Future Farm: A New England Dairy and the Next Agricultural Revolution (Video Transcript)
Voiceover: Why would a New England family farm bring in new technology to augment their human workforce, and how do the farm workers and animals benefit? To find out, Invested spent a late summer day talking with staff at Freund’s Farm—a multigenerational family-owned dairy with over 300 cows in East Canaan, Connecticut.
Amanda Freund, Dairy Owner/Farmer: Back about five years ago we had a really profitable year on our dairy farm, and so we decided that the time was ripe, and we needed to invest in a part of our business.
Matt Freund, Dairy Owner/Farmer: This new technology with milking cows with robots was kind of exciting, and we thought, ‘Wow, this is something that would really attract us to stay in business with the next generation.’
Voiceover: Freund’s Farm uses a few different types of robots, but the milking robots may be the most important.
Amanda Freund: I like to define it as being like a tollbooth. Each of our cows are outfitted with a rumination collar, which is a lot like a Fitbit. When they walk into the robot, that collar has a chip—so there’s a reader that identifies who she is based on her collar. It knows exactly how much milk she gave the last time she visited, how much milk it expects her to give this time, and she starts to get a little snack of grain while she’s there.
Amanda Freund: We also have a feed-pushing robot named Juno.
Julio Cruz, Farm Employee: Él se encarga de empujar la comida a todas las vacas para que ellas no estén estirando mucho el cuello. [He’s in charge of pushing the feed closer to the cows so that they don’t have to strain their necks.]
Amanda Freund: A farmer invests in that kind of technology because the more that cow eats, the more milk she is likely to produce.
Voiceover: The farm’s leadership, management, and workers say there are numerous benefits to augmenting their human labor with this technology.
Matt Freund: When I first started, I spent literally five hours of a 10-hour, 11-hour day in the parlor milking cows. Our daily lives were spent doing a lot of chores, and not really doing stuff that was management, stuff that was fun, stuff that got your brain to actually do some exercising.
Javier Rodriguez: Las ventajas para nosotros es que el trabajo es menos físico, menos stress, y esto también afecta nuestra familia porque la economía es un poquito mejor pagada. Más fácil, menos stress, y la vida es más fácil. [The advantages for us is that the work is less physical, less stress, and also it affects our families’ lives because it is a little bit better paid. Easier, less stress, and life is easier.]
Voiceover: It works for the cows, too.
Amanda Freund: They’re just cool, calm, collected, they’re going about their day, they’re taking a snack, they’re getting milked, they’re getting their backs scratched. They are totally content to be in that barn and to not be disturbed by us.
Voiceover: Right now, it’s tough to say how technology augmentation will shape the future of New England agriculture, but it is giving farmers space to figure things out.
Matt Freund: AI has given us more time to think about the future and the direction that we want the farm to go in. It hasn’t really given us any great inroads on how to work with the future—it’s given us more time to prepare for the future.
Voiceover: Agricultural workers like Javier and Julio know that the growing use of AI brings uncertainty along with its benefits.
Julio Cruz, Farm Employee: Pienso que en un futuro, todo va a ser muy diferente, tal ves ya no van a ocupar muchas personas en las granjas, verdad? [I think that in the future, everything is going to be very different—maybe there aren’t going to be many people working on farms, right?]
Javier Rodriguez: Me ha sido un poquito complicada aprenderla—seguirle el paso a la tecnología—pero al miso tiempo, me ha hecho la vida mas facil con mi familia y mis hijos. [It’s been a little complicated learning this new technology—keeping up with the pace of technology—but at the same time, it’s made life easier for me and my family.]
Matt Freund: There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s more stuff coming. And I think the importance of that is it will keep valuable people in the ag sector—people that are thinkers, generations of owners that will really enjoy what they’re doing because it’s stimulating.
Amanda Freund: The dairy industry is struggling. I think the technology allows us to be more efficient, and at the end of the day that’s going to be what it takes to stay in business.