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.

“These box robots, they cost around $200,000 a unit,” Raff says. “So, if you’re putting those kinds of costs in the operation, people want to see that they’re profitable.”

Investing in the Future

G.W. Bell started with two robotic milking systems before installing two more last year. Today, the dairy’s four milking robots serve the operation’s 230 milk-producing cows.

“The cows absolutely love it,” Black says. “The cows are less stressed in this type of system and spend most of their days just being a cow.”

But the robots cost a lot of money to install and maintain, and while workers are no longer needed to directly milk the cows, they are still needed to monitor the cows, troubleshoot equipment problems and review data from the milking systems.

“We have had many ups and downs,” Black says. “We still have times when we struggle to stay ahead of repairs since the robots run 24/7.”

The USDA report uses data from 2000-2021 for dairy producers from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) to evaluate a range of technologies in dairy farming, from computerized milking systems to computerized feed delivery systems to robotic milking.

Looking at dairy farms that have implemented robotic milking systems, Raff says the data shows a consistent increase in profitability.

“We find on average for all operations that there is an increase in net profits or net returns of about $3 per hundred weight, which is a 16% increase in net returns as a result of adopting these robots,” Raff says.

Dairies with 200 to 350 cows see the greatest returns. And there’s another benefit the report highlights: an improvement in daily life for operators.

“For dairy farms with less than 500 head, automation can also impact farmer quality of life by allowing more flexibility in their day-to-day lives,” the report states. “Alternatively, automation in the milking process allows the operator or their family the opportunity to earn additional income off-farm, because less time is necessary for the milking enterprise.”

A Road Map for Precision Dairy

Adoption of robotic milking systems has been slow in North Carolina, but Brittany Whitmire, a dairy associate with NC State Extension in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, has been working for more than a decade to educate dairy farmers in the state about the technology.

“We have had lots of interest in [milking] robots over the years,” she says. “I took a peer group of young dairy producers on a field trip to visit farms in Virginia, probably close to 10 years ago now, where there’s a longer history with them being installed on farms.”

In recent years, Whitmire has worked with a handful of operators, such as Black, to support their transition to robotic milking, but there are hurdles to broader adoption in the state.

“One of the challenges we face in our area (N.C.) is that installation has been limited because of the service availability,” Whittmire says. “Some companies that make and service robots do not cover our geographic area, so options are reduced for our population.” 

Black says there is a learning curve with fully implementing the new technology, from balancing labor costs and staffing models to changing maintenance protocols to shifting milking and feeding schedules. The biggest challenge, she says, is that “someone has to be on call 24/7” in case one of the robots stops working. 

As with any new technology, change comes with bumps in the road. Raff says the new USDA report offers a comprehensive look at the different types of precision agriculture tools available to dairy farmers and the economic viability of adopting them.

“With precision technologies on the rise in the dairy industry, it’s important for operators to understand the impact this equipment will have on their operating expenses, labor and even veterinary costs, and then how all of those factors relate to overall profitability,” Raff says. “Nobody’s going to upend their operation and do something just because you say, ‘Well, we think it’ll help.’ They want to actually see those dollar figures.”

This post was originally published in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences News.