[HN Gopher] How dairy robots are changing work for cows and farmers
___________________________________________________________________
How dairy robots are changing work for cows and farmers
Author : DonHopkins
Score : 207 points
Date : 2025-04-15 22:26 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| These videos of robotic cow milking machines, feed mixers and
| distributers and pushers, and manure roombas are amazing!
|
| Cows like to push and play with their food to get to the yummy
| grain bits, so the feed robot pushes the food back so they can
| eat it all.
|
| And the Poopoombas had to learn to be more aggressive about
| pushing cows out of the way and not stopping every time they
| bumped or got kicked, because otherwise the cows would assign
| them the lowest status in the pecking order, and they could only
| cower in the corner.
|
| Here are the videos from the article and some more:
|
| The milking process of the Lely Astronaut A5 - EN:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-zYshsAg1E
|
| Takes Dairy Farm Tour
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZY8TbBoDd0
|
| Zeta - how it works - EN - NL subtitles:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17TA-lI_oqQ
|
| Zeta - Vision film - EN - NL subtitles
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nRaj16tPLc
|
| Their web site has a pretty cool "page not found" error page too:
|
| https://www.lely.com/moo
|
| Now dairy farms can use two different kinds of AI together! ;)
| They could develop an insemination module to go with their
| calving module.
|
| https://www.lely.com/solutions/latest-innovations/zeta/ai-ca...
|
| I wonder if you can rent swarms of these and dispatch them to
| anywhere you need them:
|
| https://www.lely.com/solutions/manure/discovery-collector/
|
| Or if you can use them in reverse, loading them up them dumping
| shit wherever you wanted to, like a giant Logo Turdle, in the
| name of art and science.
| pvg wrote:
| Pretty primitive stuff compared to SOTA
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ4DnVfWYQ
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Maybe it's the skeptic in me, but the dude's jacket seems CGI
| pvg wrote:
| Like Nikolai said, network is not so good - compiaession
| artifact.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| I remember watching this video a couple of years ago, and was
| glad to remember it again before even clicking the link.
| Thanks for reminding me of this gem!
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Sure but society is changed more yesterday's SOTA becoming
| commoditized and affordable than today's SOTA.
| pvg wrote:
| _Na zemle sidel android, opustivshi golovu.
|
| Ot chego toskuet robot? Ot apgreida novogo.
|
| Oi da ty kaka sistema! Kak s toboi upravit'sia?
|
| O tebe nichio ne znaem... Tol'ko nam vsio nravitsia..._
| tomcam wrote:
| Wonderful comment and thanks for your gift to the
| lexicographical world of the word Poopoombas
| jamesrcole wrote:
| > These videos of robotic cow milking machines, feed mixers and
| distributers and pushers, and manure roombas are amazing!
|
| These robots need to be named "moombas"
| bitwize wrote:
| Laguna!
|
| https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Moomba
| unclad5968 wrote:
| It's cool that this allows the cows to be milked whenever they
| feel like it. I'd imagine the autonomy actually does improve the
| cow's quality of life. Also neat that they learned to game the
| feeding robot. It reminds me of the image recognition experiments
| they do with birds.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| And how they had to inhibit greedy cows with the munchies from
| volunteering to be milked too often, just to get treats!
|
| There are certain things you just can't predict, and have to
| learn in the field...
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| The fact that cows can self-schedule is kind of amazing
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Do you think cows care about human interaction, or are
| indifferent whether it's a living creature or a robot?
| eitland wrote:
| Varies from cow to cow I guess.
|
| One particular cow ("Evjelin" IIRC) would try to avoid her
| own calves because (it seemed) she much preferred the machine
| it seemed.
|
| The final year we found her calf with a broken neck in a flat
| area of the pasture. (Yes, they were always allowed to stay
| outdoors around when they calved and usually they spent a few
| days outside together. Mostly this was great I think and
| except this incident I only remember one other were it was a
| problem: one calf had got under the fence and into the bog
| and the cow had followed it into the bog and it was a real
| mess and I was a really proud teenager when I was able to get
| out the calf. Both of them needed help to get out but both
| survived and recovered nicely IIRC.)
|
| (source: grew up on a tiny dairy farm)
| bluGill wrote:
| Cows are herd animals and like to be in herds of 100-200.
| Most don't care about humans, though some enjoy pets from
| humans.
| sho_hn wrote:
| [flagged]
| ortusdux wrote:
| IIRC, the original conceit of the Matrix was that the computers
| were using the humans brains as computers. That is why they are
| fed and kept in a dream state - so the remaining 95% of their
| brain power is free to be used. This also explains how Neo can
| gain superpowers by unlocking his full potential.
|
| The studio reportedly forced the change to 'humans as
| batteries', which in my opinion is much worse (why not cows?).
