IoT Increases Dairy Farm Productivity by 20 Percent

With Earth’s population expected to skyrocket to nine billion by 2050, new ways to increase agriculture productivity are required, if we are to feed another 1.3 billion people.

One farm in Yaroslavl, Russia is attempting to make the necessary productivity gains, by utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning. With the help of the Spanish platform provider Libelium, they have improved milk yields by 18 percent, less than a year into implementation.

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Libelium deployed its Plug&Sense! Smart Agriculture platform, which tracks temperature, humidity, and pressure on the farm. This data is then analyzed by ALAN-IT’s analytical service Smart4Agro, based on Microsoft’s Azure Power BI SQL, to inform the farmers how much feed a cow will need.

The farmers receive SMS notifications on sudden weather warnings and insights into the best course of action to improve yield. Alongside yield improvement, the service can also inform farmers of herd reproduction rates and possible animal diseases.

According to Libelium, the smart farm, which trialed the system on 2000 dairy cows, has saved €340,000 in 180 days. Mustang, a Russian feed supplier which spearheaded the smart farm development, sees the platform as a way of improving efficiency and increasing profits.

Implementation of IoT and data analytics in agriculture is happening all across the world. According to a market research report by MarketsandMarkets, the agriculture IoT market is expected to surpass $20 billion in value by 2024.