For the first time since 2011, the European Dairy Farmers visited the UK for its annual congress. Held in Chester, UK, 23-25 June, it was organised in partnership with EDF by independent dairy specialists Kingshay – who are part of VetPartners. The assembled looked at the theme of New Challenges, New Opportunities and Sustainable Dairy Matters. Delegates saw how fellow dairy farmers across the world are using technology to improve efficiency and profitability. Overall, the conclusion was that farmers Europe-wide have more in common than any differences caused by Brexit ten years ago.

Tom Dunne, the EDF president, observed that 90 per cent of attendees were actual dairy farmers. “By being open and honest with each other, we have the opportunity to learn and grow,” he noted.

First up was Rob Davies, a National Farmers Union (NFU) dairy board vice chairman and dairy farmer. He looked at the current state of the British dairy sector – structure, policy and markets – and asked, “What does political change mean for UK dairy farmers? The current situation continues to be massive uncertainty, many policy changes and we also have to keep up with changes at Number 10.”

He farms at Hopes Ash Farms in Hertfordshire, which now has 650 acres with 120 cows, who are milked using two robots. It also farms half a million organic chickens as a brood farm, where they come as chicks and grow to a size where they leave for a grow out farm. The diversity has enabled the farm to buy more land and invest in slurry storage, with an anaerobic digestion plant, which puts a ceiling on energy costs, he says. “Of the £500,000 spent, the majority is self funded. We invested in slurry processing and use a separator to make it five per cent dry matter, which takes half of the phosphate with it.” The farm is also trialling different technologies for slurry treatment, including reverse osmosis. “For every cube of slurry we process, we end up with 600 litres of clean water,” Davies adds. “The biggest hurdle there is regulatory. The government treats it as waste processing, but it’s a valuable resource, not waste. The permits required are expensive and not proactive.”

The UK National Farmers Union has permanent offices in Westminster and Brussels, and it represents the country’s 6,850 dairy farmers, which is down 2.3 per cent year-on-year (YOY) to April 2026, he observed. The British milking herd is 1.59 million (two per cent down on 2025), while the average milk volumes increased 7.6 per cent YOY. Overall, exports are up by 16.6 per cent in value and worth £2.2 billion.

He reminded everyone that there were a lot of one-time issues over the last 10 years in British farming. Over the last decade, there have been six prime minister, five resignations of the prime minister, three general elections, nine secretary of states, and then five black swan events – Brexit, Covid, the Middle East conflict, The Russian war and now the US/Iran crisis.

Almost half of the people who voted to remain in the EU have no idea what the state of the nation would be had Brexit had never happened, he added. Negotiations for dynamic alignment are still ongoing, a decade later. “Currently, England is the only country in Europe that doesn’t support its farmers directly to produce food. We don’t want support but we also want good trade deals and no interference. The opportunities are bigger than the challenges, many of which we share with Europe – succession, access to labour, trade price volatility, and a few regulatory headwinds as well. The NFU is against environmental permitting for livestock and dairy farms and pushing for an industry led approach,” he opined.

On the opportunities side, he noted, “We have a fantastic climate for dairy products and there has been a significant investment in stainless steel. With the popularity of protein, it’s a trusted product, and there is trust in farmers – surveys rank farmers second only to nurses for the public’s trust. The future is bright, we’ve got some headwinds, but we’ve got this,” he concludes.

Susie Stannard, lead analyst dairy sector for the UK levy board, AHDB, pointed out that British dairy farming had reached a historic threshold, by falling below 7,000 dairy farms for the first time in history, while still producing a record high of 13 million litres output. “While one in five farms have gone out of business in the last five year, the country hasn’t lost production, as the volume per farm increased. Places such as Northern Ireland, where milk production has grown to 2.9 billion litres per year, up 7.1 per cent YOY from 1.5 billion litres. We are continuously doing more with less. Ireland is the most grass dependent dairy system. In the UK and Ireland, only 10 per cent of herds are all year round housed, and this feeds into a strong bias that consumers have,” she noted.

