Livestock farmer receives help on the way to digital transition with a digital platform

Livestock farmer receives help on the way to digital transition with a digital platform

Robots are now an important part of a dairy farm. A lot of data is collected in this process. Lely has developed a platform that allows farmers to share their data with other parties. Freddie Ruijs, head of the Digital Farming department at Lely, will talk about the benefits of such a platform during the Machine Construction event on April 12.

By: Dimitri Reijerman

Ruijs is busy transitioning to a highly digitalized dairy farm using the Horizon platform. “We used to call that a farm management system,” says Ruijs. “That is a complete software platform with which a farmer runs his farm. This system is in turn linked to the robots in the stable.”

This involves a significant amount of data from numerous sources, says Ruijs: “In addition to being a machine builder like Lely, we are also a big data company with an enormous amount of data stored in the cloud. On top of that we run analytics and algorithms. And it is no longer just a list of names of cows. Every millisecond we monitor, for example with our milking robots, what a cow is doing during the day. And there are many more companies that are active on a farm, such as feed suppliers and veterinarians. They need that information too. Think about asking: is the cow eating enough? And what is the quality of the milk like?”

He continues about Horizon: “We have been offering a farm management system for some time, but we have renovated this system with a different business model underneath. This platform is now marketed under the name Horizon. A farmer can do his work on the farm via an app or his PC. He can do his own analyzes based on our analytics models.”

Environment and animal welfare

Nowadays a farmer has to take more and more aspects into account, such as environmental requirements and animal welfare. Ruijs says: “A livestock farmer needs to do more than just understand a farm. We measure many factors surrounding animal welfare, which you can clearly understand. But also simple statistics, such as: how do the animals grow up and how old do they actually live? That is very relevant information for animal welfare. So we can help livestock farmers with that.”

He continues: “In the long term, you will also see the question arise from consumers and politicians: which milk has been produced in an environmentally friendly and animal-friendly manner. You must be able to provide relevant evidence for this, as you already have with meadow milk. In addition, we are also measuring more and more things related to the climate in a stable. Our newest robot, an air washer, recovers nutrients from the manure flow. Nitrogen must also return correctly. We also want to reduce the amount of fertilizer that farmers use because they recover it from the manure themselves.”

Linking new technology

“There is a lot of development in sensor technology,” says Ruijs. “This way you can see per cow's behavior and what it eats. Previously you could only analyze this in groups, now individually. This way you can observe more per cow and monitor the animal's health even better. You can also use sensors to keep a close eye on milk quality by automatically carrying out chemical analyzes on the farm.”

This technology can also ensure better animal welfare and stable milk production: “A cow that you allow to produce too much is also a cow that is 'finished' sooner. A cow likes continuity, no stress. A free-roaming cow is the happiest cow. Continuous feeding is the most important thing for a cow. A robot that always provides fresh feed supplemented with individually adjustable concentrates is necessary to maintain a cow's energy balance. With our Horizon system we can therefore show the energy curve of a cow.”

Ruijs also points out the benefits of sharing data with other parties: “The farmer can share his data. We can build those links with other parties. Then you should think of, for example, feed advisors, but also veterinarians, breeding companies, and if that is useful, audit reports for government regulators and dairies. With this total ecosystem you can save a lot of costs and further improve food safety. We use a subscription model for this.”

For the farmer, digitalization is the transition from seeing to measuring, from analysis to insight and from paying for ownership to use. This is a major change in this field that requires time, says Ruijs: “It is a huge transition for a farmer to this way of working. These changes take time. Our livestock farmers have always paid once for their management software. But for a lot of the software you use to do your work, you have to pay monthly. You have to explain this subscription model carefully to the farmer. So that process takes some time.”

Would you like to attend Ruijs' lecture? Register free of charge for the Machine Construction event on April 12.