This month our focus is on technology and my guest is Dr Nicolas Lyons, who is Leader Dairy with the NSW DPI dairy team. Nico has had a career shaped by his involvement with dairy farm technology, both in research and on farm implementation.
Technology used on dairy farms and agriculture in general is ever evolving and, if suited to the farm and farmer’s business it can help improve on-farm productivity by making tasks easier and labour more efficient, providing the manager with information to help them make more effective and timely decisions in areas such as herd and pasture management. In this episode we touch on some of the technology developments within Australia in recent years and hear from Nico about his involvement with the International Precision Dairy Farming Association based in the Netherlands and his recent attendance at their conference in Vienna.
Useful resources related to this podcast:
NSW DPI Dairy website (look for Precision Dairy Farming)
Precision Dairy Farming Association
Podcast 6 - Are AMS systems profitable in Australia?
This podcast is an initiative of the NSW DPI Dairy Business Advisory Unit
It is brought to you in partnership the Hunter Local Land Services
Please share this podcast with your fellow farmers and colleagues and feel free to contact us with suggestions or comments via this email address thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com
Further NSW DPI Dairy channels to follow and subscribe to include;
DPI Intensive Livestock Twitter feed
Transcript here
Produced by Video Lift
The information discussed in this podcast are for informative and educational purposes only and do not constitute advice.
This month our focus is on technology and my guest is Dr Nicolas Lyons, who is Leader Dairy with the NSW DPI dairy team. Nico has had a career shaped by his involvement with dairy farm technology, both in research and on farm implementation.
Technology used on dairy farms and agriculture in general is ever evolving and, if suited to the farm and farmer’s business it can help improve on-farm productivity by making tasks easier and labour more efficient, providing the manager with information to help them make more effective and timely decisions in areas such as herd and pasture management. In this episode we touch on some of the technology developments within Australia in recent years and hear from Nico about his involvement with the International Precision Dairy Farming Association based in the Netherlands and his recent attendance at their conference in Vienna.
Useful resources related to this podcast:
NSW DPI Dairy website (look for Precision Dairy Farming)
Precision Dairy Farming Association
Podcast 6 - Are AMS systems profitable in Australia?
This podcast is an initiative of the NSW DPI Dairy Business Advisory Unit
It is brought to you in partnership the Hunter Local Land Services
Please share this podcast with your fellow farmers and colleagues and feel free to contact us with suggestions or comments via this email address thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com
Further NSW DPI Dairy channels to follow and subscribe to include;
DPI Intensive Livestock Twitter feed
Transcript here
Produced by Video Lift
The information discussed in this podcast are for informative and educational purposes only and do not constitute advice.
The Business of Dairy
Episode #17 Transcript – “Technology – Hype or Reality?”
Sheena Carter: Welcome to the Business of Dairy Podcast, I'm Sheena Carter, Development Officer with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries dairy team. This month our focus is on technology and my guest is Dr. Nicholas Lyons, who is Leader Dairy with the New South Wales DPI dairy team. Nico has had a career shaped by his involvement with dairy farm technology, both in research and on-farm implementation. Technology used on dairy farms and agriculture in general is ever evolving, and if suited to the farm and farmers business, it can help improve on-farm productivity by making tasks easier and labour more efficient, providing the manager with information to help them make more effective and timely decisions in areas such as herd and pasture management. In this episode, we touch on some of the technology developments within Australia in recent years and hear from Nico about his involvement with the International Precision Dairy Farming Association, based in the Netherlands, and his recent attendance at their conference in Vienna.
Welcome to the Business of Dairy Podcast, Nico, it's great to have you as a guest as opposed to last month when you were the host.
Nico Lyons: It's exciting to be back and this time on this side of the mic.
Sheena Carter: Good stuff, thanks, Nico. So technology, look, it's something that is ever evolving and it has had lots of promises for dairying, but really, is it hype or is it a reality?
