The future of South Australia’s dairy industry is now on show with the launch of the Fleurieu region’s first ever robotic dairy.

The cutting-edge technology unveiled at Nangkita Dairies at Minbee, Mount Jagged, uses robots to automatically milk cows.

Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development David Basham officially launched the new robotic dairy.

“Nangkita Dairies is a fifth-generation family-owned and operated dairy and to be able to unveil this innovative piece of technology with the Connor family is

truly exciting,” he says.

“Robotic dairy is the way of the future for the South Australian industry which will revolutionise the way things are done, improving efficiency and increasing production.

“The robotic dairy will change the milking system and farming practices on the property. The robotic dairy will be operational 24/7 and cows will be able to enter on demand when they are ready to be milked.

“This state-of-the-art technology is the first of its kind in the region and one of the first few in the state and hopefully this paves the way for others to take it up.

“The robotics have been supplied by Lely, who are a major supplier of robotic dairy equipment in Australia and the system will be serviced by a local service technician from O’Brien Electrical.

“South Australia’s dairy industry is a key driver for our state economy, employing more than 1,300 people and contributing more than $500 million in 2019-20, up 46 per cent since 2015-16 and technology such as this will help it grow even further.

Nangkita Dairies farm manager Jake Connor says the business first looked at the idea of installing a robotic dairy about a year ago.

“We’ve had the property here at Minbee for more than a decade and it originally started out as a smaller herringbone dairy.

“The capacity of the farm outstripped the capacity of the existing dairy, so approximately 12 months ago, we looked at the feasibility of installing a robotic dairy on a greenfield site on the property.

“The new robotic dairy, which will be fully operational on Monday 6 December, contains six robots and will have capacity to milk 360 cows.”