The Natural Resources Institute in Finland (Luke) choose DeLaval

DeLaval has been selected as supplier of milking systems and production monitoring systems for the Jokioinen and Maaninga research sites of the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

DeLaval will supply an automatic milking system including three milking robots for the new research barn to be built in Jokioinen and one for a research barn to be renovated in Maaninka. Jokioinen will also be supplied the pipeline milking system needed for the research activities. At both sites, the equipment and production monitoring system will be integrated into Luke’s research information systems.

“The relative competitive advantage of Finnish agriculture is in the grass-based milk production. Ambitious and internationally competitive dairy research needs state-of-the-art research environments”, says Johanna Buchert, CEO of Luke.

“DeLaval has operations worldwide and we have previous experience of collaborating with research institutes in different countries. That’s why it’s great to be able to deliver equipment and control systems to Luke’s research functions and thus also participate to the top research in milk production in Finland, ”says Jari Virrankoski, VP Market Area Eastern Europe.

Luke is developing a dairy chain research infrastructure by building a new research barn in Jokioinen and renovating the Maaninka barn. Together, the barns form an international research environment that supports actors in the dairy chain as well as cutting-edge research to promote sustainable and competitive production. With the new automatic milking system, more accurate and continuous information on the production and welfare of the dairy cow can be collected. This information will be used to develop higher quality production, also taking into account environmental requirements.

Construction of the research barn in Jokioinen and started and is planned to be completed in the autumn 2022. The renovation of Maaninka is underway and will be completed in early 2022.