International Precision Dairy Farming Conference Travel Report
Summary
Dr Nicolas Lyons participated in and represented NSW Department of Primary Industries at the first International Precision Dairy Farming Conference organised in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands in June 2016. The program was “on the crossroads of science and practice […] bringing together the scientists who are interested in applied precision dairy farming technology, technology manufacturers who will be the key drivers in product and service development, and veterinarians/advisors who are the key users in the latest scientific developments.”
At the conference, Dr Lyons delivered two oral presentations: “Current and future technology adoption on Australian and New Zealand dairy farms” and “KPI Project: Monitoring nine Australian automatic milking systems”, at the same time as he presented a poster on “Energy audits on automatic milking systems”. These presentations were all based on the results of initiatives identified, driven and delivered by Dr Lyons.
He also participated in a pre-conference DairyCare workshop titled “activity measurement in ruminant research and beyond” and held a meeting with a start-up company building devices and creating algorithms (analytics) in the cloud that provide detection and prediction of dairy events related to feeding, health and reproduction. This is an excellent example of how devices and algorithms will enable the dairy industry to access the benefits of the Internet of ‘Farm’ Things (IoFT).
As a result of all this, the International AMS KPI Project was established. This project compares and benchmarks milk production, system utilisation and farm demographic information of pasture-based AMS farms located in Australia and Overseas. Furthermore, it has become evident there is a need to develop decision support tools that help farmers turn available data into information to inform decisions and improve profitability in what is a highly variable, constantly changing and fragile operating environment.
Participating in these conferences and meetings provides an important opportunity for NSW DPI to gain insights into the experiences in other countries and provide input into projects and developments at an early stage. It is also an excellent opportunity to showcase the results of initiatives identified, driven and delivered by the Department, which are a proof of recognition of regional, national and international expertise in this area. These types of initiatives improve the probability of successful adaptation and adoption of technologies in the NSW and Australian dairy industries.
