It depends on milk price, feed cost, and fixed expenses. Calculate your threshold below.
What This Number Means
At current prices, you need X cows to cover all costs. Below this number, you’re working for free.
The calculation is straightforward: your fixed costs (labor, machinery, land, buildings) need to be covered by the margin each cow generates after variable costs. If your margin per cow is €500, and your fixed costs are €45,000 per year, you need 90 cows just to break even.
That’s the threshold. Below it, the farm subsidizes itself with off-farm income, accumulated capital, or subsidies.
What Drives the Number Up
High fixed costs
Loan payments, full-time labor, and machinery depreciation. These don’t scale down when you have fewer cows. A 40-cow operation still needs a milking parlor, a tractor, and someone to run it.
Low milk prices
When milk price drops from €0.45 to €0.38 per liter, your margin per cow shrinks by €490 per year (at 7,000L yield). Suddenly you need 15 more cows to cover the same fixed costs.
Expensive feed
Concentrate at €350/ton vs €280/ton adds €300-400 per cow annually. Every price spike in feed pushes your break-even herd size higher.
What Drives the Number Down
Low-cost structure
No debt, family labor, owned land. If your fixed costs are €25,000 instead of €50,000, your break-even drops from 90 cows to 50.
Better margins
Direct sales, organic premium, efficient grazing systems. A farm selling milk at €0.55 instead of €0.42 needs 30% fewer cows to break even.
Shared infrastructure
Contractor does field work. Neighbor stores machinery. Outside labor only during calving season. Every fixed cost you convert to variable makes smaller herds viable.
Reality Check: Why Most Small Herds Struggle
The break-even calculation explains why dairy farms under 50 cows are vanishing across the EU.
Fixed costs don’t shrink proportionally. A 30-cow farm still needs a bulk tank, a parlor, daily labor, and regulatory compliance. The infrastructure cost per cow is three times higher than on a 100-cow operation.
This creates a structural squeeze. When milk prices drop or feed costs spike, small herds fall below break-even and stay there. Expansion becomes the only path forward or exit.
The data confirms it. Farms with fewer than 50 cows in most EU regions make minimal profit even in good years. In bad years, they operate at a loss covered by subsidies or off-farm income.
This isn’t about work ethic or management skill. It’s about fixed costs that can’t be spread thin enough.
What to Do With Your Number
If you’re above break-even:
Calculate your buffer. How many cows could you lose (through lower milk price, higher costs, or herd reduction) before hitting break-even? That’s your margin for error.
If you’re at break-even:
You’re covering costs but earning nothing for your labor and capital. Three options: expand to create a profit margin, cut fixed costs aggressively, or recognize this is lifestyle farming subsidized by other income.
If you’re below break-even:
The math is clear. Either fixed costs must drop (refinance debt, eliminate hired labor, sell equipment), or herd size must grow, or the operation continues losing money. Staying the same is a decision to keep subsidizing the farm.
The Question Nobody Asks
Break-even isn’t the goal. It’s the floor.
A farm at break-even generates zero return on labor and capital. You work full-time for free. The land, buildings, and cows sit there earning nothing.
The real question: how many cows do you need to make this worth doing?
That depends on what “worth doing” means. €30,000 annual profit? €60,000? A living wage plus something left over?
If your margin per cow is €800 after all costs, and you want €40,000 profit, you need 50 cows just for that—plus however many to cover fixed costs first.
Most small farms never get past break-even. They cover costs in good years, lose money in bad years, and rely on subsidies to stay afloat. That’s not a business. That’s capital depletion with extra steps.
Fixed Costs Are the Anchor
This calculator makes one thing obvious: fixed costs determine minimum viable scale.
A farm with €30,000 in fixed costs needs 38 cows at an €800 margin per cow. A farm with €60,000 in fixed costs needs 75 cows at the same margin.
You can’t negotiate fixed costs down by 10%. You either commit to them at full scale or cut them dramatically (sell equipment, eliminate buildings, stop hiring labor).
That’s why dairy consolidation is structural, not cyclical. Small farms can’t spread fixed costs thin enough. Large farms spread them across 200+ cows and still have margin left over for profit.
The breakeven threshold isn’t going away. It’s rising.
When the Number Is Wrong
This calculator assumes stable inputs. Real farms deal with:
- Seasonal milk price swings (€0.38 in spring, €0.46 in winter)
- Feed cost volatility (€280/ton one year, €380 the next)
- Herd performance variation (SCC penalties, lower yields during heat stress)
- Unexpected repairs (bulk tank failure, tractor breakdown)
Break-even at average prices means below break-even half the time.
Smart farms build a buffer into the calculation. If break-even is 60 cows, run 75. If margin per cow is €600, plan for €450. The difference between surviving and closing is usually 10-15 cows worth of buffer.
Calculator Limitations
This tool calculates operational break-even (covering annual costs). It does not include:
- Return on capital invested in land, buildings, and cows
- Depreciation beyond what’s in your fixed costs
- Opportunity cost (what that capital could earn elsewhere)
- Family labor at market wages
A farm at operational break-even can still be losing money economically. You’re covering costs but earning below-market returns on time and capital.
For full financial analysis, use comprehensive budgeting tools. For threshold decisions, “Can I survive at this scale?”, this calculator is enough.