Open source mobile milker for sustainable dairy

For the dairy industry to achieve its aim of carbon neutrality by 2050, it needs to adopt innovative farming methods and technologies to sequester carbon. In addition to tree planting, one of the most promising methods carbon sequestration is rotational grazing to capture carbon in the soil. According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global soil carbon sequestration has the potential to capture up to 5.3 GtCO2 per year, which is equivalent to the total amount of carbon emitted by global agricultural production (around 5-5.8 GtCO2 per year).

The project will develop a mobile milking parlour specifically designed for the implementation of rotational grazing. In particular, the mobile milking parlour will be designed to remove barriers to sustainable farming for upland dairy farms (100-250 acres) in mid and North Wales and the rest of the UK. Mobile milking enables the dairy herd to be moved regularly to new pastures without having to walk long distances to and from a fixed, central milking parlour.

The developed mobile milking parlour will employ energy efficiency, generation and storage technologies with the following three innovative features: 1) a mobile milking-to-cooling system for the in situ cooling of milk; 2) a heat exchange system for the efficient heat-capture of energy generated by the cooling process, stored in a hot water boiler for cleaning; and 3) a battery and solar array to run the mobile milking parlour entirely off renewable energy.

In sum, the project will develop a mobile milking parlour that enables Welsh upland dairy farms to implement environmentally sustainable rotational grazing systems. In addition to significant increases in carbon sequestration, these methods have been shown to benefit soil health, animal welfare and biodiversity, and lower infrastructure and running costs.

The project designs and outcomes will be freely available to other food and farming businesses and will demonstrate how mobile milking/rotational grazing systems can play a key role in helping the UK dairy industry become carbon neutral by 2050\.