Tap into livestock farming technology for better returns

THE traditional livestock industry is a sector which is widely overlooked and under-serviced, although it is arguably the most vital. Livestock provides much-needed renewable natural resources that we rely on everyday.

Livestock management has traditionally been known as running the business of poultry farms, dairy farms, cattle ranches, or other livestock-related agribusinesses.

Livestock managers must keep accurate financial records, supervise workers, and ensure proper care and feeding of animals.

However, recent trends have proven that technology is revolutionising the world of livestock management.

New developments in the past eight to 10 years have made huge improvements to the industry that make tracking and managing livestock much easier and data-driven. This technology can come in the form of nutritional technologies, genetics, digital technology, and more.

Livestock technology can enhance or improve productivity capacity, welfare, or management of animals and livestock. The concept of the “connected cow” is a result of more and more dairy herds being fitted with sensors to monitor health and increase productivity.

Putting individual wearable sensors on cattle can keep track of daily activity and health-related issues while providing data-driven insights for the entire herd.

All this data generated is also being turned into meaningful, actionable insights where producers can look quickly and easily to make quick management decisions.

Animal genomics can be defined as the study of looking at the entire gene landscape of a living animal and how they interact with each other to influence the animal’s growth and development.

Genomics help livestock producers understand the genetic risk of their herds and determine the future profitability of their livestock.

By being strategic with animal selection and breeding decisions, cattle genomics allows producers to optimise profitability and yields of livestock herds.

Sensor and data technologies have huge benefits for the current livestock industry. It can improve the productivity and welfare of livestock by detecting sick animals and intelligently recognising room for improvement.

Computer vision allows us to have all sorts of unbiased data that will get summarised into meaningful, actionable insights.

Data-driven decision-making leads to better, more efficient, and timely decisions that will advance the productivity of livestock herds.

MAZVANYA