With a dairy heritage dating back to 1711 with ancestral roots the Netherlands, family-owned GH Dairy understands what it takes to produce top quality milk. Today, GH Dairy runs 20 dairy sites, each with over 1,000 cows, across the Southwest and Southern California with three processing plants producing the Sarah Farms brand dairy products.
GH Dairy enables Sarah Farms to meet its mission of providing the highest quality dairy products and prioritizing eco-friendly practices across the entire production cycle. The MK-V Dairy, an autonomous tractor with Monarch® Autodrive™ technology is playing a key role in this process at a dairy’s most fundamental and critical role: feeding cows.
Reliable Feed Pushing
Milk production is directly related to how much nutritionally balanced food a cow can eat. In their eagerness to eat, cows push their food down and out into the aisle where they eventually can’t reach it. Dairy machinery, typically a tractor armed with a feed push blade implement, must come along to push it back up so they can reach their food.
Before deploying its five MK-V Dairy autonomous tractors in its California locations, GH Dairy crew members aimed to feed cows 10-12 times per day. GH Dairy owner, Gerben (Hein) Hettinga, recognized that without a dedicated work hand to push feed, the schedule was, as he describes, “mixed.” The lack of routine meant that if his crew was sidetracked with other tasks, feed wouldn’t get pushed as often.
Acquiring and deploying the MK-V Dairy tractor changed the equation. With automated feed pushing enabled by this advanced dairy machinery, crew members are sending the tractor down the aisle every hour that’s part of the cows’ feeding schedule. The MK-V Dairy has transformed a variable routine into a reliable one.
Our cows are making more milk simply by ensuring feed is pushed correctly, and the labor savings are huge. With the electric, autonomous tractor pushing feed consistently, I’m expecting an increase in milk production — probably 1-2 pounds per cow each day.
Gerben (Hein) Hettinga, Owner, GH Dairy
Meet Monarch® Autodrive™
Monarch’s Autodrive is a fully autonomous feature on the MK-V Dairy, a 100% electric, driver-optional, and smart tractor. With Autodrive, The MK-V Dairy pushes feed autonomously so farmhands can follow a predictable feeding schedule, even while tending to other critical tasks. Because the tractor is a smart tractor, they can remotely monitor feed pushing operations through Monarch’s Wingspan Ag Intelligence (WingspanAI) app, which provides real-time video feeds and metrics on tractor performance — time, speed, energy and fuel savings, among others. Autodrive is currently available for outdoor dairies, with or without shade cloth, and is expanding to nighttime operations, covered, and indoor dairies. Engineered with connectivity, Monarch’s autonomous tractor is dairy machinery that keeps improving, even after point of purchase through its software and firmware updates. This includes Autodrive and other developments.
Hettinga reports that GH Dairy’s dairy nutritionist, Dr. Abraham Du Plessis, plans to review the tractor’s historical feed pushing video footage to ensure correct feeding protocols. DuPlessis is familiar with the MK-V Dairy autonomous tractor and sees it as a key to improving dairy efficiency and profitability.
I’ve worked on dairy farms in the U.S. for the past 26 years. I think to survive, every dairy farm must get better at everything that they do. To become more efficient, we have to reduce costs, and we have to increase production.
Dr. Abraham DuPlessis, Dairy Consultant & Veterinarian, Progressive Dairy Solutions
Profits & Savings
For GH Dairy, the MK-V Dairy autonomous tractor’s greatest value is the labor efficiency that is supporting increased milk production. Hettinga also emphasizes the value his agribusiness is deriving from fuel savings. As an electric tractor, the MK-V Dairy requires no diesel and releases zero emissions strengthening a dairy’s sustainability efforts. It’s quieter, safer, and supports a healthier environment for both workers and the cows.
Initial Concerns
While Hettinga was eager to deploy the MK-V Dairy, his crew had some reservations about using an electric, smart, and autonomous tractor. Hettinga shares that they were initially concerned about breaking such advanced dairy machinery. Apprehensions quickly evaporated when they discovered the driver-optional tractor felt more familiar than anticipated. Today, the crew is fully comfortable with every aspect of the MK-V Dairy’s functionality. When asked if they prefer the MK-V Dairy or a conventional diesel, the MK-V Dairy was the winner.
More Autonomous Tractors for More Dairies
Encouraged by the positive results he’s experienced with his current MK-V Dairy fleet, Hettinga is eager to deploy Autodrive on more GH Dairy sites.
This [the MK-V Dairy] has worked really well for us, and we want to roll it [Autodrive] out to all our sites.
Gerben (Hein) Hettinga, Owner, GH Dairy.
For GH Dairy, the MK-V Dairy fleet means more savings, more profits, and more high-quality milk for more high-quality dairy products. Consumer access to delicious, nutritious, and wholesome dairy products starts at the farm and that’s where you’ll find the MK-V Dairy; working hard and getting the job done.
