Cargill invests in dairy tech firm Cainthus

Cargill is also entering into a partnership with the startup and has already run several trials with Cainthus technology. So far, Cainthus has tested their system in commercial dairy farms in New York, California, Canada, Italy, and Spain.

Cainthus uses various types of imaging equipment to monitor livestock operations by using artificial intelligence and custom algorithms. Photo: Mark Pasveer

Cainthus uses various types of imaging equipment to monitor livestock operations by using artificial intelligence and custom algorithms. Its system can detect behaviour, monitor health, measure feed and water intake, detect when the animals are in heat and more. Within seconds Cainthus imaging technology can identify individual cows by their features, memorise their unique identity and record individual patterns and movements. “We train our AI to understand that a particular pixel pattern is a cow and when that pixel pattern exhibits a rate of change of movement that determines what the gesture is,” says founder David Hunt.

The interest of Cargill to invest and cooperate with Cainthus comes from its quest to find strategies to use digital technologies to fundamentally improve livestock and aquaculture operations. Sri Kantamneni, managing director of digital insights at Cargill said to AgFunder: ”One of the most attractive qualities of Cainthus technology was its potential to apply to all animal protein sectors. “We have hopes for taking their technology to pork poultry and aquaculture as well.”

David Hunt: “We train our AI to understand that a particular pixel pattern is a cow.” Photo: Cainthus

Trials have shown that farmers can earn an additional US$ 100-200 return per animal, per lactation cycle using the system and the most common issues that Cainthus detects are the cows running out of feed at night and not having enough water. Fixing these problems alone can bring a noticeable financial return, said Hunt.

[Source: AgFunderNews]