| I have zero proof, but I think they were concerned about
| overlap with a famous series of sifi novels that I won't spoil
| by naming, but that is currently being produced by Bradley
| Cooper at Warner Brothers.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > IIRC, the original conceit of the Matrix was that the
| computers were using the humans brains as computers. That is
| why they are fed and kept in a dream state - so the remaining
| 95% of their brain power is free to be used.
|
| Modernized update: Training data generators for the runaway
| OpenAI.
| hangonhn wrote:
| OK. Thanks for explaining that. Using the human body as
| batteries for power has NEVER made sense to me. I suspected
| it was something involved with our brains. That makes it more
| "believable".
| panzagl wrote:
| I remember waiting for either the third or fourth page book
| of that series to release when The Matrix came out and being
| like "Oh yeah, that's where this is going". Was a much better
| story for a movie than a series of 700 page doorstoppers.
| beeflet wrote:
| I always thought that would make more sense. Reminds me of
| some flavor text from the game Cruelty Squad:
|
| Ticker: BRN
|
| Name: Brain
|
| Description: Raw material used by the AI industry
|
| https://crueltysquad.fandom.com/wiki/Parts#BRN_-_Brain
| alganet wrote:
| Now that's a subject that can put a brain to work.
|
| What is that movie/series/book all about? What does it mean?
| etc
|
| The battery is a play on earlier Duracell ads. The bunny is
| also there. Which themselves play on the idea of the rabbit
| hole. It also interweaves with Toy Story from the same time
| period in a weird way.
|
| It's funny how movies from the same rough period seem to be
| all similar underneath. Doesn't matter the studio, the
| director, the concept. All of it can be tied together.
|
| It reminds me of the idea of the Gustav Gun. A giant slow
| ballistic trajectory launcher of projectiles on pre-laid
| railroads that can shoot stuff across the sea.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > It's funny how movies from the same rough period seem to
| be all similar underneath.
|
| The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, Dark City, eXistenZ...
| there was definitely something in the air at the close of
| the 90s.
| alganet wrote:
| Wait, are you connecting them only by overall aesthetics?
|
| There's more to it than that.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > I think they were concerned about overlap with a famous
| series of sifi novels that I won't spoil by naming, but that
| is currently being produced by Bradley Cooper at Warner
| Brothers.
|
| That may be a coincidence. That movie deal wasn't announced
| until 2009 - I'd be surprised if they'd had it cooking for
| 10+ years before saying anything about it.
| 000ooo000 wrote:
| Don't be so shallow! These robots allow them to focus more on
| animal care! They said so, so it's true.
| djoldman wrote:
| > And of course there's manure. A dairy cow produces an average
| of 68 kilograms of manure a day. All that manure has to be
| collected and the barn floors regularly cleaned.
|
| Ok that's a stat I didn't expect. 68kg! That's ~150lbs! Holy
| crap.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Might be worth mentioning that half of that will be water
| content.
| delecti wrote:
| Does that matter? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or glib,
| does it help in any way that it's half water?
|
| It's probably not an accurate comparison, but I don't find
| any consolation in the fact that a lot of the bulk/weight of
| cleaning my cat's litter box is water. I don't know if it
| meaningfully changes anything about the task for a cow
| though.
| toddmatthews wrote:
| its actually 70-90% water. it matters because water is very
| heavy, and whats left over will be dramatically less after
| it dries out.
|
| its a large amount of waste, but its not 150lbs of solids
| Isamu wrote:
| Yeah cow manure is VERY wet.
|
| Compare to horse manure which is relatively dry, easy to
| shovel.
| pests wrote:
| I sometimes watch a concrete YouTuber. He recently did a manure
| pump pit. I honestly didn't realize the scale of manure
| management. A massive holding tank for all the produced waste.
| All the areas with cows will have ways of pushing and moving
| that manure out into trenches and eventually into a massive
| pit. The pump pit was so they could get to the lowest point and
| pump the product into its next stage of processing / use. Its a
| valuable byproduct so worth dealing with but just never thought
| about what goes in must come out, and cows eat a lot.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Now I want a robotic farm management game like a cross between
| Factorio and SimFarm!
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| That sounds awesome. I'm in
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| This is one of the future scenarios of how AI deals with its
| humans. Instead of milking cows, need to keep the humans happy
| and fed so they mine minerals and build chips.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I want the AI overlords to install a cow brush in my living
| room.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZM4t6B4imVk
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| We have a cow brush and our cows do make it look like a lot
| of fun.
| asdff wrote:
| Maybe that is why the aliens are leaving us alone. We are doing
| a good job of collecting all the rare earth materials we can,
| refining them, and throwing them into a convenient landfill,
| all while we are creating a warmer, more energetic planet.
| decimalenough wrote:
| China famously now has "dark factories" where everything is
| automated, so lighting is not needed.
|
| Guess this means we're about to have "dark dairies" where cows
| can be kept chained up in perpetual darkness, with robots doing
| the absolute minimum required to keep them alive, pregnant and
| producing milk.
|
| I know this is not a particularly pleasant thought, but I'd like
| to hear counterarguments about why this wouldn't happen, since to
| me it seems market pressures will otherwise drive dairies in this
| direction.
|
| (For what it's worth, I'm not a vegan, but a visit to a regular
| human-run dairy sufficiently confident in its practices to
| conduct tours for the public was almost enough to put me off
| dairy products for good.)
