Promise of 36% less work for AMS dairy farmers
About 50% of all new milking parlours installed in many EU countries (except Ireland) are AM systems.
In order to study how they can work as part of Irish grazing systems, Teagasc staff are monitoring the machines on seven farms which have between one and four AMS units each, and comparing them with dairy farms where milking is done in the usual way.
The challenge in grazing systems is to achieve voluntary movement of cows from a paddock to the AM system.
A three-way grazing management system is the usual system, which promotes voluntary cow movement to the milking unit at appropriate intervals. The farm is divided into three grazing sections, and cows graze defined areas of each of the three grazing sections during each 24-hour period.
Cows move between the grazing sections in the trained knowledge that they will be rewarded with fresh grass in a new paddock. As they move between sections, they are diverted through the milking yard.
Integration of AM into pasture-based systems is challenging, but it has been achieved successfully. Thus, it is suggested that a similar potential role to indoor systems for AM exists in grass-based milk production.
Furthermore, it may represent a solution to farm fragmentation.
The AMS is linked to a computer which provides the farmer with instant herd and individual cow information.
Generally, in other countries, AMS has been seen as a labour-saving device, to allow more productive and profitable use of time. Many farmers saw it as a means of prolonging their working life, or allowing them an ‘easier’ working day when they were advancing in age.
Other users experienced less stress, and a more relaxed working day, with more time available for social activities.
A key issue for many was to make dairy farming more attractive to the next generation, for lifestyle reasons.
Preliminary results revealed at the Moorepark Open Day suggested a 36% reduction in total labour input for AMS farmers.
Seven AMS farmers, and seven conventional milking (CM) monitor farmers were given a smartphone app to record time spent performing tasks three days each month, between March 2014 and February 2015.
The average labour input for AMS and CM farms was 1.32 and 2.04 hours/cow/month. The total dairy labour input for AMS and CM farms was 15.81 and 24.51 (hours/cow/year), respectively.
The ‘milking process’ for CM farms involved herding cows, milking, yard and machine cleaning. For AMS farms it involved checking AMS data, fetching cows overdue for milking, and robot maintenance and cleaning.
Of the 36% reduction in total dairy labour, 27% is associated with the milking process. The average daily time spent milking was three hours for CM farmers, and 40 minutes for AMS farmers.
The average daily time spent allocating grass was seven minutes for the CM farmers, and 24 minutes for the AMS farmers.
Milk production, water, electricity and economic data are also being collected over 2014 and 2015 to assess the sustainability of AMS.
AMS is an option for farmers looking at how to expand or continue farming while maintaining sustainable labour input. However, high capital investment in technology to reduce labour may counteract the economic benefits of expanding.
Today, there are about 10,000 automatic milking (AM) units in place across northern Europe, and at least 25,000 worldwide. It is envisaged that 20% of cows in the EU will be milked automatically by 2020.
But the practical challenges of integrating AM and grazing must be researched, for automatic milking to become a realistic alternative to conventional, manual milking in Irish grass-based systems.
A farmer’s decision to invest in AM requires prior investigation into system management, procedures, performance, and other skill sets required (such as grassland management, and interpretation of AM data).
