Innovators Shaping Sustainable Livestock Management.

Animal nutrition and the livestock management sector have traditionally struggled to remain sustainable due to their manual intensity and largely reactive nature. However, as demand increases in an ever-shifting industry climate with a greater focus on sustainable practices, the livestock management space has had to learn to adapt and onboard technological advancements to improve sustainable working processes. 

Sustainable livestock management offers a solution to these challenges by promoting practices that balance the needs of the environment, society, and economy. Fortunately, start-up innovators ripe to solve these problems are not without support in this space. Venture capital in the region of $18.2 billion in 2021 has been put towards the agriculture good-technology industry, with an approximate 38% year-on-year growth since 2013, and the avenues for support and development in sustainable livestock management continue to grow.

In this article, I explore some of the key applications for innovative newcomers in sustainable livestock management tech.

Leading Sustainable Start-Ups.

Ocean Barns

With funding of $25.3 million in 2022, Blue Ocean Barns revolutionary supplement feed for cattle, Brominata, allows cows to retain more energy from their feed instead of burping and releasing methane into the atmosphere. Brominata is added in small amounts to the cows’ usual feed, supporting cattle health, climate targets, and enabling corporations to support sustainability.

Blue Ocean Barns registration with major global carbon standards holds the corporation to account in presenting gas readings from machinery to comply with a rigorous continual verification process. Their reconsideration of what an animal nutrition start-up can look like is enabling greater incorporation of sustainable practice across the industry.

Breedr

With $22.1 million of funding in 2022, Breedr works as a precision livestock network focusing on supporting sustainable practices for farmers. Offering the tools to produce environmentally and commercially sustainable meat, Breedr’s app and livestock management technology helps improve the efficacy of animal management, improve sustainable practices across all aspects of farming, and save hours every week.

With hands-free weighing, medicine recording, movement tracking, and optimised breeding values, Breedr technology allows farmers to monitor individual animals with sophisticated mapping tools to produce more consistent and sustainable meat across their network of farms - making sustainable livestock management an achievable and exciting reality.

SmaXtec

SmaXtec is a proven solution in the dairy farming sector, funded by €7.1 million to work with in 2021. The start-up offers a secure system in early detection of animal health, reproduction and feeding management, with a range of measurement possibilities to monitor all aspects of animal welfare with sustainable efficacy at its heart.

Capabilities include access to continuous measurement of inner body temperature, monitoring of early signs of ketosis, mastitis and milk fever, monitoring of heat and calving periods and pH level data of feedstocks - with greater capabilities being continually developed. Easy-to-use software and a broad range of integrations available place SmaXtec firmly at the heart of future sustainable livestock management.

ZELP

The cutting-edge technology for methane oxidation and animal wearable from ZELP projects an innovative period for sustainable livestock management. The animal nutrition start-up offers one simple wearable device for cows that neutralises methane emissions by oxidising them in real-time into carbon dioxide.

ZELP’s hardware sensors continuously gather data points in collaboration with AI algorithms, detecting heat, flagging welfare conditions, and identifying the most efficient animals with high-level accuracy. An easy-to-use mobile app also gives users access to animal monitoring, task management, welfare alerts and future sustainable planning at the touch of a screen.

Serket

This award-winning Dutch company specialises in sensor-free swine management software. Its computer vision technology improves farm productivity and animal health by using regular security cameras and artificial intelligence to identify health, reproduction and environmental changes early on.

It translates this visual information into actionable data using the largest, most detailed annotated data sets available in the world for pig livestock. By implementing these technologies, animal health can be truly optimised. Preventing expensive and time-consuming agricultural challenges, such as unnecessary use of antibiotics, optimising labour and improving other daily livestock issues to address and overcome key issues in pork production.

The company is working on options for scalable livestock species, too. With a dedicated data science team, its integrated system provides a dashboard with analysed data points from multiple sources to help improve farm operations across multiple disciplines. 

Raising Livestock with Innovation.

As the population continues to drive increased food demands, a greater international focus on climate impact and Net Zero targets also demands change. For those working in traditional farming, adapting to overcome these challenges in an innovative and effective way is essential. As is visible from these impressive newbies, the efforts of scientists supported by strong investment from passionate parties can be the driving force behind an exciting and innovative future for the success of this sector.

Are you interested in discussing the future of sustainable livestock management, or other key trends or businesses making waves in this sector, with me in some more detail? I'd love to chat! Drop me a message on LinkedIn, or email me at Indre.Semeskeviciute@charltonmorris.com.