Towards Data-Driven Dairy Farming in Thailand: A Preliminary Survey of Farmer’s Needs Based on In-Depth Interviews

Abstract: Currently, Thailand’s dairy industry faces five critical problems: aging farmers, shortage of laborers, lack of successors, low productivity, and oversupply of milk. The consensus among researchers and dairy farming experts is that the root cause of the problems is the lack of in-depth data (individual cow yield per milking). Without data, the growth of the dairy industry is stagnating, resulting in dairy farming as a career being perceived as economically unstable. Ultimately, this results in aging farmers, shortage of laborers, and lack of successors as more young farmers decide to pursue other career paths. Additionally, the lack of data prevents effective management of dairy farms and the dairy supply chain leading to two problems. Following the design-thinking approach, in-depth interview is chosen as the method of choice to empathize directly with the users and obtain insights regarding their problems and needs, especially those related to data management. The interviews were conducted with farmers from nine different farms selected based on their size, milking system, and location. The result showed that most selected farms do not record the individual cow yield per milking. Furthermore, milk collection centers require farmers to deliver milk within a specific time after it is milked. This further discourages data collection as it is time-consuming. Additionally, the lack of growth increased cow feed prices and diseases among many other factors further dissuade farmers from investing in technology to assist them in collecting the data. Therefore, the insights obtained from the interview will be the cornerstone in coming up with a practical solution to the current data problems.

Keywords: Dairy Farming, Dairy Supply Chain, Survey, Technology Need, Thailand

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002675

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