Lely internationally founded the Red Cow Community in 2017, to recognise dairy farmers who are using at least eight of their robot milking units and milking 500 cows, at a minimum.
Australian dairy farmers were recently recognised, in Gippsland, Victoria, at Lely Australia’s Connect, Care and Grow conference in late July.
The first Lely robot milking units installed in Australia were on a Gippsland dairy farm, in 2001.
On this farm, 300 cows were milked through four Lely Astronaut A2 milking robots on a pasture grazing system.
Eventually those robots were on-sold, and installed on a Tasmanian dairy farm, where they are still working.
Gaining the Red Cow award brings Australian dairy farmers into a community that includes farmers across Canada, Argentina, Belarus, Italy, Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Lely Oceania cluster manager Wil van Vorstenbosch said the Red Cow Community enabled dairy farmers to network with others who were also managing large dairy farms, to discuss common challenges and learn about each others’ systems.
“We at Lely care about our farmers,” Wil said.
“We aim to grow together with our dairy farmers to achieve continuous improvement.”
The Australian dairy farmers who have now joined the Red Cow community are a mix of owners and sharefarmers. They are:
- Josh Bishop and Rowan Stokes, Wild Dog Dairy, Stokes, Tasmania.
- Rachel Millhouse and Matthew Radford with Andrew Radford, Radford Bros, Riana, Tasmania.
- Grant and Leesa Williams, Willora Farms, Hallora, Victoria.
- Peter and Lisa Vening, Hedley, Victoria.
- Stuart Seabrook and Ray Howe, Bonnie View Pastoral Co P/L, Drouin, Victoria.
- Michael, Jodie and Jake Connor, Nangkita Dairies P/L, Mt Compass, South Australia.
- Perrin Hicks and Asher Jacobs, Hicks-Jacobs Dairies, Mt Compass, South Australia.
- Jacinta and Josh Clark, Fiander-Moor Partnership, Mt Gambier, South Australia.
- Margaret, Gordon, Ben, Ashley and Justin Lockett, Stanvale Farms, Neerim North, Victoria.