Govt approves loan for new Smart Dairy Farm
The cabinet has approved a loan of Bt51.7 million to the Dairy Farming Promotion Organization of Thailand (DPO) from the agricultural products’ restructuring fund to establish the Thai-Denmark Smart Dairy Farm and increase Thailand’s capacity to compete with other countries, government deputy spokesperson Rachada Dhnadirek revealed yesterday (November 26).
The smart dairy farm is designed to serve as a centre for learning about dairy farming technology in Thailand. “It will be used for the study and development of farm management techniques using modern technologies, namely, barcode scanning to collect data on the cattle, a pipeline milking system that records daily amount of raw milk per cow and reduce environmental impacts from farming waste, and a system that adjusts feeding in accordance with animal welfare principles” she added.
The smart farm project will serve as a demonstration farm for commercial use and will be located on DPO’s land. Technology will be used for managing cattle cages and usage of ready-mixed feed in line with standards matching the needs of cattle. “Technology will also be applied in the management of the stalls and thd cooling system, as well as to collect data of each cow,” Rachada explained.
The centre aims to conduct training and instruction for a total of 680 academics, relevant staff, and farmers per year. It is anticipated that the new farm will also increase the number of annual visitors to DPO’s farm by at least 10 per cent over the current figure of 60,000.
