Digital Dairy: Robotic Milk Production Takes Over

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/dairy-farming-in-europe-effiency-paramount-as-eu-quotas-expire-a-954750.html



Smaller dairy farms in Germany are rapidly disappearing, and with EU quotas on milk production set to expire next year, the process is likely to accelerate. The only way to survive is to turn cows into machines and keep them away from the meadow.

Digital Dairy: Robotic Milk Production Takes Over
By Jonathan Stock and Takis Würger
February 21, 2014 – 04:41 PM

~snip~

In 2015, the notorious quota system for milk is going to be abolished. For the last 30 years, the system regulated precisely how much milk each farmer was allowed to produce. But as of next year, dairy farming is to be liberalized, with every farmer free to turn out as much of the stuff as he or she would like. The consequences are not difficult to predict: Dairy farms will become bigger and more industrial and the price of milk, already lower than it should be, will fall further. Farmers like Nielsen might as well give up.

A Gigantic Machine

Things have already gotten more difficult. A large dairy on the mainland cancelled its contract with him a few years ago saying that Nielsen, with his relatively small herd of 36 cows, didn't produce enough milk to justify the cost of transportation. Since then, he has only sold his product on Sylt. Sometimes, tourists drop by to sample his milk; they pat him on the back and tell him it tastes like it used to back in the old days. But it's hardly enough to base a business on. A liter of milk costs around €1.20 ($1.64) on Sylt -- many people think that is too much.

Nielsen and his one-man-show are part of the second largest foodstuff sector in Germany, trailing only meat production. Some 80,000 operations in the country produce 30 billion liters (7.9 billion gallons) of milk each year. The milk industry is like a gigantic machine, pumping its snow-white product onto the shelves of discount supermarkets. A one-liter carton often costs just 50 cents, hardly more than mineral water. The machine could never function as it does were it supplied only by farmers like Nielsen. But how does it work?

An answer to that question can be found in Bissendorf, a town in northwestern Germany. There, one finds Ulrich Westrup with his huge stall, subsidized by the European Union. Westrup's face is ruddy and he has just returned from a study trip to Africa. "Ethiopia has potential," he says. "Two rainy seasons, high plains and fertile soil. But," he says after a pause, "they still use wooden plows pulled by oxen. No efficiency."