Goondiwindi business Infarm instrumental in implementing artificial intelligence in cattle monitoring program

The world of artificial intelligence and cattle farming has collided in a bid to improve low fertility rates in growing herds, with new tech being developed in our own backyard. More here.

A collaboration between the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and a southwest Queensland sustainable farming group, is set to change the future by using artificial intelligence to monitor cattle.

The joint venture has seen the creation of a prototype automated camera system, tasked with detecting cattle and monitoring their condition.

InFarm managing director and co-founder Jerome Lay said the company’s innovative use of AI and big data has contributed to making farms more efficient and profitable.

“Working with DAF has allowed us to combine our joint expertise to kickstart the project,” he said.

“The goal of this technology is to have digital eyes on your animals at all time, helping to improve productivity while maintaining Australia’s biosecurity.”

Identifying cows and calves is the systems number one priority, enabling producers to access vital information in combating low fertility rates in extensive beef herds.

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and Goondiwindi-based company Infarm have collaborated to create a prototype automated camera system to detect cattle and monitor their condition. Photo: DAF and InFarm

Off the back of the systems success, it will be developed into remote surveillance nodes that look for things like animal injures, emergency animal disease symptoms and other production issues.

Minister for agricultural industry development Mark Furner said the rollout of technology like this is extremely exciting.

“The ramifications of technology like this are extremely exciting, not to mention far reaching,” he said.

“Cattle monitoring using artificial intelligence is something we could only have dreamt of up until recently, now it’s a whisker away from becoming a reality.

“Projects like this also enable our AgTech Roadmap’s vision of Adopt, Adapt and Advance.”

The technology is being trialled at the DAF’s Brian Pastures research facility in the North Burnett, with more than 750,000 images and 86,000 videos have been recorded.

Researchers are labelling the cattle in the videos and photos to train the AI algorithm.

Once this training is complete, the system will be able to do everything remotely and will only send alerts when it identifies an issue a producer needs to address.