Project Overview
Commodities
- Animals: bovine
- Animal Products: dairy
Practices
- Animal Production: Animal Management and Technology
- Education and Training: extension, farmer to farmer, workshop
- Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns
Proposal abstract:
Economic viability and labor shortages are consistently listed in the top three issues cited by dairy farmers and represent significant challenges for farmer well-being and farm sustainability. While the industry and academia partners work on building a more resilient industry through improved management and workforce development projects, technology offers another means by which to mitigate labor issues and improve dairy farm viability. Technology is a large, overarching term in the dairy industry that describes advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, precision monitoring, and robust data set interpretation while potentially allowing for reduced human labor capital, improved animal oversight, and more effective environmental resource utilization. Example technologies include systems for animal health monitoring, reproductive attentions, methane digesters, digital identification and tracking, and automated systems for calf and cow feeding and cow milking. However, technological adoption is not advancing at the same rate among certain dairy communities as technological innovation. Adoption trends vary greatly between farmers and are biased by age, years farming, size of operation, accessibility to technology support, and perceived benefits among others. Therefore, this project aims to 1) gauge the interest, hurdles, and bottlenecks with technology implementation on dairy farms in the Georgia, 2) provide workshops open to farmers in SSARE states on available technologies, methods for technology implementation, economic decision support, and potential funding resources for technology adoption, 3) allow for farmer exposure through on farm site visits to see technology at work and get farmer perspective on the pros, cons, and payback of their technology choices, and 4) develop peer farmer networks offer additional means of technology support and improve farmer well-being. These aims will be met by a pre- program survey, which will assess farmer perceptions and understanding. This survey will also identify specific areas of concentration for the educational curriculum. The survey will be followed by a workshop and farm visit series where the first series will focus on low financial input technologies and the second on higher financial input technologies. At the conclusion of each series, a post survey will capture changes in previous thoughts and potential to adopt technology. Though this project focuses on appropriate exposure and education of farmers, it is anticipated that educated decisions regarding increased technological adoption in the SSARE states has the potential to improve dairy farm economic viability, improve animal welfare, reduce environmental impacts
Project objectives from proposal:
This project aims to identify and overcome barriers to technological adoption among dairy farmers in the SSARE states to improve farm sustainability with the following objectives:
- Identify regional challenges with technological adaptation on dairy farms.
- Educate and provide resources to dairy farmers effective implementation of technology through a collaborative workshop design.
- Expose farmers to technologies while exploring financial implications in an experiential farm visit.
- Develop peer farmer networks to enhance farmer resources, build technology support structures, and improve well-being in the dairy community.
- Evaluate the perceived pre/post program benefits to technology on farms as well as likelihood for technological implementation following program curriculum.