Five cattle for every northerner | Rural

Cattle outnumber people five to one in Northland.

A herd count by DairyNZ shows Northland had 275,070 dairy cows in 930 herds last year - Far North, 71,986 cows in 261 herds; Whangarei, 98,048, 308; Kaipara, 105,036, 361.

The region's cows produced a total of 78.7 million kilograms of milksolids for the year - Far North, 20m kg; Whangarei 28.9m kg; Kaipara, 29.7m kg.

Northland had 5.2 per cent of the total milksolids produced nationally in 2010-11.

Meanwhile, Statistics NZ says Northland had 465,000 beef cattle last year.

And on the latest 2006 census information available, Statistics NZ says Northland has a total of 148,000 people, median age 38, median personal income $20,900 a year.

Add 275,070 dairy cows and 465,000 beef cattle and there is a total of 740,070 cattle in the region. Divide by the 148,000 people and the ratio is five to one.

Nationally, dairy cow numbers are increasing faster than the human population. In 2010/11 the total number of New Zealand dairy cows increased by 132,000 to just over 4.5 million cows (4,528,736), 3 per cent more than over the previous 09/10 season. The resident human population (at March 31, 2011) increased by an estimated 0.9 per cent to 4,403,000.