Innovations dairy farmers should know about

Acoording to a press report, the Animal AgTech Innovation Summit (San Francisco, March 16) has identified start-ups with breakthrough technologies to support a sustainable and efficient livestock industry, with solutions ranging from non-antibiotic treatment for bovine mastitis to autonomous livestock monitoring.

Photo: Hans Prinsen

Dairy industry: Start-ups in the spotlight

Armenta (Israel) has developed the first non-antibiotic treatment for bovine mastitis using acoustic pulse technology (APT). Mastitis causes annual losses of over $6 billion in the US and Europe. Infected cows treated with APT have shown 70% cure rates and consequently 10% increase in milk yield. Implementing APT increases farmer profitability, improving herd health and cow welfare.

BinSentry
(Canada) is an agricultural IoT company solving a 40-year-old problem in the animal feed industry – the reliable inventory monitoring of on-farm feed bins. On a mission to “retire the mallet”, BinSentry’s IoT sensor enables feed-mills and vertical integrators to realize significant cost-savings by enabling dramatic increases in operational efficiency.

CattleEye
(Ireland) has created the world’s first autonomous livestock monitoring platform improving the lives of farmers and their livestock and revolutionizing the Protein Supply Chain. Its deep learning AI platform is designed to interpret visual imagery of livestock from web cameras and extract valuable insights about those cows.

General Probiotics
(USA) develops innovative cellbots and antimicrobial probiotics that eliminate harmful pathogens in livestock, enable the production of safe food, and reduce the current dependency on antibiotics. Its core competency is the precise engineering of advanced probiotics using synthetic biology and artificial intelligence.

H2Oalert
(The Netherlands) is the first uniquely wireless IoT real-time water control management system for dairy and beef cattle. The quality and quantity of the cattle drinking water is checked in real-time, 24/7, for pollution and possible malfunctions in the water supply. In this way, the H2Oalert system and the data obtained will result in a direct contribution to animal welfare, milk and meat production.

Hencol (Sweden) presents the next level of precision livestock farming with its big data and AI algorithms making it possible to give its customers an optimised decision support system. Hencol enables digitalization of the entire value chain with significant benefits for all actors involved.

Jaguza Tech
(Uganda) uses sensors, data science and machine learning to improve core aspects of farm operations to become more efficient, productive and sustainable. Jaguza is an offline and cloud IoT based livestock management system which features animal healthcare monitoring and recordings of IoT sensors, farm management systems, animal livestock identification as well as utilizing animal smart tags and QR code readings via wireless technologies.

Moonsyst (Hungary) is a smart monitoring system for progressive dairy and beef farmers. It collects different parameters of the livestock, helping farmers with real-time data to increase productivity and detect disease, stress and heat.

Nextbiotics (USA) has a goal to leverage cutting-edge synthetic biology tools and bacteriophage technology to provide unique solutions to the antibiotic resistance crisis. It offers solutions to destroy pathogenic (bad) bacteria. Its first product is a feed additive for animal producers to enhance animal nutrition and significantly reduce the use of antibiotics.

Simple Ag Solutions (USA) is a B2B, software-as-a-service company providing the bridge between animal health and production. Its platform was engineered from the ground up for livestock and poultry producers to manage antibiotic usage, optimize production, and facilitate audits.

Held annually in San Francisco and Amsterdam, the Animal AgTech Innovation Summit is an international event for livestock dairy and poultry producers. The full program is available here.