May 26, 2004
New Zealand Dairy Industry Switching To Robotic Milking
Robots are set to take over milking on New Zealand farms.
The country's dairy industry has launched a new joint venture company to help the switch to robotic milking systems.
Dairy industry on-farm research specialist Dexcel and industry partner, Sensortec, will use Robotic Milking Systems Ltd (RMS) to transfer the technology to farms.
Rod Claycomb, chief executive of Sensortec and RMS, said a robotic milking system had operated as a trial in Hamilton since 2001.
"We've developed and proven an innovative, comprehensive system and are now ready to transfer the knowledge we've gained to the industry," he said in a statement.
Dr Claycomb said RMS had been set up to help the industry avoid some of the robotic milking pitfalls that had occurred in the northern hemisphere.
"In some instances, particularly in Europe, some farmers mistakenly replaced traditional milking equipment with robots without properly adapting their entire farm management system to the new technology," he said.
"They figured a simple equipment replacement would be successful, but it failed miserably and has created a bad reputation for robotic milking".
European farmers have more than 1500 commercial robot operations milking about 80,000 cows.
Dr Claycomb said research suggested a farmer could not simply replace a milking shed with a robot - they needed to change all their farming system.
RMS would assess whether an operation was able to adapt to robotic milking, help set up the robotic milking and grazing system on the farm, and help the farmer with equipment maintenance and technical support.
But it would operate independently from manufacturers and would not sell or recommend particular brands of automatic milking systems.