By the numbers
The number of dairy farms in Wisconsin continues to rapidly decrease, falling in August below 5,000 herds for the first time — only half as many as just 11 years ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agriculture Statistics Service.
At the same time, the average number of cows per dairy farm — just 67 in 2001 — reached 100 cows per farm in 2010 and stands at 260 cows per farm as of July 2026.
Overall, the total number of milk cows in the state has been slowly increasing, from a low of 1,233,000 in March 2005 to 1,299,000 by July 2026, an increase of 5.4 percent.
Further reading: Wisconsin dairy cow productivity quintuples over past century.
Wyatt Eichholz is a policy and legislative associate at the Badger Institute.
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