On These Dairy Farms, Cows Decide When to Be Milked
April 28, 2014
EASTON, N.Y. — Something strange is happening at farms in upstate New York. The cows are milking themselves.
Desperate for reliable
labor and buoyed by soaring prices, dairy operations across the state
are charging into a brave new world of udder care: robotic milkers,
which feed and milk cow after cow without ever touching one with a human
hand.
Scores of the machines have
popped up across New York’s dairy belt and in other states in recent
years, changing age-old patterns of daily farm life and reinvigorating
the allure of agriculture for a younger, tech-savvy — and manure-averse —
generation.
“We’re used to computers
and stuff, and it’s more in line with that,” said Mike Borden, 29, a
seventh-generation dairyman, whose farm upgraded to robots, as others
did, when disco-era milking parlors — the big, mechanized turntables
that farmers use to milk many cows at once — started showing their age.
“And,” Mr. Borden added, “it’s a lot more fun than doing manual labor.”
The view is improved as
well. “Most milking parlors, you see, you really only see the back end
of the cow,” Mr. Borden’s father, Tom, said. “I don’t see that as
building up much of a relationship.”
The cows seem to like it, too.
Robots allow the cows to
set their own hours, lining up for automated milking five or six times a
day — turning the predawn and late-afternoon sessions around which
dairy farmers long built their lives into a thing of the past.
With transponders around
their necks, the cows get individualized service. Lasers scan and map
their underbellies, and a computer charts each animal’s “milking speed,”
a critical factor in a 24-hour-a-day operation.
The robots also monitor the
amount and quality of milk produced, the frequency of visits to the
machine, how much each cow has eaten, and even the number of steps each
cow has taken per day, which can indicate when she is in heat.
“The animals just walk
through,” said Jay Skellie, a dairyman from Salem, N.Y., after watching a
demonstration. “I think we’ve got to look real hard at robots.”
Many of those running small
farms said the choice of a computerized milker came down to a bigger
question: whether to upgrade or just give up.
“Either we were going to
get out, we were going to get bigger, or we were going to try something
different,” said the elder Mr. Borden, 59, whose family has been working
a patch of ground about 30 miles northeast of Albany since 1837. “And
this was something a little different.”
The Bordens and other
farmers say a major force is cutting labor costs — health insurance,
room and board, overtime, and workers’ compensation insurance —
particularly when immigration reform is stalled in Washington and
dependable help is hard to procure.
The machines also never complain about getting up early, working late or being kicked.
“It’s tough to find people
to do it well and show up on time,” said Tim Kurtz, who installed four
robotic milkers last year at his farm in Berks County, Pa. “And you
don’t have to worry about that with a robot.”
The Bordens say the machines allow them to do more of what they love: caring for animals.
“I’d rather be a cow manager,” Tom Borden said, “than a people manager.”
The machines are not
inexpensive, costing up to $250,000 (not including barn improvements)
for a unit that includes a mechanical arm, teat-cleaning equipment,
computerized displays, a milking apparatus and sensors to detect the
position of the teats. Pioneered in Europe in the 1990s, they have only
recently taken hold in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New York, which is a
leader in the production of Greek yogurt and the third-largest milk producer in the country.
Kathy Barrett, a senior extension associate
at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University,
credited a recent surge in milk prices with motivating dairy owners to
seek new ways to improve their farms — and farm life.
“It’s really the flexibility of not stopping doing hay because at 3 o’clock you have to go milk,” Ms. Barrett said.
Ms. Barrett said about 30 farms in New York had installed more than 100 robotic milkers. Two European manufacturers, Lely and DeLaval,
said they had installed hundreds more across the country. California,
the nation’s leading dairy producer, has been a curious holdout, in part
because there were problems at some farms that adopted the technology
in its early years.
The president of Western
United Dairymen, Tom Barcellos, who milks some 1,300 cattle at his
operation in Tulare County, Calif., said he was intrigued by the robots
but worried that they would be too slow to keep up with the needs of a
large herd.
“They just don’t milk enough cows to be economical,” Mr. Barcellos said. “You might milk 40 cows an hour. We can do 80.”
But farmers said output
generally increased with robots because most cows like being milked more
often. (To allow lactation, cows are kept in a near-constant state of
impregnation.)
Animal welfare advocates
give the new machines a guarded thumbs-up. “Not being milked hurts,”
said Paul Shapiro, a vice president of the Humane Society of the United
States. He said letting cows move more freely was also an improvement on
older methods that involved tying cows to stanchions.
The machines have mellowed
both the cows and much of the routine on the Bordens’ farm — though the
humans have received the occasional distress call from their mechanized
milkers.
“It’s a machine, so it breaks down,” Mike Borden said. “But people get sick, too.”
All of which has the Bordens considering more robots, and dreaming of the perquisites that enhanced automation could bring.
“I don’t think I’m ever
going to sleep in real late,” Tom Borden said. “But if we could roll it
back another hour, that would be great.”
