How dairy robots are changing work for cows and farmers

China famously now has "dark factories" where everything is automated, so lighting is not needed.

Guess this means we're about to have "dark dairies" where cows can be kept chained up in perpetual darkness, with robots doing the absolute minimum required to keep them alive, pregnant and producing milk.

I know this is not a particularly pleasant thought, but I'd like to hear counterarguments about why this wouldn't happen, since to me it seems market pressures will otherwise drive dairies in this direction.

(For what it's worth, I'm not a vegan, but a visit to a regular human-run dairy sufficiently confident in its practices to conduct tours for the public was almost enough to put me off dairy products for good.)

For something like milk, which is produced by mammals to feed young ones, there's all kinds of biological connections between a relaxed, healthy, content animal and milk production. We are humans, it's not much different for us. So as far as milk production goes, the wellbeing of the cow lines up relatively well with productivity. A stressed, unhealthy animal isn't going produce all that well. Often the limitation isn't the disinterest in the wellbeing of the animal, but the capital and labor required to improve conditions.

Quality tech can actually improve animal welfare, as shifting costs from labor into capital makes quality of care improve.

Now, this doesn't always line up well in all kinds of animal husbandry, but you went and looked at one case where it does. The dark dairy you imagine would most likely lose money.