In the past decade the amount of land used for dairying has expanded by an average rate of 2.1% pa while the number of dairy cows has grown at an average rate of 2.8% pa.
Source: DairyNZ
The amount of milk produced per herd has doubled since 2000. In the 2013-14 season an average of 53,012 kgMS was produced by each herd. The optimal herd size to achieve the highest productivity per cow appears to be 850 – 899 cows. These herds produced an average of 405 kg MS per cow, well outweighing the productivity levels of both the very small and very large herds.
Click here to download the New Zeaand Dairy Statistics 2013-14
