Technology Helps Make Dairy More Sustainable
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the National Dairy Producers Federation, and Dairy Farmers of America issued a report on modern technology in the dairy industry. The new technology has positively impacted consumers, dairy farmers, and cows during the past 15 years. Chad Huyser, president of Lely North America says dairy farmers are starting to adapt to the new technologies because there are a lot of benefits to it.
Huyser… “We believe the core of that unlocking or focus on that sustainability piece is really giving them all the tools and the data from those tools to help them really understand what's going on in their operation. How they're managing water. What are the nutrient demands in those fields? If you think about producing an acre of forage, we want to help them manage that in terms of how much can we harvest from that piece of property? How do we get the most out of that feed ration, so that the animal is being as efficient as she can be in utilizing that pound of whatever that feedstock might be? We start to have so much information about the behavior and the way that animal produces and works, and how we can positively impact that. That is a huge part of the sustainability piece, if we look at how we're going to continue to produce and harvest fluid milk into the future.”
The report was released at this year’s World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin. To download and view the entire study, please visit www.aem.org/insights.