A $6.5 million dollar agriculture research farm is opening in the Waikato tomorrow, committed to unearthing smart farming that is cleaner, greener and more efficient.
New Zealand is easily the world's largest exporter of dairy products - accounting for more than a third of the traded market.
But as lucrative as cows are to the country, they also leave a large carbon footprint, or rather hoof-print.
The Tokanui Dairy Research Farm is looking into ways that the dairy industry can balance its economic gains against the environmental impact of cows.
The farm is the biggest investment in dairy research in 20 years and is taking farming technology to unseen heights.
AgResearch National Farmers Manager Allan MacManus says the farm will feature new technology such as electronic collars for cows.
“The collars will record the cow’s temperature, they record the cow’s activity and there's a little mini-chip and everything in there which is also part of their ID,” he says.
The chip also detects if there's a blockage in the milk ducts and when the cow is ready for insemination - the information is then stored during milking.
The collar also communicates with the milking cups, so the cups are pulled off when it knows the cow has finished milking.
The new technology makes it technically possible for one person to milk Tokanui's projected herd of 800 cows.
The Tokanui team say the new technology and research from the farm will help farmers in the long-run to develop more efficient and eco-friendly ways of farming.