Catherwood LibraryILR School

Due to high operation costs and price fluctuations for milk and feed, it has been easier for large-scale dairy farms to stay in business as they can spread production costs over large herds, such as 15,000-20,000 cows at farms in the West and Southwest. Small scale operations in the Northeast and Midwest, such as the Tullando farm with their 480 cows in New Hampshire, are finding automation and high tech advances necessary in order to reduce labor costs as well as fight the problem of finding labor to begin with. Farms often are unable to compete with wages offered elsewhere. Milking robots, such as the Astronauts developed by Dutch company Lely, help small dairy farm stay efficient in troubled economic times; one robot can replace four full-time employees. Four years ago, the demand for U.S. milk dried up in Europe as a quota limiting the amount of milk European farms could produce was removed; at the same time, milk drinking had decreased in the U.S population, leading to a disruption in the three year cycle of price and demand fluctuations that dairy farmers had come to rely on and creating a milk glut where in some cases, unused milk had been dumped. Trump's recent trade deal with Canada and Mexico will open up new avenues for U.S. dairy farmers in Canada, but it increasingly appears that automation will reduce human capital concerns and expenses for struggling dairy farmers, even if the initial cost for automation is high. Currently 4.5% of U.S. dairy farms are using robotic milkers.