Nico Lyons: Oh, to be honest, Sheena, I think it's a mixture of both, probably. I think currently, and for some time already, we see a lot of development and adoption of technology in almost every aspect of our lives, and I think dairying is probably not that different to the rest of our lives, so I think we do see more technology around and it's normal to see more adoption of this technology. I think there's been a rapid increase in the speed of development and capability of this technology, and with that sometimes comes a reduction in the costs of those technologies, and that's why we see a higher adoption. But we definitely know that adoption of technology is not for everyone. or it might not be on top of the priority list for everyone every single day of the week or every single year, but I still think it's important that as an industry we are across what's out there and how can it be relevant to our systems, I guess.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I guess within Australia we've got organisations such as ourselves, New South Wales DPI, and Dairy Australia and others that are very aware of the benefits and opportunities that adoption and integration of good technology on-farm – the benefits and the opportunities that brings to businesses, and it certainly forms part of our strategic plans, so here at the DPI we've invested and partnered with DA and DeLaval in the Milking Edge Project, which did many things, but really helped farmers and industry in understanding how to successfully adopt automatic milking systems in our pasture based dairy farms. And DairyBio, they've been doing some excellent research and developing some very useful tools for farmers in the area of plant breeding and animal genetics, particularly around genomics. Can you expand on this a bit for our listeners and explain the DPI's role and involvement in technology?
Nico Lyons: Yeah, so I guess it's tapping and expanding a bit on what you've just mentioned. It's interesting to see how most organisations nowadays are specifically calling out the role of technology and data to help address some of those challenges that farming has. And as you mentioned, I think in the dairy industry, Dairy Australia and us have done a lot of work in this space and I guess our role is probably to understand the role that these technologies can play, understand how the data that is captured through these technologies can help farmers make better decisions or understand better the systems. How can we share that data across industry but also through the supply chain to add more value and address those big problems that are out there around labour or animal welfare or the environment or food security and food safety. So I think technology and data can help address those big challenges and opportunity and that's why we see more and more that it's being called out in strategic plans and organisations are getting involved in this space.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I guess we have a role, as do the developers of these technologies and also the farmers, but it's all very well to have technology, and you've mentioned having data, but it's also helping people understand that data and make use of it because there's no point having technology for technology's sake.
Nico Lyons: No, absolutely Sheena. I think technology is… I always describe it as a tool or as an enabler – it's not the end game. We shouldn't just be trying to adopt technology for the sake of adopting technology. It's about understanding. If we decide to adopt technology, what role will that have for us in our systems? Will it allow us to be more consistent in what we do, will it allow us to reduce some labour inputs, will it allow us to better understand what's happening, to take better decisions? So technology is just the vehicle that allows us to do that. It's not the end game.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, I guess it's a quicker turnaround time if we've got good technology to make some decisions that we might have eventually made pre technology, but it would have just taken a bit longer to get, perhaps, to the endpoint in some instances.
Nico Lyons: Absolutely, and technology will not replace poor management. Technology will enhance good management, but technology will not replace bad management on a farm and just make things better overnight. But it should enable or unlock the potential of really good managers.
Sheena Carter: Yep, for sure, excellent. And I guess on that point, from a DPI perspective, we've had a lot of involvement in FutureDairy, in particular the Milking Edge Project, and also through a project called TechKISS – as in ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’. So can you just expand a bit on those two things for us, and also DairyUp? I think, you know, DairyUp is a large RD&E project in New South Wales at the moment, which is also looking, with some of the projects, at technology as well.
Nico Lyons: Yes, so I guess within New South Wales DPI, we've always really identified that there is big challenges in the dairy industry. There's less farms, but they’re larger. Businesses are becoming more complex. There's more variability both within and outside the businesses. Most family businesses are family owned. Dairying is a labour intensive industry. There's a lot of repetitive tasks. There's constraints to productivity. There's consumer demands. And those projects that you've just outlined are different ways that we've tried to address those challenges, and in all of them we've looked at technology, amongst other things, as you mentioned, as ways of addressing that. So FutureDairy, for example, and Milking Edge, both of them had a key role in working in the research and development and adaptation of robotic milking to Australian-based dairy farming, particularly pasture-based dairy farming. And it was not so much of the technology itself, but it was understanding what does that mean for farm businesses? What does it mean for labour? What are the economics of these technologies? How does it impact the management and the routines on-farm? So that's a lot of what we did, and it's trying to support that successful adoption of these technologies on-farm. So it's not so much playing in the development of that technology, but more on the reality and the adaptation of those technologies.
