New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show the number of dairy farms in Wisconsin is continuing to shrink even as the number dairy cows grows.
The data released Friday comes from the 2012 Census of Agriculture. The count is done every five years to gather detailed information on U.S. farms and the people who run them.
The census shows Wisconsin had 10,400 dairy farms in 2012, down from more than 13,000 five years earlier.
The census considers a farm a dairy farm is its main business is producing milk.
Other farms also have dairy cows, however. In 2012, about 1,500 farms that were not primarily dairy operations had some milking cows.
The state added about 20,000 dairy cows from 2007 to 2012 to bring the number to about 1,270,000.
