Measuring labor input on pasture-based dairy farms using a smartphone

Abstract

With the cessation of milk quotas in the European Union, dairy herd sizes increased in some countries, including Ireland, with an associated increase in labor requirement. Second to feed costs, labor has been identified as one of the highest costs on pasture-based dairy farms. Compared with other European Union countries, Ireland has historically had low milk production per labor unit; thus, optimization of labor efficiency on farm should be addressed before or concurrently with herd expansion. The objective of this study was to quantify current levels of labor input and labor efficiency on commercial pasture-based dairy farms and to identify the facilities and management practices associated with increased labor efficiency. Thirty-eight dairy farms of varying herd sizes, previously identified as labor-efficient farms, were enrolled on the study and data were collected over 3 consecutive days each month over a 12-mo period, starting in May 2015 and finishing in August of 2016. This was achieved through the use of a smartphone application. For analysis purposes, farms were categorized into 1 of 3 herd size categories (HSC): farms with <150 cows (HSC 1), 150-249 cows (HSC 2), or ≥250 cows (HSC 3). Overall farm labor input increased with HSC with 3,015, 4,499, and 6,023 h worked on HSC 1, 2, and 3, respectively. A higher proportion of work was carried out by hired staff as herd size increased. Labor efficiency was measured as total hours input to the dairy enterprise divided by herd size. Labor efficiency improved as herd size increased above 250 cows with 17.3 h/cow per yr observed for HSC 3; labor efficiency was similar for HSC 1 and 2, at 23.8 and 23.3 h/cow per yr, respectively. A large range of efficiency was observed within HSC. The labor requirements had a distinct seasonal pattern across the 3 HSC with the highest input observed in springtime (February to April) primarily due to calving and calf-care duties, milking, and winter feeding. The lowest input was observed in wintertime (November to January) when cows were dry. Particular facilities and management practices were associated with efficiency within certain tasks, the most notable in regard to milking and winter feeding practices. Additionally, the most efficient farms used contractors to perform a higher proportion of machinery work on farm than the least efficient farms.

The Irish dairy industry – Recent history and strategy, current state and future challenges

“…; Deming et al . ) and the increased demand for employed labour when herd size increases (Stahl et al . ).…”

“…The 2013 CSO Farm Structure Survey highlighted that a large amount of family labour existed on dairy farms (approximately 18 000 family members contributing on average 0.5 annual work units -900 h (CSO Farm Structure Survey 2013). However, numerous studies have shown disparities between the availability of family labour and labour requirement on large-scale dairy farms (Errington and Gasson 1996;O'Brien et al 2007;Deming et al 2018) and the increased demand for employed labour when herd size increases (Stahl et al 1999). Between 2013 and 2016, the CSO Farm Structural Survey indicates that the availability of family labour on dairy farms has reduced at a time when herd size increased dramatically (CSO Farm Structure Survey 2016).…”

Effects of simulated quarter and udder teat cup removal settings on strip milk and milking duration in dairy cows

“…The duration of milking is an important consideration in dairy farming for both conventional and automatic milking systems (AMS). In conventional milking systems, the need to minimize production costs and the difficulties of finding skilled labor make the milking process a challenging activity (Jago et al, 2010), especially because milking is the most labor-intensive task on dairy farms, accounting for 33% of overall labor demand (Deming et al, 2018). In AMS, key factors driving efficiency and productivity are milking duration and total time spent milking per day in the robot (Gygax et al, 2007).…”

Increasing Grazing in Dairy Cow Milk Production Systems in Europe

“…Over all this type of system results in more machinery, more time feeding and overall less efficient systems across all of the definitions of efficiency. Financial performance declines [45][46][47], labour efficiency declines [48] and environmental efficiency declines [49,50]. While it could be argued that at high milk price [51] the higher input systems can be competitive on a unit of land basis, in general they will be substantially less profitable per unit of milk output.…”