TechKISS was around understanding for technologies around animal management or the dairy shed – what really was out there available, and also what were the things that really put farmers in a better position to be successful in that adoption? So, what are those key factors of really understanding the technology? Really understanding how it will impact it routines and management on the farm. Really understanding how does it integrate to other things that are happening on the farm? Doing the homework before. Working with your team to understand different roles and responsibilities on the farm. So that was a project that was funded by the Dairy Industry Fund and that ran for two years and finished a couple of years ago. And then we've also done a lot of work around developing dashboards and decisions for both tools that unlock the power of that data that we were describing before. So Dairy Farm Monitor, as we all know, is a project that we run – it's a flagship project for us that we run in partnership with Dairy Australia and have done for over ten years. And we've created dashboards to really interpret that data and understand the data a bit better. And we've done that also with other data around robotic dairy, so yes, it's playing in that space.
And the other one is the one that you just mentioned around DairyUp. So DairyUp is that large RD&E program that is led by the Dairy Research Foundation at Sydney University, and we are quite involved in that project and a number of projects within that. And they're doing again a lot of things around capturing data and doing smarter analytics to understand variability in milk composition or how does milk yield respond to impact of climate – so animal resilience or understanding animal behaviour. Then a lot around remote monitoring of pastures with satellites and another type of devices integrating data on farms. So yeah, a repeated theme around addressing those challenges with technology and data to enable better management of farms.
Sheena Carter: So I guess essentially in a few words, it's using data and being able to present it in a format that is potentially visual but usable for farmers rather than something that just sits there. It's actually something that they can look at and see how they can apply it in their business.
Nico Lyons: Exactly. We use this term ‘actionable insights’ – so it's about getting those insights of what's happening on the farm or in the system and then being able to do something with that insight. So, yeah, we use that term ‘actionable insights’.
Sheena Carter: Very good. So that's touching very much on the Australian area and things that we've been involved with, or things that have been happening in Australia and New South Wales. But if we look at worldwide technology in dairy, you're on the board of directors of the International Precision Dairy Farming Association, which is based in the Netherlands, and you recently attended their conference overseas. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Nico Lyons: Yeah, so as you mentioned, I'm on the board of the International Precision Dairy Farming Association. I’ve been in there for a bit over four years, and it's basically a small board that is made up of people that work in research, development and implementation of precision farming technologies. There's people that are in Canada, in the U.S., in the Netherlands, in Austria and myself, in Australia. And we basically try to get together three or four times a year to discuss what's happening in this area. And the other thing that we do is organise an international conference every three years. I've been fortunate enough to attend the last three conferences, and this one was the fourth one. So, yeah, really exciting.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, good stuff. So it's meant to be held every three years – you just haven't had a COVID interruption?
Nico Lyons: No, we did have a COVID interruption – the last one was in 2019 and this one in 2022. What was different with this one was that for the first time it was held together with the European Conference on Precision Livestock Farming. So that's a conference that happens every two years. So this time they both coincided, so it was a full week of precision livestock farming, and it was held in Vienna, in Austria. So the European Conference on Precision Livestock Farming is not exclusive to dairy, so the stocks are around pigs and poultry and beef and dairy, of course, and that one tends to be more scientific in nature, whereas the Precision Dairy Farming Conference, it's exclusive to dairy farming and probably focuses more on the adoption and the implementation and the real world application of that technology on-farm.
And look, it was really a great opportunity to network with people that spend time in this space doing a lot of work. It's not so much about hearing the new technology itself, so what's flashy and new and out and about. It's more really understanding what can we do with that technology? How does the adaptation work? How can we get better insights? What is the data that comes out of it? What can we work as an industry to better speed up the successful adoption of that technology? And for us being able to attend that puts us at the forefront of what is coming and allows us to understand this space much better and also to understand how that can be relevant to the Australian and the New South Wales dairy industry as such. So being in those forums allows us to be aware of what's available and what could eventually we work at bringing to this end of the world.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, that's fantastic, Nico. I think it's good to have those connections and make sure that we can build on them and use them to our advantage, I guess. So where were the attendees from and what sort of things were discussed at these conferences?
Nico Lyons: Yeah, so there was close to 370 attendees from 28 countries. So you get a wide and broad representation of commercial companies, farmers, research groups, government organisations working in this space. So there's a lot of talks around sensors and technology and automation and dashboards and data and much more. As with most of these field days and conferences and symposiums, it’s bumping into those people and having those casual conversations. So the talks are really good and inspiring, but it's also all those conversations that happen around coffee breaks and lunches that spark some discussions around ideas of brainstorming projects or troubleshooting what's happening. And as you mentioned, we've kept those connections in time, like we've held webinars or articles or workshops tapping into that network that we build in events like this.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, that's awesome. It's hugely beneficial, I think, even at a domestic level, and there's farmer field days or workshops or courses, like you say, it is very much, yes the content of the course or the workshop or whatever is valuable and of interest, but it's always those side discussions that happen that lead to something bigger I guess, and a lot of benefit to the attendees. So I guess you were presenting some things from an Australian angle at the conference?
