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Practical implementation of precision livestock technologies and services at European pig farms using the living lab methodology

Final Report Summary - ALL-SMART-PIGS (Practical implementation of precision livestock technologies and services at European pig farms using the living lab methodology)

Executive Summary:
Introduction: ALL-SMART-PIGS aimed at demonstrating the viability of smart farming technologies in European pig farming. The project used a process of open innovation through a LivingLab (LL) to co-create smart farming applications ready for commercialisation on European pig farms. These applications provided by innovative SMEsand have been tested and validated in ALL-SMART-PIGS with their technological prototypes and services in real life conditions together with pig farmers and other stakeholders. The project initiators had identified health, growth rate, feed usage and environmental conditions as key parameters to monitor in this project.

Project Context and Objectives:
The worldwide demand for meat products is expected to increase over 40% in the next 15 years, a serious challenge for worldwide livestock production. Simultaneously, the total number of livestock farms is steadily decreasing. The combination of these two trends means that the size of the average livestock farm continues to rise and as a consequence, modern farmers have less time to spend with individual animals. Major concerns are raised about the impact of this on animal health and welfare and the environmental sustainability of animal production for large herds. In order to guarantee accurate and continuous monitoring of individual animals at a modern livestock farm, farmers nowadays need reliable and affordable technologies to assist them in performing this task. The application of the principles and techniques of process engineering to livestock farming in order to monitor, model and manage animal production is called ‘precision livestock farming’ (PLF), and PLF seems the only realistic way to support farmers and other stakeholders in the livestock production chain in the near future, whilst at the same time coping with the rising demand for meat.

ALL-SMART-PIGS aimed at demonstrating the viability of smart farming technologies in European pig farming. The project used a process of open innovation through a LivingLab to co-create smart farming applications ready for commercialisation on European pig farms. A consortium of 3 high-tech SMEs, an established provider to the European farming community, regional R&D partners and an experienced SME and Living Lab facilitator implemented the project, assessed its economic costs and benefits, developed a business model for future smart pig applications and showcased that the Living Lab methodology can pave the way for innovative technologies to the market.

Project Results:
Results in 2012/2013: The first 14 month of the project were dedicated to installing Smart Pig Farming Technology on the four commercial farms in Hungary and Spain, solving all related problems such as internet access in the fattening units, cable biting by rodents (or pigs), integration issues between the hardware providers and so forth. Since the technologies need to be remotely controlled, additional development of software was necessary. Installations were finalised beginning of November 2013 (M13).
Together with the LivingLab participants an exciting concept of chain information exchange between feed-animal-food was developed and implemented. In December 2013 and January 2014, where possible due to production cycles, recording of fully commercial fattening rounds commenced.
Results in 2013/2014: The last 10 months of the project were dedicated to demonstration and evaluation activities. The experience of installation of PLF technologies on commercial farms discovered a number of operational challenges spanning from internet and power connection, fly faeces on camera lenses, measurement dispensed feed, data acquisition and data quality. However, solutions have been either found or identified for most encountered problems, and there is clear technological and business impact have been demonstrated.
The fact that some of the technologies were not working as expected until late in the project limited the range of possible tangible valuations to include the weight of the livestock delivered to the slaughterhouse.
It is also possible that the challenges in the implementations of the technologies can have affected the farmers’ evaluations of the technologies since they not had the time and opportunity to realise the full potential of the technologies for a longer period than 10 months.
Even with the limitations mentioned above the conclusion of the analysis was that the PLF-technology clearly gives an added value to the farmers both as a direct monetary gain and in more intangible ways through better control of the farms.
There was not a clear conclusion on a market value of the PLF-technologies. The farmers valuation was around 3.900 €/year while the calculations on the monetary gains of the technology showed 12,614€ / year. It thus seems clear that a fuller demonstration of the technology in action is desirable in order to get a better picture of the full potential and value of the technology.
To sum up there is still a need to keep working on the most important open issues for the farmers:
• The lack of confidence on the information that the PLF platform offer the farmers in order to ensure higher gain and better control of the livestock.
• Solve the feed consumption sensor to offer the FCR (Feed conversion rate) information to the farmer.
• Find a market price for paying to get information and charging for offer information along the supply chain.

Potential Impact:
The evaluation of the demonstration of the PLF technologies have indicated how a new service concept for pig farmers for Smart Pig Farming Application can be introduced to the market. A main deliverable of ALL-SMART-PIGS is a business model for how this service concept can be commercialised in the future.
In addition, the ALL-SMART-PIGS project has to a certain extent showcased the use of traceability to optimise feed usage in the feed-animal-food chain. Improving communication between the supply chain partners bear great economic potential for feed providers, farmers and slaughterhouses alike.
Another significant output of ALL-SMART-PIGS is to showcase how to pave the way from the development of scientific knowledge and technologies to the market by implementing a user driven innovation processes. The ALL-SMART-PIGS project has addressed the issue by using the Living lab methodology, where key performance indicators are identified and PLF technology and service concepts are co-created together with the main users: pig farmers, feed providers and slaughterhouses.

List of Websites:
www.all-smart-pigs.org