DeLaval expands its farm with new state-of-the-art barn

DeLaval Hamra Farm will utilise some of today’s most innovative milking solutions, including four milking robots - DeLaval VMS™ V300. “The new barns are built with animal welfare as the top priority. The new modern technology will not only increase efficiency but ensure the best possible care for our animals,” says Joakim Rosengren, DeLaval President & CEO.

Hamra Farm is a commercially driven farm located on a beautiful hill near the DeLaval headquarters, south of Stockholm in Sweden. “The farm is very much at the heart of DeLaval. We continuously try to find new and improved ways to help our farmers run more sustainable dairy farms with new and better solutions and Hamra Farm is an important part of this work. We are farmers too and Hamra Farm is amongst the most productive dairy farms in Sweden with an average milk yield of 12,100 kg milk ECM per year and cow,” says Lars Johansson, SVP Corporate Communications & Sustainability.

The plan is to almost double the number of milking cows, from 260 to 550. “We constantly have multiple R&D projects running on the farm and the investment will allow for additional opportunities to test software and advanced systems and to demonstrate some of DeLaval’s latest solutions,” says Johansson. “In addition, Hamra Farm has, for many years, been a showcase farm for customers and other key people in the dairy value chain, with about 3,000 visitors every year.”

The development plan includes a new barn for robotic milking, modernised barns for calves and heifers and updated visitor areas, all located in the existing farm area.

The ground-breaking starts in the Spring of 2021 and the new barns should be ready in the second half of 2022.