What Does Automated Milking Mean For Families?
Five farm studies will allow farmers to get a 'realistic' idea of what technology could mean to their lives, a University of Sydney researcher hopes.
4 November 2014
2 minute read
Labour and lifestyle benefits top the list of reasons why dairy farmers are adopting automatic milking systems (AMS), writes Juan Molfino of the Faculty of Veterinary Science.
In 2013 and the first part of 2014 we conducted labour and lifestyle audits on five commercial AMS farms in Australia and we created five Labour Case Studies, he adds.
The studies, available on the FutureDairy website contains reports presented at the Dairy Research Symposium this year.
These five case studies work as a reference that farmers considering adopting the AMS technology can relate to.
It will also allow them to develop realistic expectations and assess the impact of what they are likely to achieve with their herd size, farm system type and other farm systems specifics.
These documents will also help farmers contemplating the investment to visualize the potential impact of AMS and the variety of ways in which the impact can be captured on farm to ensure they are best positioned to reap the benefits of their investment.
Future Dairy want to especially thank those five farmers and their families whom opened their farms to us and for more than one year worked closely with us, providing us with the information we needed and giving us the opportunity to develop this specific body of work.
On the next page is a summary of the 5 Case Studies – Please visit the Future Dairy website to read the complete version and feel free to download them.
