Dairying in Germany? Very diverse!

Animal welfare provided in large dairy farms in M-W.

Structural differences in West- and East-German agriculture become obvious comparing average size of dairy herds. In eastern Germany herds consist of 183 cows per farm on average, while in western Germany the average herd counts up to 48 animals only.

The 25^th EDF Congress (European Dairy Farmers) held in Rostock, Germany from 24^th to 26^th June 2015, placed special emphasis on Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), a former East-German state.

Although the overall importance of dairy production in this state is quite small – only 5 % of German milk production comes from here - , it´s worth scrutinizing, because dairy production in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania went through the biggest changes in the past, triggered by the reunification 25 years ago. After two phases of collectivization in East-German agriculture big agricultural cooperatives had to face free enterprise economy from one day to the other. Necessary adaptions in management and production led to difficult decisions; for example in 1990/1991 58 % of all jobs in agriculture were lost.

Today dairy farmers in East-Germany benefit from above average herd sizes. Birthe Lassen (Thünen Institute) underlined the indirect relationship between farm size and production costs. Economies of scale result in better economic performance of farms, especially in higher labor and capital productivity.

For detailed information see

Report of the EDF Congress in Rostock, Germany (pdf-document, 1,4 MB)