Hazell Mullins: The cows, people, and robots of Dutch dairy farms

The Dutch national treasure is their dairy cows, the tall majestic high-yielding Friesian Holsteins.

The Netherlands is only the size of Munster with a population of over 17m people and a cattle population of nearly 4m. It’s a remarkable country with its reclaimed land from the sea, its existence below sea level and the fact one of its main crops is colourful tulips. In my opinion, their national treasure is their dairy cows, those tall majestic high-yielding Friesian Holsteins, every cow I wanted to sneak in my suitcase home.

I love visiting farms outside of Ireland as we can bring back ideas to our farms at home. Challenges are something that we all share no matter where in the world you farm, The Netherlands no longer has a Nitrates derogation from the EU, with their limit set at 170kg per hectare. We visited the North of the country where the land in the 1930’s was the sea and the farmers were commissioned to reclaim it to enable farming in the area. We met a 4th generation farmer of one of the reclaimed farms that now gets yields of 16 tonnes of grass per hectare and feeds this via an automated zero grazing called the Lely Exos.  I was invited on the “Lely Journey” tour to visit the Lely Campus in Rotterdam and five robotic milking farms across the country. It was an eye-opening trip as it showed the realms of possibility that automation has in the future of farming.