Digital technology on farms can be useful for many reasons. One of them is animal welfare.

Animal welfare is an increasingly important issue today. Although many seem unaware of it, it is a priority for the entire livestock sector to improve breeding methods, environmental sustainability, product quality and safety. Among the most effective strategies for achieving these ambitious goals are digital technologies, which are becoming increasingly innovative, useful and perfected. Artificial intelligence, for example, in the livestock sector and other sectors, can provide valid assistance in assessing and improving the welfare of farm animals. Several projects are already under development.

THE CLEARFARM PROJECT

One of these is ClearFarm, a platform that uses sensors and deep learning to collect information about the well-being and environmental impact of dairy cattle and pigs on farms and transmit it to cloud servers for analysis. In practice, this platform will enable farmers to monitor their animals at all times. How? For example, through sensors from smart electronic devices placed on the animals, such as accelerometer collars or ruminal boluses placed in the rumen of dairy cows. This will provide real-time updates and alerts on the herd’s health, allowing the farmer to make timely changes to animal management if necessary. Furthermore, thanks to machine learning, extracting valuable information and predicting the likelihood of pathologies such as acidosis and mastitis will be possible, allowing immediate intervention (and avoid using drugs and antibiotics where possible).

The #ClearFarm platform uses #sensors and #DeepLearning to collect information on #AnimalWelfare of #dairy #cattle and #pigs on #farm. Click To Tweet

The ultimate goal is to create a platform that will be useful for producers and consumers to monitor information on the welfare of pigs and dairy cows through a ‘traffic light’ code that gives an ‘animal welfare score’ for each meat and dairy product in the supermarket. Other benefits include improved production efficiency and reduced environmental impact. The ClearFarm platform applies the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to the monitored cattle and pigs on farms to determine the environmental impact of products and processes. Key pollution or resource consumption stages and improvement strategies are identified by assessing impacts on global warming, land use, water use, etc.

THE TECHCARE, AWISH AND PPILOW PROJECTS

Like ClearFarm, the TechCare project uses innovative, low-cost technologies adapted to small ruminant farming systems across Europe. It is an innovative multi-stakeholder approach to monitoring animal welfare indicators and improving farm management, using precision breeding techniques throughout the production chain.

Also noteworthy is the European project “aWISH” (Animal Welfare Indicators at the Slaughterhouse), which focuses on the large-scale automated monitoring of animal welfare indicators in broiler chickens and pigs at all stages, especially the most critical ones: on the farm, during loading and unloading, during transport and at the slaughterhouse. New sensors will be developed and tested to measure different indicators so that data can be collected continuously and automatically. The aim is to use this data to provide feedback and advice on best practices to all those involved in the supply chain, including farmers, transporters and slaughterhouse operators.

The European project #aWISH focuses on the large-scale automated #monitoring of #AnimalWelfare indicators in #broilers and pigs at all stages. Click To Tweet

Finally, the PPILOW project aims to develop, through a multi-stakeholder approach, solutions to improve the welfare of chickens and pigs reared in non-conventional, free-range, organic and low-input systems. Although there is a belief that these extensive systems guarantee higher welfare due to the animals’ high degree of natural behaviour, the reality is that the level of welfare outside the barn is not as high as thought, and there are still many critical issues. Some of these are very similar to conventional systems, while others are even worse, such as exposure to external health threats or problems with the survival of the young. That is why artificial intelligence will also be clarifying and useful in this context.

These ambitious projects have the most advanced technologies, and research is constantly evolving to refine their algorithms. These intelligent devices will be a great opportunity for farmers and those in the supply chain. Consumers, too, will have an indispensable tool in their hands, giving them greater transparency about the quality of the products they buy and more confidence in those who produce them. The real challenge, apart from ensuring connectivity across Europe (especially in rural areas) to take advantage of these technologies, will be knowing how to use them.