Denison dairy farmer and Herd Improvement Co-operative Australia chairman Ross Anderson, spoke at last week’s Herd ’19 event in Bendigo to discuss the beneficial improvements technology has made on his farm.
“I have been involved in dairy my whole life and farm with my parents and two young children,” Ross said.
The family have been breeding crossbred cows for 30 years.
A new dairy operation was formed in 2009, with the Andersons introducing technology such as automated feeding, automated drafting, automatic teat spraying and heat detection collars.
“I was keen to introduce this technology for a long time as I knew we needed it,” Ross said. “It has been the best thing to happen to our dairy farm and has significantly improved our efficiency.”
Ross said despite the operation not having a significant problem with heat detection, the heat detection technology was introduced to save on labour.
He acknowledged that dairy farmers had always been innovators, but said some farmers resisted change due to a fear of the word.
“Technology is all around us — nearly all of us carry a smart phone,” Ross said.
“My father’s generation couldn’t leave the farm due to lack of communication — but now we can easily call a worker and show them how to fix a problem on our farm.”
Ross said it was vital to educate and upskill staff.
“Each time we invest on our farm, we reap a return on investment,” he said.
“There is a lot of herd improvement technology out there, such as herd data apps, virtual fencing and genomics which is still being under-­utilised.”