Nico Lyons: Yeah, so we had the opportunity to present four abstracts of work we had done in Australia, mainly around robotic milking as part of the Milking Edge project. So things around managing animal behaviour in robotic dairies or the decision support tool that Juan Gargiulo developed as part of his Ph.D. to help plan and optimise robotic dairies and also the online AMS information modules and training packages. So it's putting, I guess, on that world stage the great work that is done in Australia working between government and industry and the farming community. So yeah, we had the great opportunity of sharing that work.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, good stuff. And I think, that work has benefitted quite a few people within Australia. I guess, there's obviously overseas interest in it as well, but with the modules, we've had a lot of people look and work through the modules and also that decision support tool, I think there's been over a thousand views of Juan's decision support tool, which is incredible.
Nico Lyons: Yeah, and I guess it's those things that in a global connected world where things are online, those things are possible. The online modules have been accessed from people of more than 12 countries, so you see a lot of interest picking up. And other countries use what we develop and we also use what they develop, and I guess that's the power of those connections and the awareness of what's happening.
Sheena Carter: Fantastic. So what were some of the key highlights or take home messages that you heard about at the conference?
Nico Lyons: There's still a lot of development in animal and stationary sensors and measuring and capturing things. I had the opportunity of hearing how collars, or tags, or cameras, or audio, or images are being captured to understand a huge variety of things. Traditionally the focus was more on the production and reproduction and a bit of animal health, and now we see a shift to more understanding the environment or the welfare or pain or biosecurity aspects of what's happening out there. So it's about using technology to not only understand the animal from a productivity perspective, but also from all those other angles of what's happening to the environment and the welfare and even to farm staff and farm teams – so a lot of things in that aspects. It changes a bit depending on the industry that you look at, in dairy we tend to see a lot of sensors and probably cameras being developed and worked. In poultry we see a bit more cameras to understand what's happening in the poultry aspect. In piggeries, we tend to see more the capture of sound, for example. Pigs tend to be a very noisy animal, for those that have been in and around pigs, and a lot of technology developed around coding that noise to understand what's happening to the animals. But all of them end up in the same spot – transforming that insight into something that allows either the dairy farmer, or the poultry farmer, or the pig farmer, or the beef farmer to understand what's happening and take better decisions.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, I think it's interesting the shift, isn't it? I mean, obviously in the dairy industry many people are using collars for heat detection, reproduction purposes, and now we're seeing with the changing environment in agriculture, where businesses worldwide tend to operate under the ‘right to farm’ banner, which really does impact on how businesses are having to operate and things like biosecurity as well as animal welfare are certainly front of mind in our dairy industry, particularly we've got foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease on our doorsteps. So I guess the animal welfare, you mentioned a few areas in which poultry and pigs are using this technology, are there any other avenues or tools that it's being used for in that regard?
Nico Lyons: Yeah, with the European Conference of Precision Livestock Farming, the focus was around one health – that's linking together the animal aspect, the environment aspect and the consumer aspect. There were a lot of talks around capturing data to understand what is happening, but also to be able to implement changes to animals or to the farm, but also to track and trace what's happening to prove to consumers that the vast majority of the farming community is doing the right thing and that food is safe and that farmers do care about the welfare of their animals and about what happens to the environment. So being able to capture things around there, so there were talks around recording what's happening to the environment, particularly sheds, because there was a European context around the temperature and the humidity of sheds and barns, and if something changes or goes outside parameters, being able to trick or trigger an action on the farm – turning on a sprinkler or turning on a fan or whatever. But then also being able to marry that data of the environment to the animal. So can we monitor the heat load of the animal or the respiration rate of the animal or how much it moves? So yeah, it's marrying what happens to the animal with changes in the environment, and being able to record that in time to be able to prove that we are doing the right thing.
Sheena Carter: Yes, I guess there's a win win in it from that monitoring point of view. That information is actually valuable to the manager of the business to know what's going on and potentially change something if triggers have been occurring because of whatever it is, heat or whatever.
