Dairy farmers have warned that a long-running shortage of workers, exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic, is putting the UK’s food security under pressure. According to a survey by Arla, the UK’s largest dairy cooperative, five in six farmers who have looked for workers received very few or zero applications from qualified people for their job vacancies.
The fifth annual poll of Arla’s 1,900 British dairy farmers highlighted the worsening struggle to find workers with the right skills and experience. In 2021, 79% of farmers reported this problem, rising to 84% this year. Nearly half (48.6%) of those surveyed said it was now harder to retain staff than before Brexit and the pandemic, while only 5% said the situation had improved.
More than one in ten (13%) respondents said they would leave farming altogether in the next 12 months if there was no improvement in labour shortages, and 6% said they had been forced to cut the amount of milk they produced. Arla’s membership has fallen by about 300 over the past three years, from 2,100 to 1,900, as farmers have retired or consolidated farms. Nearly 200 British dairy farmers quit the industry in the 12 months to April 2025, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), bringing the total number of producers to 7,040.
Bas Padberg, managing director of Arla Foods UK, said: “What we’re seeing is the real impact of these workforce shortages on our farming industry, whether that’s in higher costs or lower milk production. The effect of this is ultimately going to be seen in the price and availability of products on the supermarket shelves, affecting the millions of people that rely on dairy as a source of nutrition in their diet.”
Arla, which runs its own apprenticeship schemes and industrial placements, said the government had acknowledged the difficulties with recruiting staff. Padberg called for “practical steps that the industry, the education sector and government can take together” to attract more people, especially younger workers, to the dairy sector. Nearly half (47%) of farmers are aged 55 and over, and two-thirds (66%) said their farms had been passed down at least four generations, while only 3% were first-generation farmers.
