Worldwide demand for meat is constantly growing and in order for demand to be met, farms are growing more than ever before leading to less time available for contact of the farmer with the individual animals. An EU initiative aims to analyse the added value of technology that provides automatic round-the-clock monitoring of animals to mitigate the negative socioeconomic and environmental consequences.
Farmers often struggle to deal with the size of today's livestock farms
as a result of increased global demand for animal products. This can
have detrimental effects on both animals and humans. One solution is
Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) that uses advanced technologies to
monitor each individual animal continuously by using sensors, cameras
and microphones. However, the innovative PLF technology, which can
perform highly automated processes, at farms which have multiplied in
scale is not widely implemented.
The EU-funded
EU-PLF (Bright farm by precision livestock farming) project aims to achieve the full potential of PLF tools by developing them into commercial products and services for farmers at dairy, pig and poultry farms.
To achieve this, project partners create a draft blueprint for farmers, high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and other key players interested in designing and using PLF tools. The reference manual provides guidance on using PLF technology for support in managing and optimising animal production quickly and accurately.
The team defined a set of key indicators for animal welfare, animal health, environment and productivity. Based on these, socioeconomic measures were identified to assess the value created by the use of PLF tools in farms.
Three generic tools were created to calculate the economic outcomes of implementing PLF applications for the three types of farms. Data is currently being gathered with the first commercial PLF image and sound monitoring system that was installed and implemented at 20 farms. Analysis of audio and video data and the development of algorithms for automated monitoring are ongoing.
Seventeen teams of potential company starters are being trained for a competition that will provide funds to design a prototype PLF based on innovative solutions.
EU-PLF aims to support the building of a prototype. This will lead to the development of new business models and PLF products with worldwide impact.
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