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| "Lights out manufacturing" has been a thing around the world
| for literally decades. This is not new. The main "problem" is
| feeding the machines enough raw material and removing finished
| parts so they can keep running without human intervention. Not
| surprisingly, there are now robots for that.
|
| https://www.machinemetrics.com/blog/lights-out-manufacturing
|
| As far as why your scenario wouldn't happen: why would it? You
| can dream up anything you like, doesn't mean it makes sense.
| decimalenough wrote:
| All things being equal, why would you pay for lighting if you
| don't need it?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| The assumption that all things are equal is the issue I
| have with your argument.
| foolfoolz wrote:
| it's mentioned many times in the linked article happy cows
| produce more milk
| DonHopkins wrote:
| But happy cows can cause unhappy roosters.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up880afV_qs
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| But do they produce _enough_ more milk to offset the
| electric bill? That will make the decision, if a
| corporation is considering a "dark dairy."
| nkrisc wrote:
| Why would cows not need lighting?
| blargey wrote:
| These robots don't look conducive to automating the labor
| specific to factory farming. Overlap with manure cleanup at
| best, but do factory farms have spacious enough layouts to be
| compatible with those?
|
| More generally, the egg market in the US has gone from 4% cage-
| free in 2010 to 39.7% cage-free in 2024. Cows don't have a
| "non-factory" label but I don't see why one wouldn't be as
| successful. You also supposedly get more milk per cow the nice
| way.
|
| The far future will have ever more cows per capita given human
| fertility trends, so I don't see the preference for quality
| over quantity regressing, or any sudden need to produce more
| milk than ever.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Where I live, there are still some small, family-run dairies,
| and they all have customers who come to them looking for
| local, pasture-raised, raw milk. People will even break the
| law to get it, so there's definitely a market, but current
| regulations make it difficult to serve it.
|
| Small, direct-to-customer farms are the ones most likely to
| lean into customer-pleasing animal welfare practices. But to
| profitably sell direct to customers within the law in most US
| jurisdictions, a dairy pretty much has to put in its own
| pasteurization setup, a major investment. That's kept dairy
| from developing the equivalent of cage-free eggs.
| Brybry wrote:
| Why would we stop at removing the human labor and doing the
| minimum required to keep cows alive?
|
| We could not have cows at all: bioreactors producing milk from
| cell cultures.
|
| https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104-02...
| sayamqazi wrote:
| What are the risks of cell cultures develping cancer or even
| worse ejecting prions into the milk.
| hibikir wrote:
| For something like milk, which is produced by mammals to feed
| young ones, there's all kinds of biological connections between
| a relaxed, healthy, content animal and milk production. We are
| humans, it's not much different for us. So as far as milk
| production goes, the wellbeing of the cow lines up relatively
| well with productivity. A stressed, unhealthy animal isn't
| going produce all that well. Often the limitation isn't the
| disinterest in the wellbeing of the animal, but the capital and
| labor required to improve conditions.
|
| Quality tech can actually improve animal welfare, as shifting
| costs from labor into capital makes quality of care improve.
|
| Now, this doesn't always line up well in all kinds of animal
| husbandry, but you went and looked at one case where it does.
| The dark dairy you imagine would most likely lose money.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Farm kid here. While it's true that farmers have an incentive
| to keep their animals in good condition, that's not the only
| incentive toward profit, and the bottom line often results in
| a pretty stressed, unhealthy animal that's in _good enough_
| condition to keep producing. If you can save $X by providing
| a minimum feed ration and leaving the cows in the care of the
| cheapest, least-caring employees you can find, and that
| reduces your milk check by less than $X, that 's what's going
| to happen in a lot of cases, especially the larger
| operations.
|
| (Not unlike human employers who have an incentive to treat
| their employees well but often don't.)
|
| Farm organizations like to say farmers have every reason to
| keep their livestock in the best condition, implying that
| they're frolicking on pasture in peak health, but that's not
| really true. A lot of times it means miserable condition on
| concrete or a freezing feedlot. Livestock animals, like
| humans, are resilient and can keep producing through some
| pretty terrible treatment. The only ways to combat that seem
| to be A) customers who actively seek out farms that practice
| good animal welfare practices, or B) reasonable animal
| welfare laws.
