I grew up in a village of 14,000 people in the southwest of England. It was a community surrounded by dairy farms, sheep and pig farms, and rapeseed crops; it also had a slaughterhouse in the centre of the town. My family was involved in many aspects of the livestock and dairy industry, and I even delivered milk to the residents as my first job.

Even back in the 1980s, you could see the effects of technology. Over the years, the slaughterhouse moved to a higher-tech facility, and the milk delivery business dried up as locals chose the convenience of large supermarkets. Even today, things feel very different; however, one thing remains – the farmers, their cattle and their land.

The United Nations has stated that food production worldwide must increase by 60 percent to be able to feed the growing population expected to hit 9 billion in 2050.

Today’s governments and farmers have an urgency to increase yield, drive efficiencies and fight the ever-changing world we live in with the help of technology.

The following three areas will change everything and help the dairy industry be at the top of its game every single day:

• The Internet of Things
• Autonomous systems
• Big Data

The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is the network of physical objects or “things” embedded with electronics, software, sensors that are placed in and around the world in factories, fields and workplaces. These “things” enable network connectivity, which enables them to collect and exchange data that facilitate the following:

• Higher productivity and more efficient use of land, water, feed and fertilizer
  
• Greater transparency of what is happening with them and the environment around them every second of every day
  
• Access to “Big Data” and the software to collect it

Analysts are bullish on the Internet of Things market. The market research and advisory firm Gartner believes that 4.9 billion connected things will be in use in 2015. That’s a growth of 30 percent from 2014, and they believe there will be 25 billion connected devices by 2020.

One “thing” in the dairy industry we can now connect to is the cattle themselves. Quantified livestock is a reality, and there are several solutions that help optimize the herd.

One company working in this space is Vital Herd. Brian Walsh, Vital Herd’s CEO, says that “40 percent of dairy cows get sick each year, and those losses from livestock animal sickness amount to $5 billion a year in the U.S. alone.” They want to now help modernize dairy and beef production through continuous, autonomous and individual animal monitoring.

In addition, there are a number of other solutions out there attempting to help dairy farmers. Dairy monitors exist to provide accurate estrus detection, health analysis and location services for dairy cattle.

These devices promise to free up labour time for dairy farmers, improve production per animal and save a significant amount of money by optimizing their breeding cycles.

These developments amount to a revolution, and they are being embraced globally. In addition, German farmer Steffen Hake has embraced a solution to track his cows. “When I get up in the morning and put on my boots, I don’t go to the stables first,” he says. “I check my PC for alerts about whether any cows are sick, and I’m in the know right away.”

Autonomous systems

The analyst ResearchMoz predicts the agricultural robot market size will grow from $817 million in 2013 to $16.3 billion by 2020, and we are certainly seeing some amazing developments in this area.

Dairy operations have used robotic milkers for more than a decade already. These days, the long-term cost of not automating the milking process may be greater for some farmers than shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in new technology.

This eliminates the need to source hard-to-find labour, creates time for other farm duties and collects vital data about the animals. It can also increase the number of gallons of milk being produced because cows get milked when and as often as they want. It’s a constantly evolving area.

And what about more edgy thinking?

Researchers at Madrid University have developed a robot prototype that uses an unconventional motion mode to conduct missions in fields and other wild environments. Rosphere is a robot that has no wheels or legs and is, well, a sphere. It can roll around autonomously to gather information that can be used to monitor farming techniques, fields and even livestock with precision.

I imagine dozens of robotic spheres being deployed on farms, recharging themselves at night and being useful tools for data collection.

Farmers are now even using drones to herd their cattle by setting automated flight paths.

Big Data

The Internet of Things and automated systems generate data. In fact, the world around us – people, systems, apps, social networks and farms – generates more than 2.5 quintillion; that’s 10 to the power of 18 bytes of data every day. That’s so much data that 90 percent of the world’s data today has been created in the last two years alone (Source: IBM). That’s Big Data, and it presents a huge opportunity for farmers.

Systems that collect, organize and analyze this data promise to do so many things:

• Optimize machinery
• Optimize feeding and planting
• Identify disease outbreaks
• Create better seeds and hybrids
• Make decisions that prevent mistakes and increase efficiency

Companies are popping up to help capture and use data for farm management. However, there are some real concerns around Big Data usage. Who owns the data? How easy is it to acquire data? Who profits off of the analytics? How secure are the services?

Going forward, we will see more farming data services in the dairy industry, which specialize in security, control, analysis and expertise in the systems that use and generate the data within the herd and in the fields.

Farmers will even hire data scientists as the farm becomes a place where technology replaces the farmhands. There will also be the opportunity to make the cattle and dairy production process transparent and the supply chain more optimized to drive greater yield and profits.

The future is bright; however, we need to consider a lot about how the dairy industry is being affected in this new world. We need to make sure we bring in the technologies that help us specifically and qualify the investments we make to ensure that the health of our herd, the farms we operate and the communities we feed are getting the most they can.