Tuesday, 13 May 2025 11:25

Cows down

Written by Milking It

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OPINION: It's not happening as fast as the greenies would like - they actually want all livestock other than Muscovy ducks and Tibetan Llamas to disappear entirely - but it is happening.

According to Stats NZ, livestock numbers have continued to fall over the last 10 years, while area planted in fruit increases.

The total number of dairy cattle fell by 861,000 (13%) over this period to 5.8 million.

The total number of sheep was 23.6 million at June 2024, a fall of 6.2 million (21%) compared with 10 years ago, according to figures released by Stats NZ last week.

Bucking the trend of falling livestock numbers, however, is beef cattle. There were 3.7 million beef cattle in 2024, similar to the total in 2014. Deer had the highest percentage fall of all livestock types, down 26% in the 10-year period.

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