Lely Exos, the world’s first concept for fully autonomous harvesting and feeding of fresh grass, won the DLG Agrifuture Concept Award 2022 in November. This was announced during EuroTier in Hannover, Germany. The Agrifuture Concept Winner Award focuses on the technical possibilities of innovations in the next five to ten years and looks at the realistic chances of implementation. With Lely Exos, we introduced an innovation in 2020 that is fully compatible with the transition to sustainable and circular dairy farming.

In September we introduced the next generation of Lely Juno, the automated feed pushing solution. The first-generation Juno was launched in 2008. Over the years, the model has been optimised with new benefits to take it to the next level. Meanwhile, the Lely Juno has become the market leader in the feed pushing market with an installed base of more than 13,000 Junos in 45 countries all over the world. Past learnings have been used to further optimise the latest Juno model with the main goal of lowering the running costs for the end users.

In the summer of 2023, the nitrogen crisis in the Netherlands became world news. The government created so much uncertainty for farmers that they staged frequent protests. Lely believes that innovation can help solve the nitrogen crisis. FrieslandCampina, Rabobank and Lely therefore joined forces to reduce nitrogen emissions at dairy farms. We entered into a partnership for the installation of 96 Lely Spheres across all Dutch provinces. The Lely Sphere is an installation that reduces nitrogen emissions by an average of 77% in the barn of a dairy farm. Over 600 farmers showed interest in the pilot. But the ongoing uncertainty still makes it difficult for them to invest in sustainable solutions.

In June we opened Lely Park - our new campus in Pella - and the renovated Lely Campus in Maassluis. As a result, we have even more space in which to produce sustainable, innovative solutions for dairy farming. Lely Pella will be able to significantly increase its production capacity to meet the growing needs of North American farmers. In Maassluis, Lely has doubled its area for office and factory work. The building is certified BREAAM Outstanding, making it one of the most sustainable office buildings in Europe. During a guided tour, His Majesty King Willem-Alexander explored how products are being developed on the Lely Campus for the dairy farm of the future, in which sustainability and circularity will play a central role.

In March the Lely Smart Feeding truck was on the road again to visit farmers throughout Europe during the Smart Feeding Tour. With this tour we wanted to connect with farmers to share information and experiences about feed management, the needs of different herds and cow health. Starting from the Netherlands in early March, the tour continued to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Nordics. From May onwards, a second truck was based in France for two months. The tour ended in October in Ireland. In total, 90 events were organised, including interactive and insightful presentations and workshops on smart feeding.

As a global supplier of dairy farm robots, we are aware of our role in global food supply, including in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. We want to do what is best in the interests of the population (food supply), cows (animal welfare) and the promises we have made to our farmers, among others. On the other hand, we condemn all forms of violence used by Russia in the war. The Russian actions are not compatible with our values, and this made us decide to completely stop our commercial activities in Russia and Belarus.