How dairy robots are changing work for cows and farmers

Serious question: why would a dairy care about the cow's quality of life? The setup in the video looks far more expensive than what most dairies actually do, which is keeping cows tightly confined in stalls where they can't move at all.

> why would a dairy care about the cow's quality of life?

There is no such "thing" as "a dairy" that would or wouldn't care about something. It's all people making decisions and why wouldn't we strive to reduce suffering of other animals?!

Because reducing suffering would impact the bottom line? There's a whole slew of existing technology/practices (battery hens, debeaking, sow stalls, etc) that already prioritize profit over animal welfare.

Vegans also argue that the entire dairy industry, which necessarily requires keeping cows continually pregnant and separating them from their calves soon after birth, in itself creates immense suffering.

Maybe fewer vegans would be vegans if they knew that the farmers were prioritizing the wellbeing of the animals over their bottom line.

And as long as you still have a bottom line while reducing animal suffering, many farmers may be perfectly happy with that tradeoff.

They may see it as a win/win — they get to still run a business doing what they love, while caring for the animals they love.

And if they ultimately are more successful, maybe they reduce and/or “convert” the number of farmers that care less for their animals’ wellbeing.

Since farmers act in a fairly efficient market, unless animal wellfare somehow improves the bottom line, they will be outcompeted by people who do not care about the animals. That's why we need laws that enforce minimum standards.

But, assuming a democracy, the law is to the will of the people. The very people who you say don't care about animals. After all, if they did care about animals that efficient market that you speak of would force the farmer to comply to animal welfare by market force.

Minimum standards remain useful to weed out scammers and whatnot who still try go against the grain after the market has shifted, but the general consensus has to be on board first, and when that is the case most farmers will have no choice but to comply. Agricultural markets are, as you say, mostly efficient. Far more efficient than most realize.

Of course, the world isn't limited to democracies, so perhaps you are imagining China or something?

Animal welfare is pretty bad right now, so that is consistent with nobody caring.

For at least several years now EU has direct subsidies for entrancing cow welfare. Things like free range grazing at least 120 days per year, minimal space per cow etc.