Milk is high in benefits and has several, reportedly healthful effects. Therefore, the cows that produce that milk are in hot demand.

And that demand equates to labor – and labor costs are rising.

See where I am going with this?

So anything that could help dairy farmers with their productivity and save on costs would be a boon to the industry. Thankfully, a group of individuals in Australia has found a way – a robotic way – around this need for streamlined production.

But first, I want to discuss just how much milk we consume:

According to the International Dairy Foods Association, milk consumption (IFDA) has faltered somewhat in the past few years – but it is still a worthy commodity. The total sales of milk in the United States have remained fairly strong in the past twenty years – but there has been a recent trend away from whole milk to lower fat varieties.

And also as per IFDA, “According to USDA’s Economic Research Service, total per capita consumption of all fluid milk products was 179.9 pounds in 2008, a decrease of less than 0.1 percent from 2007. Sales of U.S. fluid milk products fell 0.9 percent to approximately 20.86 gallons per capita.”

And according to this article, those gallons may soon be milked by… robots.

DeLaval, in conjunction with the efforts of the University of Sydney and the FutureDairy project, has developed a rotary robot that performs milking tasks without the need of a human operator.

Shirley Harlock, chairperson of FutureDairy, said the robotic rotary was a major step towards helping out with some major dairy industry concerns – such as the availability of labor and also, the lifestyle of dairy farmers.

"This is one of the most exciting developments that has occurred in the 40 years I've been dairy farming. Although it won't suit all dairy farmers, the robotic rotary offers considerable benefits in terms of enabling more flexible working conditions and improved lifestyle," Harlock said.

Erin Monda recently graduated from W.C.S.U. with a degree in professional writing. She primarily writes about network technologies, including cloud computing, virtualization and network optimization, however she also has a focus on E911 technologies and legislation.

Edited by Erin Monda