surprise
Dairy cattle numbers have risen by 133,000 to 6.6 million in the last year after a momentary dip brought on by plummeting milk prices.
But industry good body DairyNZ said it was ‘‘extremely surprised’’ by the figures, which have been released by Statistics NZ and give a snapshot of numbers at the end of last June. DairyNZ does its own count at a different time of the year and tallies only milking cows.
Despite calls for the nation’s cow herd to be reduced, Prime Minister Bill English recently said the Government was ‘‘not setting out to slash agriculture’’ and destroy rural communities. A report by UK-based Vivid Economics, commissioned by 35 New Zealand MPs, has suggested reducing pastoral stock by 35 per cent as a way to get the country to a target of net zero carbon emissions.
Statistics NZ said dairy cattle numbers reached an all time high in June 2014 when the population stood at 6.7 million.
Then, farmers were receiving a record $8.40 per kilogram of milksolids before prices plunged to $3.90. A year later numbers were cut by 213,000 as farmers struggled, some of them highly indebted.
Statistics NZ spokesman Stuart Pitts said the North and South islands were a contrast. In the north the dairy herd increased by almost 250,000 cows in the year to the end of June 2016.
Total dairy cattle in ManawatuWanganui increased by 73,000 (16 per cent) and in Waikato by 93,000 (5 per cent).
On the other hand, numbers in the South Island fell by 104,000. Otago fell by 73,000 (19 per cent).
Meanwhile, sheep continue to decline.
The national sheep flock to June last year numbered 27.5 million, down 5.3 per cent on 2015. By region, Manawatu-Wanganui is home to the largest population of sheep (5.04 million) followed by Otago (4.8 million), Canterbury (4.5 million) and Southland (3.7 million).