How can improved farmer decisions and farm system impacts resulting from the use of digital forage measurement technologies on dairy farms be valued?

CONTEXT: Evaluating opportunities to improve management is important for farmers seeking to operate profitable pasture-based dairy production systems. Digital technologies offer the prospect of increased automation on-farm and unprecedented amounts of data, including spatial data. The potential benefits of increased auto-mation are more readily quantifiable than the benefits of more data. For data to be beneficial, it must provide the required information at the desired accuracy at the right time, leading to improved decision-making and farm outcomes.In pasture-based dairy production systems, management is complex, with both the requirements of the milking herd and forage growth fluctuating throughout the year. Measuring forage production regularly is recognised as important for the effective management of pasture-based systems. However, uptake of established measurement methods is limited, suggesting a disconnect between technical and practical feasibility and uncertainty about the value of measurement. OBJECTIVE: This review focuses on the interface between digital forage measurement technologies and dairy farm systems. It aims to investigate the prospects of digital pasture measurement as an enabling technology to improve pasture and grazing management decisions and how it's contribution could be valued in dairy pro-duction systems.METHODS: Published literature on pasture and grazing management decisions, including the role of information in decision-making and how it can be collected, were evaluated and considered along with theoretical frame-works and studies to examine how an approach to valuing digital pasture measurement technologies in dairy systems may be developed.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: This review found that published studies quantifying the economic benefit of pasture measurement are scarce. However, if relevant research in agronomy, social science and economics is used to inform the development of an integrated farm systems approach, the net benefits of digital pasture measurement could be appropriately valued. A farm systems approach would capture and quantify both the direct and indirect benefits and costs of applying the technologies on-farm. Direct benefits may arise from a reduction in cost of obtaining information needed for decision-making. Indirect benefits could arise from the application of new or more timely information to farmer decisions that result in improved pasture and grazing management outcomes.SIGNIFICANCE: In this digital age where sensor technologies generate large volumes of data, methods to determine its utility and value are becoming increasingly important. Failure to establish and implement these methods could limit on-farm technology adoption or result in the measurement of parameters that are not economically important.

Automated summary

This article examines the interface between digital forage measurement technologies and dairy farm systems, exploring their potential in improving pasture and grazing management decisions, and proposes a method for evaluating the value of digital pasture measurement technologies in dairy production systems.