The world of dairy farming has come a long way since Anna Baldwen from New Jersey patented her “Hygienic Glove Milker” in 1879.

The cows hated it and would often kick over the milk bucket.

But her rudimentary handheld mechanized pump heralded a new era in technology.

Farmers today are braced for another revolution. Large herds of cows are, for the first time, being milked by robots, thanks to Afimilk, based at Kibbutz Afikim, northern Israel.

In 1979, Afimilk launched the world’s first “milk meter” – which measures the yield of each individual cow, senses when the milking is over, checks for health issues and collects a mass of data that has transformed the way dairy farms operate.

It is now disrupting the dairy industry again, with the first robotic milking solution suitable for medium-sized farms — those with 500 to 5,000 cows.

Keep reading at israel21c.org.

Afimilk COO Gil Solovey is a Technion alumnus.