Israeli dairy sector – success under harsh conditions

    

Israel is a small country located in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. The territory of Israel is 22 thousand square kilometers (Germany is 16 times larger than Israel). Almost two thirds of Israel’s territory is desert and only 20% of it is used for agriculture. Israel population is approximately 10 million inhabitants and per capita GDP in 2023 was 36,000 US$ (above EU average). The share of agriculture in Israel’s gross national product is only 1.3%, and only 2% of the population is employed in agriculture. In 2022, the agricultural product in Israel stood at 8.5 billion US dollars, where 3.5 billion (40%) are animal branches. The dairy industry in Israel (cattle and sheep), constitutes 37% of the total product of the livestock industries (1.3 billion US dollars per year). Israel currently produces about 1.6 billion liters of milk per year (85% of the country’s milk consumption), when over 90% of the milk produced in Israel is processed and marketed by the 3 largest dairies. The characteristics of milk consumption in Israel are different from those in Europe. Over 40% of the milk is consumed as fluid milk and milk drinks, 30% as soft cheeses, 25 % as hard cheeses and only 1% as butter.

The Israeli dairy herd includes 135,000 cows of the Israeli Holstein breed, all in full confinement and without any grazing. About 85% of the cows are under official milk control and all cows are inseminated by artificial insemination, with most of the semen produced in Israel. We believe that breeding cows, using Israeli semen, gives cows better resistance to the climate and sanitation conditions that exist in our region. The annual yield per cow is the highest in the world and stood on an average of 12,500 kg in 2023, with a content of 3.9% fat and 3.45% protein.

Farms in Israel are spread over the entire territory, including in the desert areas. As in other countries of the world, also in Israel there is the trend of reducing the number of dairy farms and increasing the number of cows and annual production per farm. In the year 2,000 there were 1,400 dairy farms in Israel with an average annual production of 800,000 liters per dairy farm. In 2,020, the number of farms decreased to 650 and the average annual yield per farm increased to 2.2 million liters. The average milk yield per cow was 30 years ago at 9,500 kg and today stands at 12,500. As a result of changes in the payment policy (switching from payment for volume to payment for solids), the fat content in the milk increased from 3.0% to 3.9% and the protein content from 2.9% to 3.3%.

One of the characteristics of milk production in Israel is the seasonality in milk supply, which is caused by the negative effect of the summer heat on the milk yield and fertility of the cows, leading to an excess of milk in the winter and a shortage in the summer. Since Israel is one of the few countries in the world still with a milk quota, the dairies tend to pay more for milk that is produced beyond the quota in the summer months, in account of that produced in the winter, with the aim of encouraging milk producers to invest and implement measures to mitigate heat in the summer.

The professional success of the Israeli dairy industry, which is a relatively young industry, must be attributed to the “founding fathers”. The founders of the industry, who started this about a hundred years ago, came from Europe (mostly from the east), and knew nothing about dairy. They understood at the very beginning that in order to be competitive in this climatic region with water shortages, they must be efficient, and the condition for this is to achieve a high milk yield per cow, which will cover the high costs of feeding. A necessary condition for this was keeping the cows in full confinement throughout the year with zero grazing, using appropriate genetics and a high professional level of the milk producers, while establishing support organizations in the fields of clinical veterinary medicine, artificial insemination and feeding.

The founders of the Israeli dairy industry were mostly of a socialist orientation and as such, already in the thirties of the last century, established cooperative systems to provide clinical veterinary services, genetic improvement and artificial insemination, food supply, as well as the processing factories that collected, processed and marketed the milk and its products throughout the country. Most of these organizations exist to this day in connection with the Israel Cattle Breeders Association (ICBA), with the exception of the largest milk processing factory that was privatized in recent years and most of whose shares are held by a Chinese dairy company from Shanghai. The regional concentrate plants have changed their face and are now “feed centers” that supply total mixed rations (TMR) to dairy farms. In great part of the dairy farms In Israel, feed mix is bought from these feed centers, and food is distributed daily (and in summer more than one time per day), straight to the cow troughs.

All the milk producers in Israel are united in the “Israel Cattle Breeders Association” (ICBA), which, beyond the political representation with the authorities, provides a variety of services to its members. This includes, among others, the operation of “milk control system” and Israeli “Herd-book”, the data of which is used by the artificial insemination company for genetic improvement (most the inseminations done in Israel are with an Israeli semen). In addition, ICBA has developed and maintains a unique farm management software called NOA, which is adapted to the needs and conditions of the Israeli dairy farms and serves all dairy farms. The software is in continuous contact with all the systems that interact with the farm, thus allowing the farm manager to get an up-to-date picture of his situation and make decisions in real time.

Even at the national level, the Israeli dairy industry receives special attention. An institute called the “Israeli Dairy Board (IDB) brings together the Israeli government, milk producers and milk processing companies. With government approval, the milk board’s budget is based on a levy collected from each liter of milk consumed. The milk board (under the guidance of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture), is responsible for managing the national milk quota system, as well as a number actions and services for the benefit of the public and the industry, such as advertising milk products, encouraging and funding applied research as well as training within national and regional courses. The IDB operates also the “laboratory for milk quality”, which provide milk testing and provide consultancy and professional services for each dairy farm.

In conclusion, it can be said that the success of the Israeli dairy industry and the achievements it has reached are mainly due to its integrative structure and the close cooperation between all its components. This cooperation gives the milk producers good genetic material, which is adapted to Israel special production conditions, as well as knowledge and management tools that make it possible to turn this into high quality milk.

Thus, despite being in inferior conditions, the Israeli cow became the “world champion” in milk production. When reaching high milk yield, the amount of food to produce one liter of milk is relatively low, with less than 0.7 kg of dry matter needed to produce one liter of milk. This allows the production of milk with economic efficiency, and at the same time, a relatively low emission of methane into the environment, an issue that is gaining great importance in recent years the last ones.