Milking robot manufacturer Lely is celebrating 25 years since the first milk from its Astronaut system flowed into the milk tank.

According to the Dutch-headquartered international company, this means that an entire generation of dairy farmers grew up with this form of automation. With the slogan ‘Celebrate Generations’, Lely has decided to mark this milestone with a special anniversary promotion.

Lely reasons that each generation has its own set of specific challenges and builds upon tradition and experience to handle them. This includes dairy farmers, who in recent years have developed into modern business managers, it added.

To celebrate 25 years of robotic milking, and to support the next generation of dairy farmers, Lely has launched a ‘special offer’ – providing a discount on options of the customer’s choice when buying a new Lely Astronaut A4 milking robot.

Under the theme ‘Celebrate Generations’, the company also aims to start a dialogue between different generations of dairy farmers regarding the future. The beginning of this was on September 14 in the Netherlands, in the presence of the two dairy farmers -that started working with the first milking robot 25 years ago – and their children.

During a special event, several generations of dairy farmers, sons/daughters and fathers/mothers spoke with Lely and each other about the future of the trade and what it will bring for the next generations.

25 years

Image source: Lely

In the future, Lely says it will initiate this dialogue in various ways and discuss the future of the dairy farm with its customers.

During the event, Lely said it will also deliver a new, fourth Astronaut A4 to the van den Berg family that started using the very first Lely milking robot 25 years ago. Farm owner, Ad van den Berg, spoke at the event, saying: “We have been using the Lely milking robot from the very start.

“It has yielded us and our company a lot in terms of efficiency and has given us more time to spend on things that truly demand our attention. We are very proud of this latest milking robot and fully confident that it will also help the next generation within our farm with a healthy business operation.”

The ‘Celebrate Generations’ promotion will run until December 31; for further details, interested farmers are asked to contact their local Lely Center.