1Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, KU Leuven, Belgium; 2BioRICS NV, Belgium Email: daniel.berckmans@kuleuven.be
Introduction This year 65 Billion animals are slaughtered for food production. The worldwide demand for animals products is expected to increase with up to 75 % by 2050. At the same time the number of farmers is decreasing which means that each farm will count more animals. It is a serious challenge to guarantee good animal welfare and health for all those animals.
Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) aims at monitoring livestock continuously in real-time to further act as a support tool in managing livestock for better animal health, welfare, production and reduced environmental impact. This is done by using cameras, microphones and sensor in combination with intelligent algorithms to monitor animals and their behaviour 24/7 in a fully auto mated way.
Materials and Methods Since 1991 we are developing real-time monitoring techniques for living organisms starting on insects, mussels, fish, rats and mice, broilers, pigs, cow, rabbits, horses etc. The last 20 years we apply the approach also on humans.
Living organisms are Complex, Individually different, Time-varying in their responses and Dynamic (CITD). Due to their time varying behaviour we need to monitor them continuously 24/7. Continuous means 25 images per second or 20.000 sound samples or up to 250 accelerometer samples per second. These new technologies are combined with smart algorithms to turn the raw data into relevant information and only send meaning full data higher up to the early warning and management system.
Results We show examples of animal variables and behaviours that can be monitored with today’s PLF technology. Many of them relate to animal health such as real-time pig weight monitoring by camera, pigs’ water use monitoring by image analysis. Pig infection monitoring and broiler feed intake both realised by sound analysis. Cow lameness monitoring by image analysis. Looking to the future, we show animal welfare monitoring based upon real-time physiological data. We discuss the importance of animal welfare not only from ethical viewpoint but also from the aspect of efficient use of feed energy for production and for the immune system. We give an opinion of the role of the veterinarian in the digital world of Precision Livestock Farming and finally we discuss a potential business model to make this technology support veterinarians.
Infection monitor by sound analysis Lameness monitor by image analysis
Conclusions In conclusion, Precision |Livestock Farming will become true and has the potential to change the whole livestock sector and the work of many stakeholders. It remains a support tool for the farmer in managing his animals and it will give totally new opportunities to the veterinarians.
Animal Health Surveillance and Smart Farming: Cyber Security in times with Robots, BigData, AI and Social Media
A. J. Dörig
Chairman Advisory Board “Advanced Cyber Security” of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences SATW, Switzerland Email: doerig@doerigpartner.ch
Introduction: Smart Farming is a farming management concept using modern technology to increase the quantity and quality of agricultural products. Farmers in the 21st century have access to GPS, soil scanning, data management, and Internet of Things technologies. By precisely measuring variations within a field and adapting the strategy accordingly, farmers can greatly increase the effectiveness of pesticides and fertilizers and use them more selectively. Similarly, using Smart Farming techniques, farmers can better monitor the needs of individual animals and adjust their nutrition correspondingly, thereby preventing disease and enhancing herd health.
Challenges: ‘The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation predicts that in order to keep pace with population growth, food production must increase by 70 percent by 2050; it also estimates that agriculture worldwide is currently responsible for a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions and for using some 70 percent of the world’s fresh water. ’The development of smart farming and precision agriculture must accelerate rapidly and learn lessons from smart city projects if it is to meet the challenge set by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The way farmers produce their food must radically change in order to feed the growing world population of the future: Precision agriculture or smart farming makes use of GPS services, machine to machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, sensors and big data to optimise crop yields and reduce waste. Decision based support systems, backed up by publicly available data - including weather conditions and forecasts, machine status, crop information and animal health - can provide real time information at a level of granularity not previously possible. This enables better, more accurate decisions to be made and results in less waste and maximum efficiency in operations. This matters in an industry where margins can be tight, and a saving of a few percent can amount to a great deal of money and precious resources.
Solutions: The European Commission project Internet of Food and Farm 2020. The internet of things (IoT) has revolutionary potential. A smart web of sensors, actuators, cameras, robots, drones and other connected devices allows for an unprecedented level of control and automated decision-making. The project Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) explores the potential of IoT-technologies for the European food and farming industry.
A secure, robust, trustworthy, relible and agile digital foundation would be an important advantage for ongoing innovation in smart farming. The most common concern about automation and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is about cybersecurity. Adolf J.
Doerig looks at the strategic and tactical challenges for future oriented and trustworthy architectures. Something like a trustworthy Internet of Food & Farm.
