Last October, Dixie farmer Darren Vickers completed construction of the 2.8-acre open shed that will house both his new dairy and 600-strong milking herd. 25 kilometres away in Timboon, Simon Schulz is also building a new pasture-based shed for his 450 cows, due to begin operating in May. Inside these sheds, their thousand cows will be milked not by humans, but by robots.
Robotic milkers – known in the industry as Automated Milking Systems (AMS) – are set to transform the farmers’ daily lives, which previously revolved around morning and evening trips to the dairy.
“The cows decide when they want to be milked,” says Vickers. When a cow’s udder is full, it steps into a milking stall where it is identified by a microchip in its collar. The robot uses a laser-guided system to attach the cups which suction the milk, while brushing the udder to stimulate the letdown reflex. As it is milking, the robot gathers data that enable farmers to monitor the quality and quantity of the milk and the health of the animals.
But it took some getting used to.
“The cows beat the shit out of the robots the first day,” says Vickers. “Oh, it was unbelievable. They’re not used to being touched under the belly – some of them sat down on it. But they’re quite calm about it now.”
It’s a significant development for south-west Victoria, where almost one quarter of Australia’s milk is produced. But AMS is an established technology in Europe, where approximately 30% of cows are milked robotically. Sergio Garcia, professor of dairy science at the University of Sydney, says economic circumstances prevented Australian farmers from investing in the technology over the past two decades. As uptake was growing overseas, Australia was experiencing “a lot of bad years for industry, not only climactically or from weather but also in terms of [milk] prices”. A single milker robot costs $250,000 – a bigger investment than most could afford, during a lengthy period of turmoil, downsizing, and low milk prices. Today just 1.5% of Australian farms have taken it up.
Yet the industry is now facing another challenge which has propelled them to move forward: the ongoing shortage of skilled, reliable milkers, particularly in Victoria’s south-west. While 7,000 people in the region work in agriculture, Vickers and Schulz say locals are often reluctant to milk cows. “People are rudely awakened by the intensity of dairy farming,” says Schulz. “The early mornings, the manure, having to be out in the weather; whether it’s pouring rain or 40 degrees, cows still need to be milked.” Both farms previously relied on backpackers, with high staff turnover requiring constant training.
While robotic milkers have the potential to improve both productivity and profitability – cows on AMS farms are milked an average of 2.16 times a day – Garcia says its key advantage is reducing labour. “In a conventional farm, you’d spend roughly half the time milking. In AMS, you have all that time to devote to something else,” he says.
The most successful AMS farms, he adds, are those that reinvest the hours saved on milking in improving other areas of their business, such as using data from the milking robots to improve their herd’s diet, health, and reproductive performance.
For farmers, lifestyle is another huge factor driving the decision. Both Schulz and Vickers hope that the automation of the drudgery of milking means they will have more time for the parts of their jobs that they love. “My passion is out in the field,” says Schulz. “I love the animals but growing the grass and trying multi-species pastures and biodiversity, the dairy beef that we’re doing here, the hives that we’re doing, that sort of stuff interests me.”
The technology also promises to make careers in dairy farming a little gentler. “I’m not going to have to get up as early as what I had to,” says Vickers. “You don’t have to be home at a certain hour to get the cows in because they’re getting milked. You don’t have to start milking at a certain time. You’re more flexible.”
While the robots will result in job losses in the short-term – Schulz is set to halve his current workforce – the farmers say they hope to eventually provide more meaningful, long-term employment for local people. “Those who are actually driven and gifted in the industry will be well looked after,” says Schulz. “It’s those who are looking at ag as just an income and not a career, they will be the ones that suffer.”
Both also hope the new way of working will mean their own children are more likely to take on the family farms one day. “It will definitely be easier for ‘em,” says Vickers. “So why not have it easy, or easier?”
Vickers says his cows are already enjoying the slower pace of life enabled by the robots. “They’re finding their own time to do things,” he says. “They’re not getting brought up a lane-way with six hundred other cows, pushing and shoving. They’re just quiet and happy and comfortable in here.”
