Precision Dairy Technology Adoption

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

If you’ve been to a modern dairy, you know how sophisticated these operations are. From the genetics to the operations to the technology, dairies rely on data from every milking to optimize everything they do. USDA research economist Johnathan McFadden recently discussed a study on dairy producer adoption of precision agricultural technologies and methods.

McFadden… “ Something that we talk a lot about in precision agriculture for field crops is how farmers typically don't use one tool or technology in isolation, but usually they use them in combinations, and some of that's because the technologies come automatically bundled, or there are just other economic incentives whereby the farmer would want to sort of use them in combination. And so one thing we did was look at farmers bundled use here. So by and large we found that many farmers are using breeding technologies plus some other type of group of technology. So for example, 18% of US dairy farms in 2021, were using a combination of breeding technologies as well as individual cow production records, milking units with automatic takeoff and nutritionist design diets. Just below that, about 15% of US dairys, were using a combination of breathing technologies, individual cow records, and nutritionist design diets.”

That’s USDA research economist Johnathan McFadden.