Is augmented reality the future of farming?
Imagine a farmer being able to tell a paddock’s pasture cover and dry matter content just by looking at it, or accessing information about a cow’s body condition score in the same way.
Two New Zealand agribusinesses are partnering up in the name of quality milk.
Dairy hygiene and animal health supplier, FIL, and provider of on-farm monitoring and milk vat monitoring systems, Levno, are working together to improve farmers’ visibility and dairy hygiene in their farming operation.
Customers will be able to use Levno’s milk vat monitoring system to provide data and analytics to FIL. The partnership will make use of Levno analytics to detect and prevent milk quality issues before they occur, ultimately saving farmers time and money.
“As firm believers in the old saying ‘prevention is better than cure’, teaming up with Levno will enable us to detect and diagnose potential issues in our customers’ milking systems before they become problems,” says FIL national sales manager Bede Murphy.
“Having access to real-time information about their milk vat, our farming customers will feel empowered to understand what is happening on their farm. And being able to see this data from a mobile, whether you’re on the farm or not, is key to making timely decisions that will help farmers see better results and maximise milk return.”
The partnership will allow Levno and FIL to continue research and development on the milk vat monitoring system to monitor the entirety of the milking system.
FIL is encouraging their customers to get Levno’s milk vat monitoring system (MVMS), which is free to all Fonterra suppliers.
Fonterra’s MVMS rollout is a national project where the co-op will pay for all its suppliers to have a milk monitoring system.
Fonterra will get limited access to some of the data from the MVMS. This will improve transportation and milk quality for Fonterra creating significant savings for the co-op.
“Levno’s milk vat monitoring lets farmers know when they have issues with their vats, like power outages and refrigeration problems. These improvements and this partnership with allow FIL to diagnose issues before the problem even occurs,” says Levno chief executive Larry Ellison.
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