‘Living lab’ to tackle agriculture issues

A GROUNDBREAKING ‘living laboratory’ for livestock is to be launched at a Bristol veterinary school – to help address major issues facing agriculture.

The lab will be established at the Bristol Veterinary School thanks to a £1million donation from the John Oldacre Foundation.

The John Oldacre Centre for Sustainability and Welfare in Dairy Production will tackle the global challenge of ethical food security and train the next gen- eration of vets and agriculturalists to help address the major issues facing agriculture.

The John Oldacre Centre, based within Wyndhurst Farm, the University of Bristol’s commercially run dairy unit at Langford, will be equipped with the latest data collection devices such as motion detection, GPS tracking and thermographic sensors to gather data that will identify and support changes in agricultural practices.

It will bring together col- leagues from engineering, data and behavioural sciences to use technology, such as motion sensing, to identify small behavioural and physiological changes at the beginning of a disease, such as mastitis.

The vet school is already working with colleagues in life sciences, using thermography as a novel way of predicting disease, which can reveal, very quickly, which animal is ill. The earlier a disease can be detected, the easier it is to treat effectively.