Session 06: Precision livestock farming methods to control animal health and welfare
Precision Dairy Opportunities and Challenges
J. M. BewleyAlltech, Inc. Nicholasville, KY, USA Email: jeffrey.bewley@uky.edu
Introduction. Across the globe, the trend toward fewer, larger dairy operations continues. Dairy operations today are characterized by narrower profit margins than in the past, largely because of reduced governmental involvement in regulating agricultural commodity prices. Consequently, small changes in production or efficiency can have a major impact on profitability. The resulting competition growth has intensified the drive for efficiency resulting in increased emphasis on business and financial management. Furthermore, the decision-making landscape for a dairy manager has changed dramatically with increased emphasis on consumer protection, continuous quality assurance, natural foods, pathogen-free food, zoonotic disease transmission, reduction of the use of medical treatments, and increased concern for the care of animals. These changing demographics reflect a continuing change in the way in which dairy operations are managed. In large part, many of these changes can be attributed to tremendous technological progress in all facets of dairy farming, including genetics, nutrition, reproduction, disease control, and management.
Precision Dairy Farming. Precision Dairy Farming is the use of technologies to measure physiological, behavioral, and production indicators on individual animals to improve management strategies and farm performance. Many Precision Dairy Farming technologies, including daily milk yield recording, milk component monitoring, pedometers, automatic temperature recording devices, milk conductivity indicators, automatic estrus detection monitors, and daily body weight measurements, are already being utilized by dairy producers. Other theoretical Precision Dairy Farming technologies have been proposed to measure jaw movements, ruminal pH, reticular contractions, heart rate, animal positioning and activity, vaginal mucus electrical resistance, feeding behavior, lying behavior, odor, glucose, acoustics, progesterone, individual milk components, color (as an indicator of cleanliness), infrared udder surface temperatures, and respiration rates. The main objectives of Precision Dairy Farming are maximizing individual animal potential, early detection of disease, and minimizing the use of medication through preventive health measures. Perceived benefits of Precision Dairy Farming technologies include increased efficiency, reduced costs, improved product quality, minimized adverse environmental impacts, and improved animal health and well-being. Real time data used for monitoring animals may be incorporated into decision support systems designed to facilitate decision making for issues that require compilation of multiple sources of data.
Technologies for physiological monitoring of dairy cows have great potential to supplement the observational activities of skilled herdspersons, which is especially critical as more cows are managed by fewer skilled workers. The economic implications of technology adoption must be explored further to increase adoption rates of Precision Dairy Farming technologies.
Current State. The list of Precision Dairy Farming technologies used for animal status monitoring and management continues to grow. Despite widespread availability, adoption of these technologies in the dairy industry has been relatively sparse thus far.
Perceived economic returns from investing in a new technology are always a factor influencing technology adoption. Additional factors impacting technology adoption include degree of impact on resources used in the production process, level of management needed to implement the technology, risk associated with the technology, institutional constraints, producer goals and motivations, and having an interest in a specific technology. Characteristics of the primary decision maker that influence technology adoption include age, level of formal education, learning style, goals, farm size, business complexity, increased tenancy, perceptions of risk, type of production, ownership of a non-farm business, innovativeness in production, average expenditure on information, and use of the technology by peers and other family members.
Investment. Though Precision Dairy Farming is in its infancy, new Precision Dairy Farming technologies are introduced to the market each year. As new technologies are developed in other industries, engineers and animal scientists find applications within the dairy industry. More importantly, as these technologies are widely adopted in larger industries, such as the automobile or personal computing industries, the costs of the base technologies decrease making them more economically feasible for dairy farms. Because the bulk of research focused on Precision Dairy Farming technologies is conducted in research environments, care must be taken in trying to transfer these results directly to commercial settings. Field experiments or simulations may need to be conducted to alleviate this issue. Because of the gap between the impact of Precision Dairy Farming technologies in research versus commercial settings, additional effort needs to be directed toward implementation of management practices needed to fully utilize information provided by these technologies. To gain a better understanding of technology adoption shortcomings, additional research needs to be undertaken to examine the adoption process for not only successful adoption of technology but also technology adoption failures. Before investing in a new technology, a formal investment analysis should be conducted to make sure that the technology is right for your farm’s needs. Precision dairy farming technologies provide tremendous opportunities for improvements in individual animal management on dairy farms. In the future, Precision Dairy Farming technologies may change the way dairy herds are managed.