As efforts continue to find ways to lower the greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy industry, the number of dairy cows in Ireland increased by 37,000 in the year to last June.
The increase brings the total number of cows in Ireland to 1.64 million.
The figures are contained in the recently issued Crops and Livestock Survey from the Central Statistics Office.
The figures come as the group set up by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to find ways to first stabilise and then reduce greenhouse gases is due to report to the Minister next week.
The Food Vison Dairy Group under chairperson Professor Gerry Boyle has held a number of meetings to establish how to sustainably manage the environmental footprint of the dairy sector.
The CSO figures shows the number of farm animals increased across different sectors.
The total number of cattle increased by 44,300 to 7.3 million, sheep numbers rose by 89,200 to 5.6 million and pig numbers rose by 111,700 to 1.6 million.
The survey also finds the area planted with cereals increased by 3.7% to 276,400 hectares.
