Comparison of the Economic Performance of Robotic Milking

Manas J Agr Vet Life Sci

Usage of robotic milking systems is increasing more and more to decrease labor input and to enhance the life quality of dairy farmers. Over 30,000 milking robots are operational on dairy farms around the world today, heading by West Europe, United States of America, Canada and Australia. According to a study in 2016, there are 54 milking robots in 21 farms in Turkey. Its adaptation rate in Turkey is slow because usage of robotic milking systems (RMS) is new and there is not enough information about the economic performance of robotic milking systems against conventional milking systems (CMS). In this paper, literature about the economics of robotic milking was reviewed to compare with conventional milking systems. Data of investment cost, labor input, energy consumption, feed cost, milking frequency, milk yield and net income criteria’s from 33 studies on 13 different countries between 1998‐2017 were compiled as a table. According to the table, a comparison was done for each criterion by years and recommendations for future were done.