The South West Dairy Development Centre, Agri-EPI’s new dairy farm of the future, is located in an important milk producing region, home to nearly 25% of dairy cows in Great Britain. The farm provides a platform to test and demonstrate new and emerging technologies. Agri-EPI Centre commissioned one of their core industrial partners – independent dairy specialist Kingshay – to design, build and operate a state-of-the-art dairy for research and development, with funding from Innovate UK and industry partners. The centre combines state-of-the-art, high welfare cow housing and milking facilities with precision grazing.
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Key objectives
The new dairy has four key objectives:
- To demonstrate profitable and resource efficient milk production;
- Integrate robotic milking with precision grazing;
- Use the latest technology available to support animal welfare and sustainable milk production;
- To provide state-of-the-art facilities to industry supporters for near market research, development and demonstration.
Dairy Development Centres
The South West Dairy Development Centre is one of three Dairy Development Centres of excellence that Agri-EPI Centre is establishing, for research, development and demonstration with both national and international reach and influence. The Centres provide a showcase for new ideas and technologies to generate a vibrant and sustainable route to efficient milk production. The new facilities will provide a platform for industry to trial latest ideas and connect with farmers across the UK. The three sites are based at:
- Kingshay in the South West: Integrating robotic milking and precision grazing;
- Harper Adams in Shropshire: Combining robotic milking with adaptable housing;
- SRUC in Dumfries: Optimising cow comfort with robotic milking;
- Further dairy facilities are established on commercial farms as part of the Agri-EPI Centre network of satellite farms.
Demonstration and test bed facilities: 5G RuralFirst
A key element of the dairy centre will be to provide state-of-the-art demonstration facilities with visitor access and high-speed connectivity to exploit the benefits of remote access. The dairy is one of the three test beds for the recently announced 5G RuralFirst project which will exploit the massive opportunities for improved connectivity offered to rural business by the next generation of mobile signal.
Further enquiries
Read more about the technologies of the new centre here. For more information about the South West Dairy Development Centre in Somerset, please get in touch with us:
- Duncan Forbes (facilities)
Board Member Agri-EPI Centre / Dairy Research Director Kingshay
E Duncan.forbes@agri-epicentre.com - Yoni van Breukelen (media enquiries)
Marketing Manager Agri-EPI Centre
E yoni.van.breukelen@agri-epicentre.com
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