ICT in the Dairy Farming System

Dairy farming systems probably are the most complex of the agricultural production systems. In most other systems, involving plants and beef cattle, inputs and outputs occur a few times per year and they relate to one or two products. In contrast, the dairy system is one in which inputs and outputs are continuous: e.g. milk, births, deaths, sales or purchases of animals, feed and labor costs. The outputs of the dairy system are varied, milk, meat and surplus animals. They are the outputs of individual cows, the cost of which makes them individual production units that vary in performance. Maximizing revenue requires continuous decision making at both individual cows and herd levels, which can only be properly carried out on the basis of data evaluation, if one excludes situations in which freedom of choice is limited. This system internalized a wide range of sophisticated hardware and software, which required a large investment. The presence of such investments indicates that response to information flow is greater in the dairy farming system than in other components of the agricultural sector. By Berman A., Department Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew University (PDF).

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Contributor: Denise Senmartin
Published Date: July 20, 2005