Innovation: Dairymaster

The highest of technology has been applied to one of the most fundamental of farming activities to provide dairy farmers with the latest in automated agriculture.

Dairymaster, based in Causeway, Co Kerry, started out as a developer of milking parlours back in 1968, but it has since expanded and now also supplies software, speech recognition systems and phone apps to deliver new services to farmers, says the company's CEO Dr Edmond Harty (left). "It is all about technology for dairy farming, all the hardware, software and phone apps, everything for dairy farmers around the world," he explains.

Of the 300 people working full-time for the company, around 40 are involved in research, says Harty. Dairymaster has customers around the world including Japan, Siberia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US and UK. “We export 75 per cent of what we produce.”

It has developed large rotary milking parlours that identify the cow coming in the door, and the system will flag the operator if the animal needs special feeding. The system uses software to allow the cow to "speak" to the operator. The company developed the "MooMonitor", a device worn by a cow that detects when it enters heat. "We are more advanced with cattle than with humans when it comes to wearable computing," says Harty. Better still, while the farmer used to have to go out at night to check for cows going into heat, a phone app receiving signals from the MooMonitor lets the farmer know from the comfort of home when fertility is at a peak.

Research is now second nature to the company, and it works with UCC and IT Tralee on projects. "We have built a lot of capability within the company," says Harty.

DICK AHLSTROM