Due to having heard this topic in detail at university, I think the link between high antibiotic use and robotic milking is not the case.
One robot can only deal with a relatively little amount of cows in a day. I remember something around a hundred. And industrial scale human-involved systems are at a much bigger scale. If anything, these large-scale systems would require more antibiotics.
Over time the antibiotic management should even improve through the availability of per-quarter, per-cow data on the performance of the cow. Some antibiosis is often necessary, and probably can't be avoided if you don't want cows suffering unduly, or getting culled because without treatment the cow won't be profitable anymore. But that is a whole different kind of animal... err.... discussion
To qualify this a little, there is a way the robots can increase antibiotic use, and that would be if the hygiene of the robot is worse than that of other milking systems. But this does not seem to be the case. The robot would probably serve less "customers" with more thorough cleaning in between...
It has nothing todo with robots per se. Robots just make it a lot easier to feed a lot more animals in a narrow space with little human interaction.
In the United States, the use of antibiotics in livestock
is still prevalent. The FDA reports that 80 percent of
all antibiotics sold in 2009 were administered to
livestock animals, and that many of these antibiotics are
identical or closely related to drugs used for treating
illnesses in humans. Consequently, many of these drugs
are losing their effectiveness on humans, and the total
healthcare costs associated with drug-resistant bacterial
infections in the United States are between $16.6 billion
and $26 billion annually
No, traditional milking systems allow more intensive cattle stables than robotic systems. Which doesn't matter in Europe, because the space requirements per cow are a lot higher than the minimum possible. If anything, the robot allows for a less stressful milking and probably "happier" cows.
I can't see any connection between increased use of antibiotics and autonomous milking....
Comments
Due to having heard this topic in detail at university, I think the link between high antibiotic use and robotic milking is not the case.
One robot can only deal with a relatively little amount of cows in a day. I remember something around a hundred. And industrial scale human-involved systems are at a much bigger scale. If anything, these large-scale systems would require more antibiotics.
Over time the antibiotic management should even improve through the availability of per-quarter, per-cow data on the performance of the cow. Some antibiosis is often necessary, and probably can't be avoided if you don't want cows suffering unduly, or getting culled because without treatment the cow won't be profitable anymore. But that is a whole different kind of animal... err.... discussion
To qualify this a little, there is a way the robots can increase antibiotic use, and that would be if the hygiene of the robot is worse than that of other milking systems. But this does not seem to be the case. The robot would probably serve less "customers" with more thorough cleaning in between...
It has nothing todo with robots per se. Robots just make it a lot easier to feed a lot more animals in a narrow space with little human interaction.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farmingThe same goes for some countries in Europe. And as companies are importing goods from cheap farming companies such food can be found everywhere.
No, traditional milking systems allow more intensive cattle stables than robotic systems. Which doesn't matter in Europe, because the space requirements per cow are a lot higher than the minimum possible. If anything, the robot allows for a less stressful milking and probably "happier" cows.
I can't see any connection between increased use of antibiotics and autonomous milking....