Bles Dairies Livestock has over 25 years’ experience in the export of heifers. The last couple of years disease outbreaks and legislation complicated the export of livestock and the Dutch market. What is the situation at present?
The first half year of 2017 the Dutch livestock market was characterized by imbalance between supply and demand. This imbalance was caused by the phosphate reduction plan, approved by the European Commission with the objective to reduce phosphate emissions from the Dutch livestock sector. The plan aims to set limits to Dutch dairy production by encouraging farmers to reduce their herd size or stop farming. As a consequence, many Dutch dairy farmers were obliged to dispose lots of animals to comply with the new regulations.
We now experience that the demand in our sales area has stabilized as there is a fair and constant request for high quality cattle. Obviously, this demand is inextricably connected to the rise of the raw milk prices. Since milk prices have increased, farmers have the confidence to invest again. Both in Europe as internationally we observe an upward trend in investment in the dairy sector, leading to a.o. more business in the export of livestock. A positive development!
