Innovative Technology and Sustainable Development of Organic - 1.

quantity, besides from being an important parameter influencing net farm income, can be classified as a
social indicator for sustainability. The focus group interview results conclude that possibility for freetime
and flexible time is important in the discussion on AMS. The additional questions in the
quantification research (Table 1) confirm this. In addition the quantification of sustainability indicators
revealed higher culling rate for AMS users compared to CMS users. This is increasingly becoming a
topic of concern as described by animal welfare research (Sundrum 2001, Hovi et al., 2003, Haas and
Babst, 2004). A higher culling rate could therefore be unsustainable, if consumers consider this animal
welfare aspect important. This is indeed so as presented by consumer incentive investigations
(Torjusen et al., 2004; Christensen et al., 2006) Although there was a clear difference in milk yield
level between AMS and CMS farms the net farm income was not higher for AMS compared to the
CMS farms. However, the integral evaluation of multidisciplinary quantification gave insight in the
farms technology implementation and uncovered aspects which should be given attention. One could
classify the quantification results as different management vision characterized by high milk yield, low
labour time per cow, and early culling. The perceptual part of the evaluation emphasizes desire for
more flexible labour time and less importance of grazing (Table 1).
Table 1. Score of farmers on importance of listed values when investing in an automatic milking
system (AMS) or a conventional milking system (CMS).
AMS a
CMS a
P-value
(score 1- 7: not important- very important)
Save labour time 4.9 5.3 0.67
Decrease physical labour 6.1 6.3 0.42
Make labour burden more flexible 6.3 4.3 0.05
Social life 6 6 1.00
Udder health 4.9 6.2 0.02
Animal welfare 5.1 6.2 0.20
Milk yield 5 4.3 0.23
Save time keeping eye on the animals 5 5 1.00
Possibilities for automatic steering 5.3 4.5 0.46
Have a steady milk yield 4.6 5 0.87
Fits the herd 4.5 4.7 0.81
Acquisition of software 3.6 3.3 0.83
Variable costs per kg milk 4.5 5.3 0.15
Grazing possibilities 4.8 6.2 0.05
Possibilities for growing 4 4.7 0.33
Joy of working 5.4 6.2 0.33
Mental labour environment 4.7 5.7 0.13
Reliability
a)
average score of 9 farms
4.3 5.2 0.13
The results show tendencies amongst CMS farmers towards more concern on reliability of the
technique used and mental stress, where in particular the “round the clock” chance of possible alarms
was mentioned. Both AMS and CMS users seem to have a positive opinion on use of new technology
112 Sustainable Technology in Organic Dairy Farming