Over 3.3m litres of milk is harvested per day by Lely robots, namely the Astronaut, across Ireland and the UK. Some 420,000 milkings are performed every day on more than 141,000 cows across the two regions.

The Republic of Ireland has 500 Lely robots on its dairy farms and the total amount of milk harvested is estimated to be around 700,000l, according to Lely customer sales support Addi Kidson.

The Lely Astronaut provides automatic milking and allows the cows decide themselves when to be milked.

Other Lely products include the Lely Juno, which pushes in silage, the Lely Vector, which is an automatic feeder and the Lely Calm, which is a calf feeder.

Speaking at a tour of Lely headquarters and production site in the Netherlands on Tuesday, Kidson estimated that farmers in the UK and Ireland are sitting at around 10% robot adoption, while 70% of Dutch farmers have adopted automation on their farms.

"If you give her [cow] free access to milk when she likes, eat when she likes, lie down when she likes, drink when she likes, walk around when she likes get brushed when she likes, her production will increase, she will be healthier, happier and less stressed," Kidson said.

At this site outside Rotterdam in the Netherlands, 20 Lely Astronauts are made per day and around 160 people are employed.

"Almost 700,000l of milk is harvested every day by Lely Astronauts in the Republic of Ireland. There are also three vectors in the republic," she told the Irish Farmers Journal.

The other production site for Lely farm robots is located in the US.

Lely has customers in over 40 countries across the world since its arrival on the market with an automatic milking machine 30 years ago.

Lely Atlantic

Lely Atlantic is headquartered in Birmingham and caters for customers in the UK and Ireland.

This centre employs 208 people, cares for 2,113 customers, 910 of whom own an Astronaut, and has global annual sales of €400m.