The UK is also leading the charge to dairy beef, as 50 per cent of beef production comes from dairy herds, with the vast majority now from sexed semen. “The idea was to make every calf have a successful life,” she said.

The British processing side is dominated by European companies, where Arla and Muller control over half the dairy in the UK. Around 3.3 billion litres goes to Arla, with another three billion litres processed with Müller. “In the UK, around 40 per cent is processed into liquid milk, which is down since 2000 when it was 51 per cent. Cheese is the next biggest product, with the biggest being cheddar. The nice thing is that while liquid is dropping, yogurt production is up. People have moved from spreads to butter, and young people drink fewer hot drinks, so milk used in tea is around 40 per cent,” she said.

As the AHDB is promoting milk as a sports drink, which is reinvigorating the “boring” milk aisle, nutrition is the most influential aspect by far. “Health has come to the forefront of consumer concern, regardless of cost. They expect to see health gains regardless of the economy. Around 71 per cent of consumers prefer getting protein from whole foods than overly processed sources,” she stated. There has been growth in high/added protein yogurts, with an increase of 9.2 per cent YOY, while cottage cheese has sped up by 33 per cent YOY, and kefir is up by 42.2 per cent YOY. “This demonstrates the power of dairy to deliver to consumers,” Stannard stated. Demand for block butter is up by 5.8 per cent and whole milk up by 2.6 per cent.

“New investments are underway, with Scottish dairy Grahams, adding £3.5 million worth of capacity and increasing its cottage cheese production by 50 per cent. Processors are deciding that the UK is the place to be,” she noted. Average milk prices have also improved, but the standard milk contracts vary widely from as low as 25 pence per litre to up to as high as 47 pence, depending on the retailer. With dedicated supermarket milk pools, there is risk reduction, but also a lot of boxes to tick for animal welfare and different types of products, she observed.

“On the trade front, the UK does remain very much part of Europe despite Brexit, although it is more cheese, butter and milk powders versus fresh dairy, at around 250,000 tonnes per annum. Export volume grew by 9.1 per cent last year, and France is the second biggest export market for cheese. The new EU-UK SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) Agreement is bringing us closer, so our future will tie us together,” she concluded.

Chris Walkland, agricultural journalist and market analyst, examined the UK market in a European and global context. “There has been a £27 billion drop in EU exports, with food, agriculture and fishing among the worst hit sectors. Trade with Europe has been chaotic. Increased admin, disaster, more complicated, border problems, delays and cream prices have been trading at a disadvantage to EU ever since the trade barriers increased. The UK has done five trade deals – NZ, Australia, India, US and the middle east, and imports from NZ are low volume but are increasing now.

“With the Indian free trade agreement, India protected its markets. There is now a one way flow into the UK. However, the US is the biggie. Watch out Europe, because the US Dairy Export Council is getting ambitious and very good,” he observed.

“That being said, our exports have been a success story since Brexit. UK cheddar imports have gone down, and exports as a percentage of imports continue to grow. For example, Arla Foods is expanding at Taw Valley into mozzarella. and it bought a whey plant from Volac, and the site next to it. Whey processing in the UK, and cheese making, is expanding in the UK for export markets,” he noted.

“Why do exports matter so much? Markets overseas pay more than UK retailers and it helps to derisk a business and prevents stock buildup for things like curd. It also helps to deal with rising milk volumes,” he stated.

He answered the question of whether farmers better off after Brexit or not. “Even today, prices are always linked to the EU and trader sentiment. We are really interconnected with Europe. Direct subsidies have gone down the toilet, however, and volatility is the name of the game. The UK has looked into setting up a policeman for dairy contracts, the Agricultural Supply Chain Regulator. It’s not perfect but a work in progress. As for milk prices, our regulator hasn’t been able to do anything about this because they’re set on European and global basis.”

