REVIEW ▶▶▶


efficient use of water and soil. The water is reused for rinsing the barns and the manure is used in arable farming. “This al- lows us to produce good quality feed in sufficient quantity. In winter, we grow fodder crops such as oats, ryegrass and rye, producing 45–50 tonnes of dry matter per hectare. Traceabili- ty of all raw materials we use is necessary, because this gives us control over the entire production process. That is very im- portant,” added Jank. “We produce milk without A1 beta- casein, but with A2 beta-casein, using cows with a specific genetic selection. This is done with the management pro- gramme ‘Milk Manager (Gestor Leite)’ of CRV Lagoa. This has made it possible to select animals that give milk with a lot of A2 beta-casein. This milk is sold under the brand ‘Letti A2’. The lactose intolerance that many people think they suffer from is actually the inability to digest A1 beta casein. The symptoms are very similar.” Thanks to this innovation, Agrindus is the first company in Brazil to have an A2 milk certification.


Chile: Agricola Ancali One of the largest dairy farms in South America is Agricola Ancali Ltd in the Los Ángeles region of Chile. The company has 5,800 dairy cows, of which about 5,100 are milked on aver age. In addition, the company has 8,700 ha of maize, 650 ha of alfalfa and 2,800 ha of grassland. Milking is done with 72 DeLaval VMS robots. The total milk production is 200,000 litres per day, and the milk is of high quality. The somatic cell count averages 160,000/ml, the bacterial count is 10,000 and the milk has 3.4% protein and 3.9% fat. The process of innovation and improvement of milk quality


At Agricola Ancali the cows are milked with 64 milking ro- bots. In addition, there is a carousel for the cows that need more attention.


Agrindus director-owner Roberto Jank thinks genomics is a great concept.


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Agricola Ancali manager Miguel Aparicio sees robotics as the way to increase scale and production.


▶ DAIRY GLOBAL | Volume 8, No. 3, 2021


started in 1987 with a small herd and only in 2002 a farm with 300 dairy cows was acquired. In 2003, it installed its first 40-stand milking carousel. “In 2007, convinced that volume was a good way to work more efficiently, we installed two new milking carousels, increasing production from 1,500 to 4,500 cows. In 2010, the fourth milking carousel was installed, so 6,000 cows were milked,” said the manager, Miguel Aparicio. As a replacement for the milk carousels, which suffered a lot of wear and tear, it was decided in 2014 to start using milking robots. They started with a first module of eight robots and 500 cows, and the results were very encouraging. “In 2016 there were four milking carousels and 16 robots with which we could milk 7,000 cows. In 2017, we decided to switch to a free-range barn and to automate milking with 64 DeLaval VMS milking robots.” A milking carousel is still in use for those cows that need special treatment. The results came quickly, with an annual productivity in- crease of 10% and an improvement in work efficiency of about 60%. There are 40 employees per shift who perform all tasks except milking, eight hours a day, and a specialised team of three people that deals with specific activities of the robot, such as the immediate care of cows with incomplete milking, the management of the milk queue, sampling by mastitis detection index, and insemination. This improved not only milk production but also the average lifespan of the cows. “Where are we going?” It is a rhetorical question that Aparicio asks. “We are convinced that robotics has given us the oppor- tunity to enable a large business and to return to our original dream of the genetic improvement of livestock. That is why we have entered a strategic alliance with a well-known Amer- ican genetics brand in 2019, to create the genome of the en- tire herd and to develop an exclusive Ancali robotic index that will allow us to substantially improve the cow,” concludes Aparicio.


PHOTO: VALERIA GONCALVEZ


PHOTO: CRISTIAN AGUIRRE DUFFOURC


PHOTO: AGRICOLA ANCALI


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