擠奶機械人，美國奶牛的「新歡」
2014年04月28日
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times
紐約阿爾巴尼的一座農場旁的擠奶機械人。紐約州內各地的奶場正大量採用擠奶機械人，邁向照看奶牛的美麗新世界。
紐約州伊斯頓——紐約州北部的農場里，發生了奇怪的事情。奶牛們在自動擠奶。
由於可靠的勞動力奇缺，而且奶價飛漲，州內各地的奶場正大量採用擠奶機械人，邁向照看奶牛的美麗新世界。無需人類動手，這些機械人就能給奶牛挨個餵食和擠奶。
近年來，有上百台這樣的機器在紐約州的乳製品地帶和其他一些州湧現。它們正在改變歷史悠久的農場日常生活的面貌，並且重新激起了農業對熟悉技術——且不喜歡糞肥——的年輕世代的吸引力。
今年29歲的麥克·博登(Mike
Borden)是第七代奶場主。「我們熟悉電腦之類的東西，擠奶機械人跟那些更像是一脈相承的。」當迪斯科年代的擠奶間開始顯露出過時的跡象時，他家的奶
場也和別家一樣，升級採用了擠奶機械人。擠奶間是大型的機械化旋轉平台，能讓奶農同時給許多奶牛擠奶。
「而且，這比人工勞動要有意思多了，」博登還說。
視野也有所改善。「你瞧，多數的擠奶間真的只能看到奶牛的屁股，」博登的父親湯姆(Tom)說。「我覺得那樣沒法建立多少情感紐帶。」
奶牛們似乎也喜歡這種機器。
擠奶機械人能讓奶牛自行安排時間，每天排隊自動擠五六次。這樣，奶農們就不必再像長期習慣的那樣，起早貪黑地擠奶了。
奶牛脖子上系著應答器，從而獲得個性化的服務。激光掃描並探測它們的下腹部，電腦繪出每頭奶牛的「出奶速度」圖表。對每天24小時不間斷的奶場而言，這一速度是關鍵因素。
機械人還會監測牛奶的產量和質量、奶牛來這裡擠奶的頻次、每頭牛的食量，乃至每頭牛每天行走的步數。最後這個指標能顯示出奶牛的發情期。
來自紐約州塞勒姆的奶場主傑伊·斯凱利(Jay Skellie)看完示範後表示，「只需要讓牛走一圈就行了。我覺得我們得好好研究一下機械人。」
許多經營小型奶場的人認為，是否採用電腦化擠奶機器的問題，可以歸結於一個更宏大的問題：是升級換代，還是乾脆放棄？
「要麼我們不幹了，要麼擴大規模，要麼做些新的嘗試，」今年59歲的老博登說。從1837年起，他的家族就在奧爾巴尼東北30英里（約合50公里）處的這片土地勞作了。「這屬於一點新的嘗試。」
博登父子等奶場主表示，這背後的一大動力是削減勞動力成本——醫保、食宿、加班費，以及員工的工傷險——尤其是目前華盛頓的移民改革陷入停滯，而可靠的幫手又難以招募。
而且，機器從不抱怨早起，或是被粗暴對待。
蒂姆·庫爾茨(Tim Kurtz)去年在賓夕法尼亞州伯克縣的自家農場里，安裝了四台擠奶機械人。他說，「很難找到活幹得好又準時開工的人。機械人的話，就不必擔心這些了。」
博登父子稱，機器讓他們騰出更多的精力來做喜歡的事情：照顧奶牛。
「比起管理人，我更喜歡管理奶牛，」湯姆·博登說。
擠奶機械人花費不菲，一台的價格高達25萬美元（約合
160萬元人民幣），還不包含牛欄改造的費用。每台機械人包含一條機械臂、乳頭清潔設備、幾塊電子顯示屏、一套擠奶器具，以及數個探測乳頭位置的感應器。
這種機器首先於上世紀90年代在歐洲試水，最近才在賓夕法尼亞、威斯康星和紐約三州流行開來。紐約州的希臘酸奶產量高居全美榜首，牛奶產量則位居第三。
康奈爾大學(Cornell University)農業與生命科學院的高級推廣教育助理凱茜·巴雷特(Kathy Barrett)認為，近期的奶製品價格飆升激勵奶場主尋求新的途徑來改進自己的農場——並改善務農的生活。
「的確是由於它帶來的靈活性，不用再因為得去擠奶，就在3點鐘時把料理乾草的活停下來了，」巴雷特說。
巴雷特表示，紐約州30座左右的奶場安裝了100多台擠奶機械人。歐洲生產商Lely和DeLaval稱，在全美各地另外安裝了數百台。奇怪的是，全國乳製品產量最大的加利福尼亞州動作滯後，部分原因在於，早期採用了這項技術的一些農場出了問題。
西部乳業聯合會(Western United Dairymen)會長湯姆·巴塞洛斯(Tom Barcellos)在加州圖萊里縣的自家農場養了1300頭牛。他表示對機械人很好奇，但擔心它們動作太慢，不能適應大群奶牛的需求。
「它們不能給足夠多的奶牛擠奶，不划算，」巴塞洛斯說。「你們每小時可能會給40頭奶牛擠奶，我們可以做到80頭。」
不過，奶場主們表示，使用機械人後，產量基本上都有所增加，因為大多數奶牛喜歡更加頻繁地擠奶。（為了使奶牛分泌乳汁，奶農們使奶牛幾乎一直保持在懷孕狀態。）
動物維權人士謹慎地對這種新機器表示歡迎。美國人道協會
(Humane Society of the United States)副會長保羅·夏皮羅(Paul
Shapiro)說，「奶不擠出來會很疼。」他還表示，讓奶牛更加自由地走動也是一種進步，因為舊方法需要將奶牛綁到柱子上。
這些機器已能嫻熟地配合奶牛和博登奶場的大部分常規工作，儘管人們偶爾也會收到擠奶機器發出的求救信號。
「它是一台機器，所以會出故障，」麥克·博登說。「不過人也會生病。」
所有這些，讓博登父子考慮購買更多台擠奶機械人，想像這種經過改善的自動化裝置能夠帶來的種種便利。
「我覺得，我肯定不會太晚起床，」湯姆·博登說。「但如果我們能再多睡一個小時，那就太好了。
翻譯：黃錚、許欣
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