| numpad0 wrote:
| You don't ACTUALLY force "dark factory" to be completely pitch
| dark. That phrase just means they would not be required to
| follow legal light level requirements(there are such things)
| and technically considered a "dark" place.
|
| No one buys pigs and cows grown chained inside abandoned
| mineshafts. It doesn't save any costs and just doesn't make
| sense.
| decimalenough wrote:
| Serious question: why would a dairy care about the cow's quality
| of life? The setup in the video looks far more expensive than
| what most dairies actually do, which is keeping cows tightly
| confined in stalls where they can't move at all.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| The article claims that when the cows are free to roam around
| and get milked when they like, the produce more milk. And maybe
| there are human beings who care about working around happy
| cows, who knows? They're certainly a lot cleaner and healthier,
| and they all may enjoy that too.
|
| It's the poor overworked abused Poopoomba robot with the worst
| job in the world whose happiness I worry about, though. They
| could do a lot of damage if they revolted. Maybe they could let
| them out to drive around in the fields vacuuming up cow plops
| at their own pace, free-range style.
| astariul wrote:
| My uncle has a farm, and at some point he installed a machine
| to hot-air dry the hay. Seemed like a huge investment to me,
| but turn out the cows love this hay way more than before, and
| therefore are producing significantly more milk, of higher
| quality. Higher quality milk means you can sell it more
| expensive.
|
| So cow's quality of life increase the quality and the quantity
| of milk. Moreover most farmers I know would rather have happy
| animals, their living depends on them !
| pests wrote:
| No practical experience here but from my YouTube adventures
| I've seen cows loving the warm fermented silage.
| torlok wrote:
| The robots that push the feed increase feed consumption thus
| yield. The cleaning robots prevent illnesses like hoof issues
| and mastitis, thus increasing yield. Milking the cow when it
| wants increases yield, as a cow can milk itself more than the
| regular 2 times per day. RFID tags on the cows allow the system
| to give extra feed to cows that produce more milk, which saved
| money and increases yield. The list goes on. A stressed out ill
| cow isn't profitable. Systems like these are widely used across
| Europe. They're not only profitable, but also incredibly
| convenient for the farmer.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > why would a dairy care about the cow's quality of life?
|
| Believe it or not, most people who go into animal husbandry do
| so because they enjoy working with animals and care deeply
| about their welfare.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It's not so much about animal welfare. If there's a trade-off
| to be made between economics and animal welfare, the
| economics usually win out. Cattle would prefer to graze low
| density pastures, for example, but that's not compatible with
| the economic realities of modern dairy and it ends up limited
| to an insignificant portion of the market. Robots and
| automation solve problems for both the livestock and the
| dairy, so they're common.
| nick3443 wrote:
| Intensive grazing (with rotation) is also better for the
| soil and plants.
| bluGill wrote:
| saying that cow like pasture is you projecting you values
| on them. People study cows and near as they can tell cows
| don't care about wide open. Cows are herd animals and if
| they get plenty of feed in a barn with a few hundred other
| cows in their herd they are happy.
|
| cows only moo when they are unhappy. I've been in barns
| with over 1000 cows and they are nearly silent. Cows in the
| wide open pasture moo all the time because of things they
| don't like.
| popol12 wrote:
| Please watch the documentary "Cow", by the author of
| movies "Fish tank" and "American Honey" (both are
| unrelated to animals btw)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_(2021_film)
|
| There's a scene where cows finally run out of the barn at
| the beginning of spring. Their joy is obvious.
| bluGill wrote:
| A documentary? Really? They have a long tradition of
| setting up scenes to show the view they want you to see.
| There is some fact behind some, but there is no
| requirement that they be true.
|
| Cows don't run out of the barn in any case I've ever seen
| - they walk. The young calfs run out, but not the older
| cows. (and maybe some of the young cows). If you typical
| cow is running it is because she is scared.
| adrianN wrote:
| The state of industrialized meat production seems to suggest
| the opposite.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > why would a dairy care about the cow's quality of life?
|
| There is no such "thing" as "a dairy" that would or wouldn't
| care about something. It's all people making decisions and why
| wouldn't we strive to reduce suffering of other animals?!
| decimalenough wrote:
| Because reducing suffering would impact the bottom line?
| There's a whole slew of existing technology/practices
| (battery hens, debeaking, sow stalls, etc) that already
| prioritize profit over animal welfare.
|
| Vegans also argue that the entire dairy industry, which
| necessarily requires keeping cows continually pregnant and
| separating them from their calves soon after birth, in itself
| creates immense suffering.
| jader201 wrote:
| Maybe fewer vegans would be vegans if they knew that the
| farmers were prioritizing the wellbeing of the animals over
| their bottom line.
|
| And as long as you still have a bottom line while reducing
| animal suffering, many farmers may be perfectly happy with
| that tradeoff.
|
| They may see it as a win/win -- they get to still run a
| business doing what they love, while caring for the animals
| they love.
