While there has been an increase in the number of dairy cows in recent years, the vast majority of dairy herds still have 100 cows or fewer.
The national dairy herd has increased from around one million cows to around 1.5 million cows in the post-quota era.
The perspective of many looking in at the sector is of massive herds of cows, but this is not the case, based on data from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
Cow numbers
The majority of Irish dairy farms at, 68.98%, have 100 cows or fewer, and only 3.66% have more than 251 cows.
Figures on the number of dairy farmers in each county were supplied by Minister Charlie McConalogue in response to a parliamentary question raised by the Fianna Fáil Cork North-Central TD, Pádraig O’Sullivan.
If you include all the farms that have 200 cows or fewer, this accounts for 93.43% of the total number of dairy herds – based on these figures.
Dairy cow numbers Number of dairy herds 100 or less 11,143 100-150 2,900 151-200 1,050 201-250 471 251-300 242 301-350 136 351-400 85 400+ 128
Although the expansion of the dairy herd has occurred, the vast majority of farms are still family sized operations of 200 cows or fewer.
Dairy herds
Further figures released by DAFM show the breakdown of the number of dairy herds across the country.
Not surprisingly, Co. Cork has the most dairy herds at 3,810. This is more than double the next county of Tipperary, which has 1,714.
Munster continues to remain the stronghold for Irish dairying with 9,494 herds based in the province, from a total 16,155 nationally.
It is followed by Leinster, with 4,528 herds and then Ulster, with 1,408.
Connacht is the province with the fewest dairy herds at 1,054.
On a per county basis, Dublin has the fewest number of dairy herds at 25, with Leitrim having the second fewest at 38.