LAUSR

The adoption of farm management information systems (FMIS) is on the rise at German dairy farms given their benefits in supporting and automating decision-making processes. However, the offering scope of FMIS for dairy farmers is limited, with digital services mostly focusing on animal-related data and overall economic insights. By contrast, digital energy management services (DEMS) are not yet established as an integral part of FMIS despite their expected positive contribution to a dairy farm’s ecological sustainability and profitability. Against this background, the aim of this study was to find out if there is a hitherto undetected market opportunity for FMIS providers offering DEMS to German dairy farmers. To achieve this aim, the as-is market offering was screened looking at seven pre-defined DEMS, and customer preferences were investigated based on online survey responses from 74 German dairy farmers. Results of the survey indicate a high relevance of DEMS, which especially applies for optimization-oriented energy data analyses. The market coverage of such digital services, on the other hand, is not yet adequate. Hence, for providers of FMIS, we see a promising market opportunity to expand their offering by starting to deploy selected DEMS to German dairy farmers.