Modern approaches to livestock farming

Photo: financialbrokerage

Technology is nothing new in today’s livestock farming systems. Mechanization and increased efficiency have thoroughly permeated this landscape and defined the farm of the 21st century. However, there is abundant room for improvement. Newer and newer technologies constantly shift the goalpost for any farmer aiming to increase productivity and most importantly, better care for his animals. Though keeping up with change may seem daunting, it is definitely worth the effort.

What benefits do smart farming technologies offer livestock farming?

Ever since livestock started being kept indoors some decades ago, the number one concern for growers has been animal health, comfort, and safety. This requires careful management of a number of barn factors. These include animal living quarters, sanitation, proper vaccination, biosecurity measures, scientifically informed nutrition, efficient drinking water distribution, and informed use of antibiotics. It isn’t difficult to see how each of these crucial elements stand to gain immensely from ever-increasingly better technologies that directly impact farm operations.

It’s clear that growers have done just that. They harnessed the general scientific advances being made in genetics, nutrition, barn construction, and biosecurity. This has drastically improved efficiency in US pork production. In 1959 it took eight pigs to produce 1,000 pounds of beef – today, it only takes five. Not only have producers increased output efficiency, but they’ve also done so while decreasing required resource inputs. Less land, less water, and less carbon emission have all marked the sustainable trends defining livestock farming’s ongoing revolution.

Technology at its best

Though it may seem obvious that these trends would creep their way into modern farming operations by dint of organic technological advancement, the commercial side of the story is also important, and one that producers have clearly been responsive to. Consumers have as much to say about how the industry develops as producers. They define its winners and losers through their wallets.

The consumer has clearly become conscious of the conditions of the animals that inevitably land on their dinner table. This makes sustainable practices an even more critical driver behind smart farming technology implementation. This makes efficiency doubly important. With so much technological innovation already part-and-parcel of modern livestock production, squeezing out those remaining percentage points of output efficiency suddenly doesn’t seem all that secondary. A system that can maximize efficiency while eliminating security risks becomes a necessity in any pork farming arsenal.

What smart farming solutions are out there?

With so much of the modern smart farming technologies pushing the boundaries of mechanical efficiency, the next frontier being conquered has been moving into the digital space. It’s here that technology really brings its most impactful benefits in line with the producer’s most pressing concern: farm security. Smart, digital farming technologies offer first and foremost real-time and guaranteed oversight over farming facilities and do so through the implementation of everyday solutions like mobile applications augmented by smart alarm systems.

Precision is a crucial part of any smart farm aiming to diminish its inherent risk factors. New technologies perfectly target this aspect. They provide capabilities far beyond the physical constraints of humans and older farm solutions. The obvious answer to risk is farm alarm systems that can monitor a barn environment’s most critical aspects. Specifically, these are temperature, moisture, ventilation, and resource consumption. But what’s critical here isn’t the what, it’s the how. Any producer can have yards upon yards of wire stretched across the entire facility, snaking its way between hog pens and feeder troughs. But it will be the smart farmer who harnesses one of the most fundamental technologies behind digitization today – wireless connectivity.

Wireless Connection – shaping the digital age

New technologies like wireless sensors tackle numerous day-to-day livestock farming problems that can be especially felt in remote facilities farther from larger population centres. These solutions are ideal in terms of the ease with which they’re installed and their cost being next to nothing. As an element of the barn security system, wireless equals full insight into each individual animal’s situation. Wireless also means simplicity. It cancels out all the potential trouble spots that might damage a connection in old fashioned farm alarm setups.

Another benefit of modern, mobile farm app solutions is better connectivity. Today’s massive scope of cell tower coverage makes security systems omnipresent and uninterruptible. Smart applications also know which is the most crucial data. They don’t overload connection transfers by sending vast amounts of additional, useless data. This all makes the modern smart farm alarm system secure from connection breakdowns. It effectively makes it lean, precise and focused on those aspects that push the frontiers of livestock production efficiency.

A modern approach for a modern era

With all this in tow, the modern smart pork production facility is equipped with all the tools to take on 21st-century challenges. This is making livestock farming more efficient, more sustainable, and most importantly, more impactful. In fact, as consumers worldwide continue to look at pork and other meats as a staple element of their diet, smart farming technology will serve as the producer’s best friend in this mission of feeding bodies and souls.

Reprinted from financialbrokerage, the copyright all reserved by the original author.