Those in the dairy industry may be aware of the ghastly practice by Indian farmers of cutting off the ears of the cattle to enable them to identify cases of cattle theft, fraud, or even for purposes of tracking outbreak of diseases. Developed countries such as the UK and the US use advanced systems of cattle identification such as cattle passports which every animal can be identified with. Yet some farmers put numbers on animals for identification purposes. Facial recognition technology could put an end to such practices. Companies such as Mooo-ID and Cainthis are already working in this direction. Moo-ID as the name suggests helps in cattle-identification, and Cainthus uses AI and computer vision with their smart cameras to observe nutritional, behavioural, health and environmental activities that can impact production. This visual information is then turned into actionable insights that enable the farmer to make data-driven decisions to improve farm operations and animal health. Farms such as Maddox Dairy in the USA are already using this tech and feel they can know about the health of all the cows without being physically present at the farm.
Moo-ID, an AI-based livestock identification system on the other hand lets users register cattle against their Aadhar id. Information about the owner and the cattle is digitally stored. This can be later used to verify the cow’s Identity.
Milktech startup MoooFarm works with Microsoft to help Indian dairy farmers tackle their losses. With their services such as Digital Livestock Management, farmers can record and maintain cattle lifelines, manage their expenses and also get access to predictive analytics for dairy farm management. Their mission is to make farmers prosperous and in that direction help farmers connect with ‘vets at doorstep’ at an affordable pricing, and help in purchase of dairy farming inputs which are again delivered to the doorstep at an affordable pricing. Besides, they also provide credit access to farmers, insurance of cattle et al.
Disease detection is necessary for the farmers to be in control of the health of their cattle as it is an important aspect of the dairy industry. An IoT device used to track health data of cattle is a collar, which is put on the neck of the animals and transfers the collected data which can be analyzed to detect any symptoms of diseases.