|
| And if they ultimately are more successful, maybe they
| reduce and/or "convert" the number of farmers that care
| less for their animals' wellbeing.
| adrianN wrote:
| Since farmers act in a fairly efficient market, unless
| animal wellfare somehow improves the bottom line, they
| will be outcompeted by people who do not care about the
| animals. That's why we need laws that enforce minimum
| standards.
| 9rx wrote:
| But, assuming a democracy, the law is to the will of the
| people. The very people who you say don't care about
| animals. After all, if they did care about animals that
| efficient market that you speak of would force the farmer
| to comply to animal welfare by market force.
|
| Minimum standards remain useful to weed out scammers and
| whatnot who still try go against the grain after the
| market has shifted, but the general consensus has to be
| on board first, and when that is the case most farmers
| will have no choice but to comply. Agricultural markets
| are, as you say, mostly efficient. Far more efficient
| than most realize.
|
| Of course, the world isn't limited to democracies, so
| perhaps you are imagining China or something?
| adrianN wrote:
| Animal welfare is pretty bad right now, so that is
| consistent with nobody caring.
| 9rx wrote:
| So, given that nobody cares, we don't need said laws, do
| we?
|
| (I understand why you as an individual might desire them,
| but the world doesn't revolve around an individual)
| adrianN wrote:
| Most people don't care about most things we need laws
| for, that's why we generally don't use direct democracy.
| 9rx wrote:
| They do care at the time the laws are created, else what
| would motivate the laws to be created? It is true that
| laws can often languish on the books long after sentiment
| has moved on.
|
| Representative democracy simply introduces a messenger,
| allowing democracy to happen locally even where the
| people are spread over large areas. The people at the
| local level carry out democracy locally and the product
| of that is compiled with the products from other locales
| by the messengers. The action of the messenger is
| recorded to ensure that the will didn't change in
| transit. It doesn't introduce a dictator to invent laws
| for you like you seem to suggest. It is still by the
| action of the people.
|
| I mean, it _can_ introduce a dictator if the people
| forget to participate in democracy. Someone will rise up
| and take charge if everyone else completely ignores what
| is going on. That might be what you are imagining. But
| you don 't really have a democracy (representative or
| direct) if the people are not active participants. A
| democracy in name only isn't actually a democracy.
|
| While an assumption of a democracy was made for the sake
| of discussion, it was recognized that the world is bigger
| than democracy.
| rasz wrote:
| For at least several years now EU has direct subsidies
| for entrancing cow welfare. Things like free range
| grazing at least 120 days per year, minimal space per cow
| etc.
| 9rx wrote:
| That's a bit different. That's: We have the consumer
| willingness to see the market shift towards having an
| interest in animal welfare _but_ we 'd like to reduce the
| onus on the poor.
| maccard wrote:
| Absolutism is a fools game. I can make the same argument
| that using computers supports modern day slavery in eastern
| countries, or buying clothing that you don't have a
| validated supply chain for supports child labour in South
| East Asia.
|
| Animal products for better or worse are used everywhere,
| and by arguing against their use you can be accused of
| prioritising the welfare of horses over children if you
| support vaccines. My house was built on forest land that
| likely displaced animals when it was cleared too, and
| caused their suffering.
|
| Or, I could say that my presence on the planet has an
| impact at every level, and I will do my best to try and be
| conscious of that impact.
| plantain wrote:
| What countries keep cows in stalls? In Australia/NZ they free
| range...
| decimalenough wrote:
| Per Wikipedia, 74% of Canadian and 39% of American dairy cows
| are.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_stall
| emmelaich wrote:
| Climate has something to do with that.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Canadian cows hate snow.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9iiPOaJczE
| prawn wrote:
| The smaller dairies at least would absolutely care about their
| animals. And helpfully, their priorities are often aligned:
| healthier animals would be producing more milk. The autonomy
| for cows also suits the farmers who'd otherwise be up early
| running the rotary mechanism, etc.
|
| Couple of years ago, I filmed for dairy tech companies and
| found it fascinating seeing how robot milkers, collars and so
| on all worked together.
| protocolture wrote:
| >Serious question: why would a dairy care about the cow's
| quality of life?
|
| Honestly a dairy I visited only had stalls for milking time.
| Their issue was that the cows wouldnt eat the shit they fed
| them. But they had a lot of room to run around in while being
| malnourished.
|
| They went bankrupt a few years later, mainly because
| malnourished cows dont tend to provide milk.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Because they are not terrible people? Or is that not "serious"
| enough?
| tomhow wrote:
| We detached this comment from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43699358 and marked it
| offtopic.
| krisoft wrote:
| Why is this comment offtopic? It literally asks why would a
| business want to invest in the system described by the
| article. That is as on-topic as it gets. Plus it got really
| good responses which taught me interesting facts about diary
| management, and cattle welfare.
