Now and into the future

DairyNZ has a history of investigating technologies on behalf of farmers. This includes the Greenfields automatic milking systems project; evaluating milking efficiency in conventional dairies; investigating individualised feeding; and the Precision Dairy project. These projects have been funded by DairyNZ in partnership with the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Primary Growth Partnership or Sustainable Farming Fund.

Wearable sensors

Pros

• Potentially detect heats and illness early, or without doing a visual assessment.
• Can help reduce workloads for key people.
• Can help staff who are less experienced in animal husbandry.

Cons

• Sometimes provide false alerts, e.g. identifies a cow as needing attention when she doesn’t.
• In financial terms, payback of some devices can be marginal or non-existent depending on the farm system situation.

Phone apps

Pros

• Good for specific tasks, e.g. communication, information updates, feed calculations.
• Usually free or cheap; regularly updated and improved.
• Can be used while you’re on the go, e.g. entering data while you’re in the paddock.

Cons

• Some apps only work when you have internet connectivity.
• Data is sometimes stored on the app – lose your phone, lose your data.
• Not all team members may have smartphones.

Robotic milking

Pros

• The ‘traditional’ box-style automatic milking systems (AMS) have been proven to work in pasture-based systems – there are around 20 AMS farms in NZ.
• Automatic milking rotaries (AMR) for batch milking are commercially available now, with a milking efficiency (cows milked per hour) similar to conventional rotaries.

Cons

• Compared with conventional dairies, box-style AMS have lower milking efficiency. They require cows to ‘voluntarily’ milk over 24 hours, and bring higher capital cost, so have implications for farm system management and farm size.
• High throughput AMR are currently prohibitively expensive for most NZ farmers.

Satellite measurements

Pros

• Accurately and frequently measures pasture mass by satellite (but see first bullet point in the ‘cons’ list below).
• Saves you the time spent walking paddocks, and automatically updates the feed wedge.
• In future, may be able to measure soil moisture and pasture composition.

Cons

• Measurement accuracy and frequency issues (due to terrain and cloud cover) experienced on some NZ farms.
• Doesn’t do everything for you – you’ll still need to assess the next few paddocks to make good allocation decisions.

Virtual fencing

Pros

• Lowers fencing costs, especially around riparian areas.
• Allows you to move stock with a few swipes on your computer/smartphone.
• You can potentially collect animal wellbeing and oestrus data from the same collar.

Cons

• Only just being released commercially – needs time to be proven.
• Benefits may be limited to keeping animals out of riparian areas.
• The social acceptability of controlling animals via a collar is still to be determined.

Virtual farm manager (future)

Pros

• Artificial intelligence systems will use different data sources and smart computing to suggest actions to take on-farm.
• Will automate some jobs and/or help staff with limited prior farm experience.
• Would make farming more innovative, helping to attract different employees.
• Ideally, will lead to better, proactive decisions for smarter decisions.

Cons

• Don’t expect to see these available soon – they’re still on the horizon.
• How willing are you to rely on a virtual manager?

If you have any questions about this article, please email DairyNZ senior scientist Callum Eastwood at callum.eastwood@dairynz.co.nz

This article was originally published in Inside Dairy May 2019