4 ms·

NZ dairy farms seem to be doing o.k. I wonder how they compare (size/costs/distance to market) with US farms. I do know that NZ signed the CPTPP, which made m

• phire 8y ago
  Large NZ dairy farms are doing ok (I know of one farm with 5000 cows. They do once-a-day milking, they start at 7am and milk until 3pm in 3 separate milking sheds). There are no CAFOs in NZ. All farms put all of their cows out in the fields. But even without the CAFOs that this article is complaining about, smaller "family run" farms are dying out. Dairy farms are getting larger and larger, it's getting un-economical for the smaller farms to keep going and they are being bought out. From 2002 to 2016, the number of dairy farms in NZ decreased 23.5% Yet the amount of land used increased by 22.6%. The average herd size in 2016 was 414 cows. It's just economies of scale. Bigger farms are more economical.
  • quixoticelixer- 8y ago
    But why is that a bad thing?
  • jelliclesfarm 8y ago
    NZ also abolished subsidies and the largest dairy is Fonterra that is a co-op.