Something strange is happening at farms in upstate New York. The cows are milking themselves.

Desperate for reliable labor and buoyed by soaring prices, dairy operations across the state are charging into a brave new world of udder care: robotic milkers, which feed and milk cow after cow without the help of a single farmhand.

The Technology Farm is an incubator located in a 72-acre apple orchard in Geneva, New York. It is a nonprofit joint venture among Cornell University, the city of Geneva and the State of New York, which aims to create, retain and expand technology-based businesses focusing on agriculture and foodstuffs. Opening with 3 tenants and one lab in 2005, it now is home to 10 emerging businesses operating in two labs and four production facilities. It represents a successful effort to translate that university-business dynamic, which has powered the success of places from Taipei and Sophia Antipolis to Cambridge and Silicon Valley, into a rural economy. Startups and incubators are part of the charisma of these places, and the Tech Farm has transplanted them to a setting of rural beauty and fecundity.