Nico Lyons: Absolutely, Sheena. A researcher from the US said there's some data that is interesting but not useful. Once we capture all that data its the ‘so what’ – so what is the action that has to be taken? What is the decision that has to be made? What is the change that has to be implemented? What is the impact to the return of that decision to be made on the farm? So really thinking in that value adding, not just capturing data for the sake of it, capturing data to be able to do something with it.
Sheena Carter: Yes. So again, not technology for the sake of technology, but with a purpose and an outcome. Look, technology, it's a very complex space, but what are some of the challenges in developing suitable technology for farming?
Nico Lyons: Look, that's a really interesting topic that was discussed in multiple presentations, and there's a couple of things to that question. The first one is that we develop a technology, we put a sensor in an animal to capture something, and that tends to be very simplistic in a way. Animals and farming systems tend to be complex and different animals are individuals in themselves, so they act differently and they respond differently, they change in time. So it's not the same what happens to a calf than to a mature cow. It's not the same what happens to a cow early in lactation versus late in lactation, or how they respond to different environments. So it's really trying to capture all that and, yeah, that ‘so what’ that we discussed before. The other one is that we see a lot of commercial companies that don't always have that process knowledge really embedded in the company. So it's really important to have people within commercial companies that are working in this space that really understand how things are done on the farm. So, are we measuring the right thing? Do we really understand what does this mean when we are capturing that data? Can we really put it in a context and not just a figure for the sake of a figure? So it's really understanding how that data is captured, and one person said, you see commercial companies that are very well-established and they've been doing things for a long time and that is proven, then there's a lot of companies that have really interesting things that have really good potential, but they have a way to go in scaling it and evolving that business. And then you do have a group of companies that are really looking for a problem for a solution that they have developed. So really the value is not really clear in there, and I guess that's part of the role of research and development, and yeah, these conferences fleshing that out a bit and really understanding where the value sits.
Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I guess you've articulated it, but it's system knowledge – as in the farming system, how these systems operate, but also biological system knowledge which is very complex in dairying, and you've given some good examples around calves moving into heifers and the individuality of animals as opposed to looking at a herd of animals. There's lots of complex areas that I guess make it challenging to pull all this together for tools and technological development.
Nico Lyons: Absolutely, and there was also interesting talks on how does that impact people that work with the technology. So really working, for example, with farmers to help them understand the value of that technology and how to better make use of it. For example, the work that we've done with the online AMS information modules and the training helps to address that. Then the fact that if there's going to be more technology around service providers or consultants like vets or agronomists need to really understand how this is going to impact their role. And there was a survey presented of uni students that they feel this is an area that is really going to be very important for their job after they graduate. But not always that is embedded in the university degrees or in the training of these future consultants or advisors or vets. So it's really important to see how do we integrate this to universities because they will be out there in the future working with these technologies and working with farmers that implement these technologies. And it's for the benefit of everyone if they’re more across of what do they mean?
Sheena Carter: Yeah, I think it's a real challenge, I’d imagine, in that education sector because technology is constantly changing, but you need to start from a base somewhere to build on that once you get out and into the workforce. I think back to the days when I was at uni 20 years ago and biometry was Excel spreadsheets and it wasn't sophisticated tools, but as long as you got that base knowledge, as the technology develops, you can keep abreast of it and know how to implement it into what you're doing in your work role.
Nico Lyons: Yeah for sure, and some people will make more use of it or find an edge to develop a business proposition that is better than others, and that's absolutely fine and that will always happen, but it's understanding those possibilities of what's happening. And the other one is that service providers have that role of working with farmers and really understanding the expectations and how to adopt it on the farm. And there was some discussion around understanding the economics and the impact of labour, but also understanding that technology will not solve all those problems, it will not always work 100%. Our computers don't work 100%, our phone runs out of battery, there's no reception – so really understanding how to work around those things. And somebody did mention, look, sometimes we wish it's ‘plug and play’ but sometimes we find it's more ‘plug and pay’ or ‘plug and pray’. So we need to find the balance in there of where this does add value, it has some pain points, but they’re really minimised and it's really continuously adding value to the people that do adopt it.
Sheena Carter: Nothing is 100% perfect is it? So you've got to work within the parameters of what it can do and adapt I guess. Now listen, I was reading the other day about a thing called digital twins. Digital twins. Which looks like being a tool in helping future technological development. Can you explain this to me, what on earth is digital twins?
