By Amanda Kerr
One after another, cows casually make their way in and out of stalls at G.W. Bell and Sons Dairy, where they get milked and then go on their way. The scene is nothing out of the ordinary for a day’s work at a dairy farm, except for one thing – robots complete the milking process without the need for any human hands.
Based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, about 30 miles west of Charlotte, G.W. Bell and Sons Dairy began the shift to robotic milking a few years ago. Today, the operation has fully converted to voluntary milking systems, also known as box robots.
“Our farm has always been interested in the newest technology that was offered to farms,” says Marybeth Black, whose family owns G.W. Bell and Sons Dairy. “We started reading about the technology and visiting other robot farms around seven or eight years ago. When we started finding it harder to find good quality milk hands, we decided to make the jump.”
The technology is changing not only the functional landscape of dairy farming, but also the economics of running a modern-day operation. A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, co-authored by Zach Raff, assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics at NC State University, explores trends in precision dairy farming and robotic milking, and how these technologies are impacting profitability in the dairy industry.
Source : ncsu.edu