Milchwirtschaft#

Dairy Farming: In 1998 103 companies were in dairy farming in Austria, 96 with their own delivery service (28 dairies, 68 cheeseries and Alpine dairies); the majority of companies is located in the western provinces. 72 dairy farming companies are members of agricultural co-operatives. A characteristic feature of Austrian dairy farming is the fact that more milk is produced than is needed for domestic consumption; in 1998, milk supply amounted to 2,445,932 t, more than 75% of which was milk of top quality (with less than 100,000 bacteria per ml). The production of regular milk ranked first (508,035 tons), followed by non-perishable milk (98, 596 tons), cheese (85,009 tons) butter (38,878 tons), whipped cream (30,246 tons), cream (23,515 tons), soft curd cheese (21,745 tons), skim milk powder (17,872 tons) and evaporated milk (18,174 tons). Most of the cattle bred in Austria are mixed meat and dairy breeds.

Until 1992 Austrian dairy farming was fairly strictly organized; the market organisation law was amended in 1993, giving effect to a series of measures designed to liberalise dairy farming and, since 1994, regulating the agreements on milk deliveries between farmers and the processing industries on a uniform private enterprise basis. At the same time the commitment of dairy farmers to primary co-operative societies was abolished. In 1998 the production value of Austrian dairy farming amounted to some ATS 21 billion (1993: ATS 25 billion), the number of those employed in the industry was about 3,500 (1993: about 5,000). Fundamental structural changes in agricultural policy since Austria´s entry into the European Union in 1995 led to co-operations in production and marketing between the companies and resulted in cutbacks.