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The FutureDairy project has announced it will collaborate with a leading milking
equipment manufacturer, DeLaval, to develop a new concept automatic
milking system to suit Australian conditions.
FutureDairy Chair and dairy farmer, Shirley Harlock, said that automatic milking
systems currently on the market had been developed for European dairying systems
and needed to be adapted to suit Australia’s pasture-based system.
Under the leadership of Professor Bill Fulkerson the FutureDairy team at the
University of Sydney’s Camden campus will work with DeLaval to develop
a new system which will still be ‘voluntary’ where cows move to and
from the dairy on their own accord.
To be feasible for the Australian market, the new concept has to be acceptable
to Australian dairy farmers in terms of total benefits, compared with conventional
milking facilities. To achieve this it must have much higher throughput
than the current automatic milking units.
“That’s quite a challenge which is why this is a long-term project,” Mrs
Harlock said.
Automatic milking is just one of a number of studies being under-taken by the
FutureDairy project which aims to address the challenges dairy farmers are expected
to face in the next 20 years.
The main challenges are expected to be related to the cost and availability of
land, water and labour; and the associated lifestyle issues.
FutureDairy’s activities are structured around three priorities – Forages,
Feeding and Innovations – where there are opportunities to address these
challenges.
Automatic milking fits within the Innovations module and has the potential to
improve labour efficiency as well as lifestyle.
“Automatic milking is a very exciting venture for the Australian dairy
industry, which is demonstrated by the fact that the study has been backed by
Dairy Australia, NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI), the University of
Sydney and DeLaval,” said Mrs Harlock.
“We are delighted to have the dairy industry and government working together
with a commercial company,” she said.
Research will commence in March next year after a pre-study to develop an appropriate
system and farm layout around the existing automatic milking systems. The automatic
milking system will be installed at NSW DPI’s Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural
Institute (EMAI) at Camden.
Quotes from investors/collaborators
DeLaval
“DeLaval is excited to be working with the FutureDairy team to adapt
our Voluntary Milking Systems (VMS) technology to suit Australian dairy farming
conditions,” said Mark Brummel, Managing Director, DeLaval Australia.
Dairy Australia
“Automatic milking has the potential to achieve a quantum improvement
in labour efficiency and lifestyle. Although it may take some years to develop
a system suited to Australian conditions, we expect it will deliver an excellent
return to farmers from their levy investment,” Dr Mike Ginnevin, Managing
Director, Dairy Australia.
University of Sydney
“It’s really exciting for the University of Sydney to see high
technology being applied to the dairy industry through FutureDairy’s automatic
milking systems project. It fits with our growing applications of technology
in e-agriculture, e-mining and e-health,” Prof Beryl Hesketh, Vice-Chancellor,
School of Science and Technology.
NSW DPI
“Automatic milking systems are a cutting edge technology offering dramatic
improvements in labour management and lifestyle for dairy farmers in NSW,” said
Ian Macdonald MLC, the NSW Minister for Primary Industries.
Background: FutureDairy
FutureDairy aims to help Australia’s dairy farmers manage the challenges
they are likely to face during the next 20 years. The challenges are expected
to be related to the availability and cost of land, water and labour; and the
associated lifestyle issues. Our activities are structured around three priority
areas – Forages, Feeding and Innovations. These are the
areas where there are opportunities to address the challenges related to water,
land and labour resources.
FutureDairy’s approach is unique in that our work considers Science, Systems
and People issues. In addition to conducting trials on research farms (Science),
we test our findings under commercial conditions on Partner Farms (Systems).
We also use social research to help understand the social issues (eg labour,
lifestyle and practical implications) involved in taking on new practices and
technologies (People).
Our Forages work is all about producing more home grown feed
from the same area of land. We are investigating the potential to concentrate
resources (water, fertiliser and management). Our target is to produce more than
40t DM/ha/yr in a sustainable way. To achieve this we are trialling a ‘complementary
forage rotation’ based on growing three crops a year: a bulk crop (eg maize); a
legume for nitrogen fixation (eg clover); and a forage to provide a pest/disease
break and to improve soil aeration (eg a brassica).
Our Feeding work is investigating if it is more profitable to
use extra bought-in feed to feed more cows (ie increase stock numbers) or to
increase production per cow.
FutureDairy is investigating a number of Innovations that could
improve farm efficiency, labour management and lifestyle. We have a major study
on automated milking systems (AMS), the obvious labour saving innovation. We
are adapting automatic systems to be profitable and suitable for Australia’s
pasture-based, large herd situation. We are also investigating innovations that
allow precision farming without increasing labour needs. Some examples include
remote sensing of animal function and pasture status, and the use of video cameras
to monitor paddock activities (eg calving) remotely via a computer.
FutureDairy is working with
DeLaval to develop an automatic milking system suited
to Australian conditions |
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