In this article, the aim is to explore how social aspects of the adoption and expansion of milking robots in Norwegian dairy farming are related to the political and structural changes in the sector. To explore the relationship between the implementation of automated milking systems (AMS) and structural developments, we used a qualitative methodology building on data from interviews with farmers, policy documents, statistics, and secondary literature. The structural change in the Norwegian dairy sector was substantial between 2000 and 2018. The average number of cows on each farm increased from 14.4 to 27.9, while the number of farms decreased from around 21,000 to less than 9,000. More than 47 percent of the milk produced in Norway now comes from a dairy farm with an AMS, and this percentage is rapidly increasing. We argue that the structural developments in milk production in Norway are neither politically nor economically driven, but are mainly an unintended consequence of farmers’ aggregated investments in AMS – which are supposed to increase farmers’ everyday quality of life – and reluctant regulatory changes to make investments in AMS structurally and economically viable.

本文旨在探讨挪威奶牛场采用和扩展挤奶机器人的社会方面如何与该部门的政治和结构变化相关联。为了探索自动挤奶系统（AMS）的实施与结构发展之间的关系，我们使用了定性方法，该方法基于对农民的采访，政策文件，统计数据和辅助文献中的数据。挪威奶业的结构变化在2000年至2018年间发生了巨大变化。每个农场的平均奶牛数量从14.4头增加到27.9头，而农场的数量从21,000头减少到9,000头以下。现在，挪威生产的牛奶中，超过47％来自具有AMS的奶牛场，而且这一百分比正在迅速增加。