Farming
innovators
in heart
and soul
FUTURE FARM
Many of the innovations present in Lely’s Future Farm were devised by Karel van den Berg, inventor of the Astronaut milking robot as well as countless other new ideas for the dairy farm. He has the talent to think in innovative solutions and to inspire his team to breakthrough innovations. Karel: 'The free cow traffic has always been the starting point for everything we’ve designed. If a cow feels comfortable and relaxed, her milk yields increase.'
Countless
innovative
solutions
'Together with Alexander van der Lely, who has given me a lot of freedom and confidence in recent years, I’m going to devote my time to finding solutions for the global food issue. How can we produce enough food sustainably without exhausting the earth’s resources? I’m looking forward to this fantastic new challenge, but I’ll miss my team of developers.'
This summer, Karel will take on a new job at Lely after 35 years
Bio
Karel van den Berg
Direcor Innovations (until mid-2020)
Maassluis, The Netherlands
Together with Alexander van der Lely, Karel was nominated by the European Patent Office (EPO) for the European Inventor Award 2019 finalists in the category “Industry”, for the fully automated milking system, Lely Astronaut.
Location:
Remarkable:
Korstiaan started his career at Lely in 2011 as an intern. His graduation project was an individual feeding system for cows, which immediately earned him a contract. Korstiaan: 'In 2012 I started working with Karel as a product developer, and over the years I’ve learned an enormous amount from him.'
He’s currently the "manure" project manager, an ongoing theme for Lely‘s Future Farm. 'To be honest, I feel more like a farmer than an innovation manager. I run a dairy farm with my father and brother, where I start at 6 in the morning before driving to Lely. It keeps me in touch with farming. Manure is a major challenge for dairy farmers, because of environmental regulations and the way it affects society’s image of farming. The latter isn’t always positive, so we’d like to come up solutions for the manure problem to change this.'
Karel’s job is
being taken over
by Korstiaan Blokland
Bio
Korstiaan Blokland
Head of Innovations Team Manure
Will be successor of Karel from mid-2020
Maassluis, The Netherlands
Runs his own dairy farm together with his farther and brother.
Location:
Remarkable:
Karel: 'Farmers do things for a reason, but there’s often a better or smarter solution'
'When I walk around a farm, I often wonder why we still do things in certain ways. That’s a question I also put to colleagues with farming origins.' Korstiaan: 'That’s something you really drilled into us as a team. Back to the fundamentals: can we change routines on the farm to improve current working methods?'
Last year, Karel and Alexander van der Lely even received a nomination for the European Inventor Award. The innovation team will therefore need some time to get used to his departure. Korstiaan: 'You hired us all, and earned the trust of management so that we could work in complete freedom. My dream is to continue that success with the same team. I want to make sure that everything stays the same, but include new disruptive innovations that really make the farm of the future a reality.'
An innovation from Lely that has never been put into production: the "Plateau robot". The concept involved feeding and milking the cows on a carousel.
The prototype of this carousel has been tested on the farm of Karels’ brother. In his graduation research, Korstiaan showed that the available feeding time for cows has a major influence on feed intake (by making the carousel run faster, cows started to eat faster and more). The platform robot has had to make way for the Lely Vector because of the larger capacity.
Fact
Korstiaan and
the "Plateau robot"
Lely’s Future Farm integrates all the ideas and innovations that we’re working on every day. In addition to the Lely Astronaut and Vector, the farm contains other solutions to help dairy farmers in the near future. Important themes such as sustainability, circularity, animal welfare, business succession, profitability and the consumers’ needs for information about the origin of products are addressed in Lely’s Future Farm.
Lely's
Future
Farm
FUTURE FARM
Farming
innovators
in heart
and soul
Many of the innovations present in Lely’s Future Farm were devised by Karel van den Berg, inventor of the Astronaut milking robot as well as countless other new ideas for the dairy farm. He has the talent to think in innovative solutions and to inspire his team to breakthrough innovations. Karel: 'The free cow traffic has always been the starting point for everything we’ve designed. If a cow feels comfortable and relaxed, her milk yields increase.'
Countless innovative solutions
'Together with Alexander van der Lely, who has given me a lot of freedom and confidence in recent years, I’m going to devote my time to finding solutions for the global food issue. How can we produce enough food sustainably without exhausting the earth’s resources? I’m looking forward to this fantastic new challenge, but I’ll miss my team of developers.'
This summer, Karel will take on a new job at Lely after 35 years
Bio
Karel van den Berg
Direcor Innovations (until mid-2020)
Location: Maassluis, The Netherlands
Remarkable: Together with Alexander van der Lely, Karel was nominated by the European Patent Office (EPO) for the European Inventor Award 2019 finalists in the category “Industry”, for the fully automated milking system, Lely Astronaut.
Korstiaan started his career at Lely in 2011 as an intern. His graduation project was an individual feeding system for cows, which immediately earned him a contract. Korstiaan: 'In 2012 I started working with Karel as a product developer, and over the years I’ve learned an enormous amount from him.'
He’s currently the "manure" project manager, an ongoing theme for Lely‘s Future Farm. 'To be honest, I feel more like a farmer than an innovation manager. I run a dairy farm with my father and brother, where I start at 6 in the morning before driving to Lely. It keeps me in touch with farming. Manure is a major challenge for dairy farmers, because of environmental regulations and the way it affects society’s image of farming. The latter isn’t always positive, so we’d like to come up solutions for the manure problem to change this.'
Karel’s job is
being taken over
by Korstiaan Blokland
Bio
Korstiaan Blokland
Head of Innovations Team Manure
Will be successor of Karel from mid-2020
Location: Maassluis, The Netherlands
Remarkable: Runs his own dairy farm together with his farther and brother.
Karel: 'Farmers do things for a reason, but there’s often a better or smarter solution'
'When I walk around a farm, I often wonder why we still do things in certain ways. That’s a question I also put to colleagues with farming origins.' Korstiaan: 'That’s something you really drilled into us as a team. Back to the fundamentals: can we change routines on the farm to improve current working methods?'
Last year, Karel and Alexander van der Lely even received a nomination for the European Inventor Award. The innovation team will therefore need some time to get used to his departure. Korstiaan: 'You hired us all, and earned the trust of management so that we could work in complete freedom. My dream is to continue that success with the same team. I want to make sure that everything stays the same, but include new disruptive innovations that really make the farm of the future a reality.'
An innovation from Lely that has never been put into production: the "Plateau robot". The concept involved feeding and milking the cows on a carousel.
The prototype of this carousel has been tested on the farm of Karels’ brother. In his graduation research, Korstiaan showed that the available feeding time for cows has a major influence on feed intake (by making the carousel run faster, cows started to eat faster and more). The platform robot has had to make way for the Lely Vector because of the larger capacity.
Fact
Korstiaan and
the "Plateau robot"
Lely’s Future Farm integrates all the ideas and innovations that we’re working on every day. In addition to the Lely Astronaut and Vector, the farm contains other solutions to help dairy farmers in the near future. Important themes such as sustainability, circularity, animal welfare, business succession, profitability and the consumers’ needs for information about the origin of products are addressed in Lely’s Future Farm.
Lely's Future Farm