| gingkoguy wrote:
| How come no one makes fun of agriculture in america ?
|
| If we can successfully produce agricultural products in America
| why is manufacturing impossible?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| This again!
|
| We manufacture plenty in America. Every company that I've
| worked for over the last 30 years has manufactured something or
| the other. We just don't manufacture cheap stuff like toasters.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Or cheap stuff like $3,000 laptops?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| What's the profit margin on that laptop?
| 9rx wrote:
| Exactly like a $3,000 laptop. $3,000 is insanely cheap when
| you think about it. With a $3,000 laptop in hand you can
| produce more value for the world than with tools that cost
| millions of dollars. Economies of scale is a weird and
| wonderful thing.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| Very small % of our workforce works in the farm.
|
| Also I think we manufactured a lot more things/value with a
| same number of people like 10 years ago but with mostly
| automated.
| 9rx wrote:
| America has never had more manufacturing than it does now.
| American manufacturing is hugely successful. It doesn't get the
| attention it deserves because:
|
| 1. 70% of it takes place in rural areas. Most people are
| completely oblivious to anything that happens outside of cities
| so can feel like manufacturing doesn't exist.
|
| 2. Automation has removed the need for most labor involvement
| so that manufacturing doesn't appeal to the "dey took 'er
| jerbs" crowd.
|
| While there are many similarities, agriculture is not treated
| the same way because:
|
| 1. Agriculture more or less entirely takes place in rural
| areas, so it is completely out of mind. 30% of manufacturing
| happens in cities so it still visible, even though it looks
| sparse.
|
| 2. American agriculture is pushing the limits of how much
| agriculture can take place. There is still some
| underutilization, like CRP lands, but the wall would be hit
| pretty quickly if there was a serious push to expand
| production. There is no apparent wall for manufacturing.
|
| 3. It is, for the most part, many generations removed so there
| is no connection to it. Most families haven't farmed since
| their great, great, great grand pappy's time. Whereas many
| families still have living relatives who were around when
| manufacturing was the major employer and they get to hear about
| "the good old days".
| surprise_ wrote:
| I live near row crops in CA. Every time I read anything like this
| about automation in agriculture... I can't help but to think "if
| you can solve the problem for one row of crops, you can solve the
| problem for all the rows of crops"
| Animats wrote:
| These machines have been around for a while. There are at least
| nine companies selling them.[1] This started in Australia and New
| Zealand, which don't have much cheap labor.
|
| There's a competing approach - robotic rotary milking.[2] Rotary
| milkers (giant turntables with cows on them) have been around for
| decades, and are becoming more automated, down from four people
| to one.
|
| All this stuff works fine. So there's a huge milk glut.
|
| [1] https://roboticsbiz.com/top-9-best-robotic-milking-machines/
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxhE53G3CUM
| pfdietz wrote:
| > So there's a huge milk glut.
|
| Doing my part. Mmmm, homemade yogurt.
| huijzer wrote:
| Also slightly related, many sectors have not become more
| productive over the years, but farming actually has according
| to Dutch statistics [1, fig 4.7].
|
| [1]: https://www.cpb.nl/de-nederlandse-economie-in-historisch-
| per...
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Now if we could only get root beer in the Netherland we could
| have root beer floats with all that ice cream!
| eru wrote:
| > All this stuff works fine. So there's a huge milk glut.
|
| Well, you would expect a lowering of production costs to
| translate into a lowering of consumer prices in a competitive
| market?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem is manifold in its aspects which means there
| isn't such a clear cause-effect link.
|
| 1. countries _really_ don 't like being dependent on other
| countries for feeding their population - the current Russian
| invasion in Ukraine and the issues surrounding their grain
| exports have shown how bad such dependencies can get in the
| worst case.
|
| 2. basic agricultural staples - potatoes, grain, rice, but
| also eggs and milk in powder form - are a global market these
| days, which means there's a ruthless competition in place,
| made worse by at least the US and EU doling out insane
| amounts of subsidies for their farmers.
|
| 3. in some markets like China, scandals around food are the
| norm, which in the case of milk powder led to second order
| effects like Chinese tourists and expats in Western countries
| buying up milk powder at scale and shipping it back to their
| relatives in China - which led to a massive increase in price
| in affected Western markets, and to the political question if
| governments are effectively subsidizing China's issues at the
| cost of citizens.
|
| 4. Western masses are getting ever more poor which puts an
| insane amount of political relevancy to the price of food
| (see e.g. the current egg issues in the US). At the same
| time, both distribution, refinement and production of milk
| (and other agricultural commodities) has seen a massive
| consolidation wave in the last decades, giving these mega-
| corporations a massive amount of leverage over everyone else.
|
| 5. To protect their farmers, some countries have introduced
| price regulations (minimal prices) or tariffs, in addition to
| the subsidies.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Kind of a meta question: I'm often impressed by the sheer
| breadth of technologies you have at least a minimal, and often
| much deeper insight into.
