Fitness tracker for cows to help Aussie farmers
CANBERRA: CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and agtech startup Ceres Tag have created a new type of ‘fit bit’ to help farmers to keep track of where their livestock are and what they are doing.
The new technology, which takes the form of a smart ear tag, produces similar data to that delivered by consumer smart watches.
Using the device farmers can track where their herds graze, if an animal has escaped or been stolen, and even unusual movements which could indicate an animal is giving birth or sick.
The smart ear tag was successfully trialled on 100 cattle at CSIRO’s Lansdown Research Station near Townsville, Queensland, last week.
The aim is to save farmers time and money compared to the costs of manually tracking their herds using vehicles or aircraft. David Smith, CEO of Ceres Tag, said: “Ceres Tag gives greater transparency over grazing management, allowing farmers to locate and monitor their animals to reduce risk and operating costs, improve efficiency and assist with traceability”.
“The tag is GPS-enabled, allowing farmers to track the location of individual animals remotely, via Internet of Things (IoT) capability,” he added.
Using on-board accelerometers, the tag can send out alerts for unusual activity patterns which could be triggered by events like theft and other disturbances of the herd. — CSIRO News