New Technology Revolutionising Farmers’ Lives
UK - New technology is revolutionising everyone’s life on a daily basis – in the home, in the office and on the farm.
2 July 2015
4 minute read
Everyone is connected through the internet, social media, smartphones, Twitter, YouTube, and various other systems and electronic offerings.
On the farm new technology is seen in the farm office controlling accounts, measuring performance and managing the daily work load.
Automation has been seen in the dairy herd with new dairy parlours, automated feeding systems, and cleaning equipment.
New technology can be seen out in the fields both in the tractor and on the ground.
Heat Detection
Technology can change the lives of cows.
Every farmer wants easy, accurate heat detection, more calves at the right time, healthy cows and the best genetics possible.
Not a new system, MooMonitor+ from Dairymaster, allows farmers detect heats with ease, through advanced data analysis.
It can also identify specific types of behaviour such as heat, feeding, rumination and wellness, resting and restlessness.
It is designed for both indoors and outdoors with up to 3,000 metres range in optimal conditions and the system sends back information more often than many other devices on the market today - monitoring cows real time.
Cloud Based Data
Easy installation & operation is key for many farmers. When Dairymaster designed and manufactured the MooMonitor+ the emphasis was work efficiency on-farm.
Non-invasive collars are simply attached to the cow’s neck and to assign or alter records of your cows, simply swipe a compatible smartphone over the tags to update records.
Much like Facebook the easy-to-use MooMonitor+ software is cloud based and is accessible from anywhere in the world on an unlimited number of devices connected to the internet via a secure login.
Farmers, employees, vets, breeders and nutritionists can all have secure up to the minute access to farm information allowing for informed and timely decisions.
Rumination data gives the farmer a great indication of animal welfare.
The system pushes Animal Behavioural Alerts making a farmer aware when it detects changes in behaviour which may indicate illness.
This allows early intervention, reduced antibiotic usage and better recovery rates on farm.
Monitoring Calves Remotely
Dairy farmers are now also able to remotely monitor and manage their calves’ nutrition and subsequent performance for the first time thanks to the latest technology.
Volac’s Urban CalfMom LifeStart computerised feeding system programme enables milk quantity, temperature, time and speed of drinking for each individual calf to be down loaded on smart phone, tablet or laptop.
A touchscreen carrying all the relevant data will enable farmers to operate and if necessary remotely adjust the feeding system.
CalfMom LifeStart will also provide a remotely delivered daily health evaluation enabling sick animals to be detected at the very earliest, before signs of illness are visually displayed.
Volac’s Jackie Bradley said: “New technology is enabling producers to operate their farming systems at the height of efficiency wherever they are – both on farm and remotely.
“CalfMom LifeStart is one such product which will help them to ensure there is no slippage, that their calves reach daily liveweight gain targets and are sufficiently well grown to enter the milking herd at 23 to 25 months - the optimum age according to Royal Veterinary College research findings for maximum lifetime production.”
A new development from Sum-It an expansion of the Dairy Enterprise Software caters for multiple herds in different locations through Remote Parlour Apps.
Total Dairy can be run centrally and it will communicate with a wide range of systems either locally or by WIFI or across the internet, using the new Remote Apps.
This means that if the farmer operates the parlour or several parlours possibly miles away from the farm office, the Total Dairy software can link them to send actions or pull across milk yields without being constrained to having the software on the same PC as the Parlour system.
The same applies to linking with Heat Detection software and Feeder systems.
The mobile Total Apps for Android smartphones and tablets enable multiple operators to record new events and view existing records wherever they are, only requiring WIFI when they are ready to synchronise their data back to the central Total Dairy system.
Multiple devices can all update or receive data from the single Total Dairy Herd Dataset, minimising data duplication.
New Ground in Fencing
Thanks to the state-of-the-art smartphone technology even electric fencing has been brought into the 21st century.
Farmers can be alerted instantly when there is little, or no, voltage in their fencing through a simple text message to their phone, wherever they are.
The Rutland GSM Smart Phone Control Energiser makes electric fencing as safe and secure as any permanent stock-proof alternatives.
“We wanted to give farmers and agricultural workers total peace of mind when it came to using electric fencing.
“The aim is to supply a product that’s cost-effective, totally reliable and saves time because it will alert you immediately when it’s not working,” said Tom Royall, agricultural category manager Woodstream Europe, which owns Rutland Electric Fencing.
The new product, which is available as a battery-operated or mains version, has also been designed to allow individuals to turn off the power on request so that a farmer can work on the fence line without having to return to the power source to switch it off.
