An Estimate of the Effects from Precision Livestock Farming on a Productivity Index at Farm Level. Some Evidences from a Dairy Farms’ Sample of Lombardy

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The adoption of digital technologies and sensors at farm level can give several benefits in terms of animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and farmer’s quality of life; but the evaluation of possible productive returns is still the most critical aspect. At the same time, it is very difficult to plan a controlled contemporary study with a dairy farm that involves adopting or not adopting the different technologies today available, and measure without any bias their productive performance at herd level. This paper used the results of a planned survey in dairy farms in Lombardy (Italy) and tries to quantify if there is a gap in productivity between farms with different adoption degree of digital technologies in herd management. Through a statistical two-stage treatment regression technique, the study was able to find a positive relationship between technology adoption and herd productivity. ABSTRACT: This paper aimed at verifying if and to what extent the use of information technologies for dairy farming positively affects productivity of farmed herd. To do this we estimated the effects of precision farming on a productivity index at herd level, utilizing individual farms data of about 500 livestock farms. Farms are specialized in bovine milk production and are localized in Lombardy, that is one of the most important areas of Italian dairy farming. Using a two-stage treatment regression model, to solve the selection bias due to both observed and un-observed individual heterogeneity in the technology adoption, the study found a positive relationship between adopter status and the proxy of herd productivity.