The concentration of the primary production, this is the combination of a lower number of dairy farms with the highest number of cows and milk a dairy farm, is a phenomenon that happens in Argentina, as in the rest of the world.
A sample of this can be seen in the following chart with the relative evolution for a number of countries exporters of dairy (whole number are the drums ladies that will be operational by 2020 if they continue the trend):
It says “rally” because at the same time reduce the amount of tanks, the number of cows/dairy farm is growing, as well as the production of milk/dairy. This implies a process of intensification of production systems. In the graph below we see the evolution of cows/dairy farm for the selected countries. It is interesting to note that New Zealand has grown in cows/dairy farm to a rhythm superior to the rest of the countries. We understand that this is because your rodeo has a level of expansion that is above the rest (see figure Growth in cows last 10 years), which has allowed it to maybe, to balance the tendency of disappearance of drums from the 2005 year in which they reached an average of 300 cows/farm:
The causes of the reduction of dairy farms in Argentina starts in the sixties with the advent of the computer milking automatic which allowed the establishments milk producers finish with milking hand and together the two drums in a bigger one. This reduced, as it was adopting the technology, the existence of the drums by up to half. In Argentina we currently estimate that, in general, there are more than 1 dairy producer and the trend remains valid: the incorporation of technology allows you to work with drums larger. When the reduction of tanks, occurs within the same company the amount of cows tends to be maintained. When this does not happen, about 15-20% of the cows are going to the fair and 80-85% thickening the rodeo from another establishment. The difficulty in Argentina compared with the rest of the countries is that the rate of growth is NEGATIVE, with an average for the past 10 years-0.7%, as shown in the graph: this is the key issue! (see note Recalculating). All the drums need to increase their production a +2% annually only for the purposes of staying in business (see The race of mind). The drums most guys do not have many times with the capital or access to credit for the purchase of cows, and in terms of feel not being able to keep the race close.
References: AR= Argentina; US= united States; NZ= New Zealand, and ROU= Uruguay
Source data: MINAGRI, USDA, DairyNZ and INALE