More cows could be kept indoors for the whole of their productive lives, animal welfare campaigners have warned, after the BBC found a rise in “megafarms”.
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by the BBC show the number of larger-scale beef and dairy cattle farms in Britain has increased from 756 to 802 in five years, now holding more than 915,000 cows.
Campaign group Compassion in World Farming (CiWF) said the rise in large-scale cattle farming was “deeply concerning” as many would be intensive megafarms housing cattle all year round.
The NFU said it was not farm size or whether cattle were kept outdoors or indoors that dictated welfare but how livestock were managed.
The BBC submitted an FOI request to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) which revealed that there were currently 802 farm operations in England, Wales and Scotland that held more than 700 dairy or beef cattle.
One farm business has a recorded capacity of up to 12,000 cows, although any one farm may hold its cattle in smaller herds over a number of different sites.
In Northern Ireland, there are 141 farms with more than 700 cattle, holding a total of more than 141,000 cows, according to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera).
None of the UK’s devolved administrations could provide the exact number of large-scale farms using continuously housed cattle systems, which animal welfare campaigners often refer to as “megafarms”.
The UK government’s most recent Cattle Farm Practices Survey, published in 2019, found that 8% of larger farms in England with at least 150 cows kept their herds indoors all year round.
The survey found that up to 3%
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