Known as "voluntary milking", cows would wander from the paddock to the dairy whenever they choose and stand in specially built milking units. Robotic arms would automatically apply milking cups to the cows' teats and milking would then start.

A laser pointed at the teats would identify the cow and where to best fit the cups.

Stephen Coats, farm research manager at Dairy Australia, gave a short exhibition of voluntary milking to 150 farmers at yesterday's annual conference of the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria. The voluntary milking system was "very nearly a reality", he told the conference.

Mr Coats later said the system required only minimal human involvement, boosting efficiency and defeating a problem too often faced by dairy farmers — a shortage of workers.

"It sounds to others quite spacey, but we think that it certainly can become a widespread technology in Australia," he said.

"It's a system in which cows submit to the dairy of their own accord. Some cows will milk themselves twice a day, some cows will milk themselves five times a day. On average they milk themselves just over twice a day."

The conference also elected Moe dairy farmer Chris Griffin president of the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria, a key group of the Victorian Farmers Federation.