Photos: Lely celebrates installation of 50,000th Astronaut worldwide – Agriland.ie

Lely celebrated the launch of its 50,000th Astronaut milking robot, installed worldwide, today (Friday, June 28) in Northern Ireland.

The Cargill family at Hollybank Farm in Co. Antrim are installing four Lely robots to replace an 18-point swingover parlour.

Gijs Scholman, Lely chief commercial officer (CCO), travelled to Northern Ireland to highlight the role the company has played in dairy farming over 75 years.

According to Lely since its commercial introduction in 1995, its Astronaut milking robot has “revolutionised dairy farming worldwide”, with the robots milking over 2,500,000 cows daily in over 50 countries.

Scholman said today that Lely’s goal is to “minimise human interference” and he believes the company is set to grow further.

“We currently have three million cows getting milked on Lely robots and with 60 million cows across those 50 countries – that’s only 5% of the total market and we want the remaining 95%,” he said.

He also highlighted that Lely wants to “change the lives of farmers”, by minimising workloads which Scholman believes will help farmers avoid back and shoulder problems in the future and also contribute to a better lifestyle.

Today in Northern Ireland he described the Lely robot as “a game changer” because the data collected by its sensors is processed by algorithms which in turn can provide advice to farmers to help improve fertility, health and production.

“The Lely robot is only 50% of the operation, the other 50% is down to the farmer, as behind every robot there is a farmer with their own unique story,” Scholman added.

Lely Astronaut

One of the recipients of the 50,000th Astronaut milking robot, Stephen Cargill, who is in a farm partnership with his son, David, spoke today of when he first bought the family farm and of his mindset to “do it in a modern way, to save labour”.

He highlighted how he and his son, who has an engineering degree, have designed their farm operation by collaborating both “an engineering and farming mind” to allow for future growth and efficiency.

David Cargill also discussed how he wanted to apply his engineering knowledge to to streamline processes on farm, to be more efficient, to cut activities and to be more sustainable.

They are currently milking their 180 cows, three times a day through an 18 unit milking parlour and decided to go with four new lely robots to cut their labour down.

They had put the parlour in three years ago but after installing a Lely vector, automatic feeding system, were very pleased with the investment.

They said the Lely vector has cut out three labour units and has been a game changer as it keeps a consistent mix in front of the cows, allowing the cows to receive 26kg dry matter.