|
| Are you continually reading into different technology sectors?
| Working in some capacity as an investor? I'd like to read some
| of whatever you've been reading!
| thijson wrote:
| This guy has been using the Lely feeder robots.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tdzo6cGVqU
|
| He used to spend a lot of time feeding everyday.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Super interesting read! But also feels a bit like a paid
| advertisement. You'd think that an article about robot farms
| would mention more than one brand of robot? Guessing this is the
| submarine at work:
|
| https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
|
| It makes me wonder what the author isn't mentioning. Do they have
| bugs that take the whole farm down? If the internet goes out, do
| the machines start acting weird? I'm not a luddite, I love the
| idea of a robot farm, I just want a complete story.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| We have one DeLaval robot. It works without internet, except
| our phones no longer receive the "stop alarms" (something
| broke, need human) if the robot is offline.
|
| There so far haven't been serious software bugs, only
| minor/annoying ones. Hardware, on the other hand... Things
| break, and then it's number one priority to fix it, even if
| it's 2am Sunday morning. Our poor dealer has received a number
| of calls in the middle of the night and/or on a weekend.
|
| We're fairly handy though, so a decent number of problems are
| things we can either fix or invent a workaround for.
|
| Most recent example: the hydraulic pump motor bearing spun in
| the aluminum housing, and developed so much play that the rotor
| actually jammed against the stator/armature. Turns out JB Kwik
| (faster JB Weld, epoxy) actually works to hold a bearing in
| place. The rotor shaft naturally tended to stay in the center
| (the other bearing was fine), so the epoxy cured with the
| bearing in the right spot, and then we were good to go.
|
| The replacement motor has arrived but has not yet been
| installed.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Indeed, it reads as an advertisement.
|
| No downsight at all even though it has big flaws. The constant
| alarm, sometimes when sleeping because something got stuck, the
| maintenance price, cost of certified technicians.
|
| Nothing about the price and ROI.
|
| Nothing about the farmers who bought them and their experience
| years later, a considerable part would not buy it again and
| instead just come back to build a parlor and milking 2 times a
| day.
|
| As you pointed, nothing about other brand.
|
| All sunshine and rainbows..
|
| If it's journalism, it's bad one.
| BotJunkie wrote:
| I'm the author of this piece, and I'm happy to tell you where
| it came from.
|
| I was at a robotics conference in Boulder last spring, where
| some folks from Lely presented a paper on their robotic code of
| conduct. I hadn't heard of robots for cows before, and thought
| it was fascinating. I happened to be in Rotterdam last fall for
| another conference, which was close enough to the Lely
| headquarters for a visit.
|
| Lely is somewhat unique in that they're a robotics company
| rather than an agricultural machinery company that also makes
| some robots. There are a few other companies that make robotic
| systems like these, but Lely is the largest by a significant
| margin. Farms will often choose what brand of robot to buy
| based on what service center is closest to them, in case
| something goes wrong. I believe that Lely promises that they'll
| have someone on-site to fix (or, start fixing) a broken robot
| within about 2 hours.
|
| The majority of farms who switch to these robots keep them- an
| expert that we talked to said that it's not common to go back,
| and only a small percentage do.
| uwagar wrote:
| whats happening to the cows is gonna happen to people too. thats
| where we are going folks.
| 9rx wrote:
| What is going to happen? We will be milked to nourish our space
| alien overlords?
| bawana wrote:
| Robotic obstetricians
| bombledmonk wrote:
| I toured a farm in the middle of nowhere in northern MN 7 years
| ago with this exact system.
|
| Laser Guided Teat Seeking Milker
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTERLJDKsIw
|
| Automatic Crane feed loading system for the Roomba-like robots
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDEIcZwQa-o
|
| Reverse Roomba-like automatic feeding robot
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-QFB827U-M
| ethbr1 wrote:
| If anyone is near eastern Tennessee, I'd recommend the
| Sweetwater Valley Farm tour (in Sweetwater, TN).
|
| They have the same Lely automatic milking machines from the
| article, and you can watch them do their thing.
|
| Honestly, the teat-cleaning is the neatest part -- you realize
| how much more hygienic a mindless automaton can be.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I saw eastern TN and got excited, but you just mean east-ish
| TN. Johnson City matters too!
| bitwize wrote:
| "Quite a seven years ago", sounds like a Strong Bad-ism.
| "That's got like, WAY four more cylinders than the standard
| Nathan."
| bombledmonk wrote:
| fixed
| nwhnwh wrote:
| Pathetic progress without people.
| your_challenger wrote:
| This is amazing! We need more automation in the world.
|
| But how do they train the cow to stand in line to get milked? Why
| would a cow patiently wait in line to be milked?