Nico Lyons: Yeah look, one of the things that I really find fascinating in attending these type of events is the interdisciplinarity that happens in these events. So you've got engineers talking about cows, data scientists talking about lactation curves, you have animal scientists talking about data science and modelling, and some quite interesting synergies start happening and different skills bring different things to that conversation. And one that was heard repeatedly at this conference was the concept of digital twins, and that, to make it simple if I can, because I'm not an expert – I heard about it but I'm by no means an expert of it – is about creating a digital copy of a physical asset. So we do have a physical cow on the farm – so we have cow 2014 on the farm – can we create a digital version of that cow? And we do so by capturing a lot of information of that cow. So the more we know about the cow regarding the age, the parity, the stage of lactation, the production, the weight, the body condition score, the quality of the milk, how much feed she consumes, and whatever, we start building this digital version of that cow that is not 100% the same as that cow, but looks pretty similar. And what that really allows us, is to understand much better the cow, but also to play in a way with that digital version to implement changes. So for example, what would happen to that digital cow if I feed her one kilogram more of concentrate? Instead of doing that with a real cow, you can test that with a digital cow. What would happen if that cow was exposed to heat stress? What would happen to that cow if she walked a kilometre more than what she actually does? What would happen if I milk her three times a day instead of two? So you can test those things with a digital version and then if you like that result, you can then apply that in the real world. And that is being done with cows, it's being done with paddocks, it’s being been done with pastures and crops. So it's reducing the risk of trying in the real world because we are capturing much more of that system and being able to play with that digital representation of that real asset. To be honest, I think there's still a way to go and I don't think we are there yet, but definitely the more we can really capture of understanding those systems and capturing that data, all those things will be possible.
Sheena Carter: Sounds amazing. It reminds me of, in the animal space anyway, cloning. We've got a digital clone rather than a physical clone. Quite amazing. So look, Nico, it sounds like it was a very interesting and stimulating conference and that we can look forward to seeing some amazing things that are hopefully of immense benefit on-farm for the future. You got any parting thoughts on how the conference went from your perspective, or about technology in general, apart from it obviously is a reality and it's not hype, what are your thoughts?
Nico Lyons: Yeah look, first of all I think it's to highlight the importance of attending these type of events, to really network and be across what is happening because it allows you not to duplicate what's happening, but also to be aware of what is out there and find or explore the relevance that it can have to our context and to farmers in our side of the world. The second one is that it's a great platform and a great recognition of the leading work that is being done by New South Wales DPI and others, and collaboratively across dairy science and innovation and technology and precision farming, and that we really do world class, high calibre R&D in this part of the world and we should be very proud of it.
If you go more to the technology itself, I think I would highlight three things. The first one is that technology adoption and development will continue to grow, so I think there's no way back in that. The second one is that technology is just a tool, so it's not the end game. So different farmers might be ready at different times to adopt different types of technology, and yeah, it's a tool that should allow better management. And the third one is that the key will always be in the people and in the management. It's about using those tools to unlock the potential that is within those systems and those people. So it's about using that to achieve more and better.
Sheena Carter: So it's not a silver bullet, it is a tool.
Nico Lyons: Absolutely, and R&D organisations like New South Wales DPI have a key role to play in that space around the development, the adoption, the adaptation and supporting all this, as we do in many other things in industry around farm business management, sustainability or the environment. It's about supporting the industry moving forward and de-risking that for farmers and for industry.
Sheena Carter: Fantastic, thanks, Nico. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience with us today regarding technology in the dairy industry. It really is an interesting space and one to continue watching.
Nico Lyons: No worries, Sheena, thank you very much and it's my pleasure to be here.
Sheena Carter: Thank you for listening to this month's The Business of Dairy Podcast, produced by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Dairy Business Advisory Unit. This series is also brought to you with funding and support from the Hunter Local Land Services. We hope you enjoyed this month's episode on technology, the show notes provide links to our New South Wales DPI dairy website where you can find links to the Precision Dairy Farming page, which has information on TechKISS and automatic milking systems. There is also a link to the Precision Dairy Farming Association website where you will find abstracts from the conference that Nico attended and information about the next conference if it is something of interest to you, and of course a link to podcast six in which we discuss the profitability of AMS systems in Australia. We'd love you to share this podcast with your networks and feel free to send any feedback or suggestions for future episodes to thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com. You can also subscribe to our New South Wales DPI Dairy Facebook and DPI Livestock Twitter feed and view or subscribe to our quarterly DPI dairy newsletter using the links provided.