That being said, Walkland was positive, noting that companies are investing in the UK and there are loyal consumers who want to buy the products. “It’s a fantastic place to produce milk. We can overcome everything the government throws at us, but if consumers abandon us, we’ve had it.”

Steffi Willi-Sank, EDF BV looked at the farmers in its survey and how the UK compares with other European farms. She noted that British farms had about the same inputs, but the profits were not as high as some of the other European farms. She did note that the solutions for this were many – lower subsidies, higher land costs, and labour issues, as well as perhaps the processors paying higher farmgate prices. However, she finished by noting that she had no solutions for this issue.

Thursday

Willi-Sank returned on Thursday to discuss the future of farming, noting that while the average farmer is currently obtaining decent returns, the issue is to put money away for a rainy day and to continually consider the full economic cost of production as it is now, and in the future. “Consider your costs, think about how low can you go, including the interest payments, for the future, and think about how your system should develop. Will you still be able to produce the extra milk in the coming years, and can you manage that or not?” she asked the audience.

Dr Judith Bryans was unable to attend in person due to train issues and heat waves, so she sent a video message about The Dairy Roadmap. She began by reminding the farmers of the challenges they face in feeding the world: “What remains constant is we have a growing world population that needs to be fed within planetary boundaries. The world’s population has grown to 8.3 billion, and it is estimated to get to 9.7 billion by 2050. The shape of the population is changing too, with the number of older people over 65 outnumbering those under five, and older people will outnumber all children under 18 by 2080.

“Around two-third of all population growth will take place in urban areas, and be further removed from food production itself. Every one of those people need access to safe and nutritious foods, so dairy matters. We need to ensure it can continue to play that role sustainably, but be recognised for our contribution and for our work.

“One of our strategic aims is to improve the environmental footprint of the entire supply chain. The Dairy Roadmap was created back in 2008 and has evolved over the years, with farmers and processors working together to tackle environmental challenges. As a result, the dairy sector is further ahead than other agricultural sectors, especially in the UK,” she observed. “Sustainability can’t be delivered by farmers alone, processors along, governments alone or retailers alone. Building an environmentally sustainable dairy sector requires more than targets – it requires evidence, collaboration and a willingness to work together.”

Dr Lucy Williamson, spoke on “The Nutritional Power of Dairy: evolving science and emerging opportunity.” She noted, “Food needs to sustain our health as well as look after our planet, and dairy is in such a unique position to address health concerns. There is now robust research that is turning the tide of perception of dairy. The global gut microbiome diversity loss in the developed world, has links with chronic disease due to ultra processed foods.”

In the UK, there are issues, she stated. “Some of the nutrient intakes are worryingly low. For example, 25 per cent of girls aged 11-18 are low in iodine, a most preventable nutrient deficit.” In calcium, 15 per cent of children aged 11-18 have low intakes by age 18. “No other food than dairy provides such an accessible portion of calcium and iron,” she noted. “Milk is a fantastic whole food as nature intended. Protein in milk and natural lactose helps to absorb the calcium. Fats in milk help people to digest the sugar better.” With fermented dairy such as yogurt and kefir, the research is helping humans to understand the matrix around live bacteria, with it being far more likely live microbes will reach the gut versus supplements, she pointed out. Cheese is preserved milk and people who are often lactose intolerant can handle cheese, which has most of the lactose removed over time.

The last speaker, AI export Dan Sodergren, discussed how the farm’s data is another product for AI and that if you use AI, you should pay for it so it does not mine your data.” Farm data is soil, not oil. Your data is your soil. The key is that you don’t give away data. Do not give it away,” he warned. ” If you give the data away. a foreign government can restrict your access to a model you don’t own, for no reason and with no warning. The power is always yours, but only when you take action.” He also recommended farmers ask questions before they use a programme – what happens to the data?