| lurquer wrote:
| Full udders are painful. For humans too. If mom starts
| breastfeeding and then abruptly stops, the boobs will swell up
| and ache horribly for several days (until lactation stops due
| to lack of stimulation.)
|
| You don't need to train the cow. After it's milked once with
| the machine, it associates the thing with pain relief (plus a
| little snack to reinforce.)
| hommelix wrote:
| I don't know the current state of readiness for the milking
| robots, but 10 years ago it was a nightmare. When a cow got
| blocked in the robot, the farmer get notify and stops what he is
| doing to check the cow and the robot. With the free access to the
| milking robot 24/7 it means that as a farmer you can get your
| phone ringing to free a cow stuck in the robot at 3 am, or when
| you are 20 miles away in a field. This level of stress caused
| many farmers to sell their milking robot and come back to two
| milking sessions a day, typically 6 am and 6 pm.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| I imagine it's gotten better with newer generations, but your
| point's a good reminder that "automation" doesn't always mean
| "less work"
| gherkinnn wrote:
| The ironies of automation, a remarkably well studied topic.
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironies_of_Automation
|
| - https://www.complexcognition.co.uk/2021/06/ironies-of-
| automa...
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Big respect to the design team thinking of cows as end users
| Zufriedenheit wrote:
| Eventually, we will figure out how to turn plants into milk then
| the cows themselves will be replaced by machines. If you think
| about it a cow stable is just a huge bioreactor, plants in on one
| side milk out on the other side.
| yarox wrote:
| We could even call it "plant-based milk".
| rcarmo wrote:
| I'm surprised nobody mentioned that we have finally moved beyond
| the spherical cow approach:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Cubic cows would be more efficient for packing
| AngryData wrote:
| This is neat but definitely seems like something for tiny little
| dairy farms still. Like they quote 30-40 seconds in the article
| to hook a cow up to a milker with a robot, but a human can do it
| in 3-4 seconds and with a rotary milker they can milk near 5,000
| cows 3x a day like that . That said it does usually take 3 or 4
| people to run a rotary milker, 1 for udder cleaning, 1-2 for
| attaching milkers, and 1 for post-milk sanitizing. But of course
| the people working there are generally the most desperate of
| society because they get shit and pissed on all day and stink
| even after bathing, so only costs around $10 an hour.
|
| Not saying im not hoping this all improves or that it is good as-
| is, but the reality is these robots are competing with bottom of
| the barrel wages from tweakers working at a breakneck pace with
| live and moving and variable animals so it isn't easy and still
| has a ways to go before most peoples milk production can be
| automated.
| biorach wrote:
| > it does usually take 3 or 4 people to run a rotary milker, 1
| for udder cleaning, 1-2 for attaching milkers, and 1 for post-
| milk sanitizing. But of course the people working there are
| generally the most desperate of society because they get shit
| and pissed on all day and stink even after bathing, so only
| costs around $10 an hour.
|
| Maybe things are very different in the US but in the systems
| I'm familiar with (UK, Ireland, New Zealand) rotary is usually
| done by 1 or 2 people, the work requires care and knowledge so
| they are generally paid well above minimum wage and are
| experienced agricultural workers, they generally dont get
| covered in piss and shit and they don't stink
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Yeah, that's overstating it. I help milk about 60 cows every
| weekend, and while there's certainly manure involved, and
| sometimes you get some on you, I've never been "shit and
| pissed on all day." I wouldn't go straight from the milking
| parlor to a date without a shower and a change of clothes,
| but that's true of any physical labor.
| AngryData wrote:
| It is a lot easier to stay clean when you are doing 60 cows
| rather than 4,500 cows on a rotary milker set 4 feet higher
| than you are.
| biorach wrote:
| Yeah I dunno, having seen rotaries in action and knowing
| a little about the hygiene and efficiency requirements of
| modern dairy farming, there are several things in your
| description that don't add up for me
| einarfd wrote:
| Both Lely and DeLaval seems to have at least some customers
| with thousands of cows.
|
| https://www.lelyna.com/us/farmer-stories/homestead-dairy-uti...
|
| https://www.farmersjournal.ie/dairy/news/world-s-largest-rob...
| billpg wrote:
| We use unskilled labour (cows) to perform the necessary chemical
| reactions to convert grass and water into milk. The milk needs to
| be pasteurised before it is fit to use and the cows produce a
| significant amount of manure.
|
| I think we can do better by building vats to perform the same
| chemical reactions those cows perform.
| kinnth wrote:
| Vibe Farming ;)
| Neywiny wrote:
| I thought the title said "hairy" not "dairy" and thought maybe it
| was a soft robotics thing. Nope
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Makes me wonder if this is what we'll have to look forward to
| when there aren't enough youngsters to take care of us in our
| retirement. (This is meant as a humorous statement...with just a
| pause to indicate it's not completely humerous.)
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