‘It’s already here:’ How AI is transforming livestock farmer operations 

 

Around the world, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technology is unlocking solutions for animal farmers.   Cargill is helping farmers navigate this emerging frontier by finding and enabling technology that can most help them.

While our global food systems are pressured to feed our growing population, artificial intelligence (AI) could help livestock farmers reduce waste, increase production and improve animal welfare. For hundreds of Cargill customers around the world, it already is.   

“AI isn’t the future of farming – it’s already here,” explains Vinicius Chiappetta, an animal nutrition and health leader at Cargill. “When we partner closely with farmers to put this technology into practice and deliver solutions they need, we strengthen the global food supply for everyone.”   

Here are five ways livestock farmers are using AI to improve their operations:  

 

Safer feed bin checks 

Challenge: Livestock farmers wanting to know the amount of feed left in high-volume bins have to manually check – a labor-intensive and potentially dangerous task.     

Solution: Solar-powered sensors in ProSense Feed give real-time measurements to inform farmers when they need more feed, using AI to optimize deliveries and eliminate safety risks.   

Impact: Through a partnership with BinSentry, Cargill customers monitor more than 2,500 bins with ProSense Feed.  

 

Right on target

Challenge: Manually weighing birds to get them to a target weight is sporadic and time-consuming.   

Solution: Cargill Broiler View uses AI-enabled cameras to estimate the current and future weight of up to 12,000 individual birds per device.   

Impact: Farmers save on feed costs, which can result in improved productivity and profitability.   

 

(Sky-high) eyes on animal welfare 

Challenge: Measuring animal welfare for cattle on large feedlots can be labor intensive and difficult to catch abnormalities early enough.   

Solution: Cargill CattleView uses drones to collect pictures and AI to assess animal welfare, cattle inventory and feed bunk reading.   

Impact: Cargill CattleView monitors more than 350,000 animals, helping farmers support animal health and well-being while reducing costs and increasing profitability.   

 

Powerful data = happy animals

Challenge: Animal producers must balance efficiency, quality and costs amid growing demand – and decisions are often informed on results from previous flocks and herds.   

Solution: A cloud-based farm management platform, Agriness, uses an AI-powered virtual assistant to provide personal recommendations to farmers based on their farm’s current data.   

Impact: Some 3.5 million sows in more than 30 countries are currently monitored through Agriness, helping turn farm data into strategic knowledge that farmers can act on to improve results.   

 

Learning from the microbiome 

Challenge: Tailoring feed formulations can help provide chickens with the best nutrition, but we don’t always know what’s happening in their microbiome that can affect how food is digested.   

Solution: The world’s largest poultry microbiota database, Galleon, uses noninvasive methods to collect samples and leverages AI and advanced statistic modeling to help determine what nutrition solutions will best support the flock.   

Impact: Informed by more than 60,000 samples from 25 countries, Galleon is simplifying how farmers analyze and understand the gut microbiome, providing practical recommendations to support poultry gut health and performance.  

Click here to learn more about Cargill’s Animal Nutrition offerings.  

 

 

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