The concern or interest about the origin of what we consume, and specifically in relation to meat consumption has been growing for some time now.
Regarding the consumption of meat and its growing consumption, more and more it is important to know even in what environment the animal has been raised, if it has had a dignified treatment, if it has been fed correctly ... Not only because it directly affects health but also because ethics matters.
There are many challenges on the table: How to maintain high quality standards, suitable for all budgets? Is it sustainable for the rural population to maintain optimal levels of production and, at the same time, reduce energy and water consumption, optimizing the use of land? How to guarantee animal welfare?
Questions that we ask ourselves as consumers and also farmers as the main stakeholders, who receive imprecise and unclear answers. Technology, one again, can have a positive impact on overcoming these challenges and provide answers.
Open source applications and IoT devices could be the missing piece of this puzzle. Being powerful instruments of innovation and transformation in any sector, livestock and agriculture should not be an exception.
Traceability of livestock living conditions, such as real-time markers of what is happening in pastures ensuring that livestock spend enough time grazing, can allow farmers to label milk or meat as a pasture product.
The objective is to guarantee the traceability, the welfare of the animal and the condition of the livestock throughout their life cycle. Different devices such as collars and ear tags, collect information in real time on the location, activity and temperature, which algorithms in the cloud based on machine learning and artificial intelligence translate into indicators on the state of health and the reproductive condition of the herds. Thanks to the development of specific applications for the farmer, through which they can view and order information, processes that previously required multiple paperwork and manual inspection are greatly facilitated and streamlined, also avoiding errors.
The ultimate goal is that consumers know the origin of the animals and that they have been respected to the maximum. But also, and not least for farmers, that they can have an affordable, easy-to-use solution based on open source technologies with European standards.
