Cow tech giants acquiring start-ups and launching new products
Merck and VAS in the news for recent market moves
Cornell and Stanford receive $1.2 million grant to study big data on dairies
Researchers in New York and California will study more than 20 dairy farms in two of the Top 5 U.S. dairy states over the next three years. Their goal is to find out how data generated on farms with digital technologies can transform dairy farming for the better for all dairy farmers.
“We hope that our work will contribute to understanding the larger picture of how digitization and digital transformation are impacting the changing nature of work and [dairy] management more generally,” says lead researcher Diane Bailey from Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Read more about the grant here.
Market leader launches new, cloud-based herd management platform
Dairy herd management software company VAS recently announced the launch of a new, cloud-based herd management platform. The product is called MyDC on Pulse.
“MyDC on PULSE gives dairy farmers the functionality and tools needed for their size farm with a smart, flexible, complete herd management system,” says Joya McCarthy, VAS product manager. “It brings herd data together to help small and moderate-sized dairies optimize the efficiency of their daily routines.”
The cloud-based platform integrates all of a dairy’s data, from activity monitors to milk meters. The company is offering a free 90-day trial for those that sign up in-person or online during the upcoming World Dairy Expo Oct. 2-7.
Learn more about MyDC on Pulse here.
Pharmaceutical cow tech giant acquires virtual fencing company
Last week Merck Animal Health announced it would buy virtual fencing company Vence. The start-up is an innovator in virtual fencing for rotational grazing and livestock management, especially with beef cattle.
“Vence is a natural fit with Merck Animal Health’s growing portfolio of animal intelligence products that include identification, traceability and monitoring products. This new technology will give cow-calf producers the ability to track their cattle and the ability to move them from pasture to pasture,” said Rick DeLuca, president, Merck Animal Health.
Read more here.
AI start-up in the news for its new machine vision app
A Canadian company has developed a machine vision app that it claims “has the skills of a farm worker who looks at your animals and gives you lots of information about them.”
That’s according to the CEO of OneCup AI about the company’s new BETSY application that identifies animals individually with facial recognition and monitors for exceptions to monitor cattle health.
Read more about the application here and read more about one of the early-adopting farms talking about it here.
Dairy profit projections from ZISK
Projected profitability for the next 12-month for two dairy herd sizes HAVE DECREASED since early summer in recent profit projections from ZISK.
ZISK is a profit-projection smartphone app that tracks individual dairy farm profitability based on current CME board prices. Projections for a 1,000-cow dairy producing an average of 80 pounds of milk per cow and a 2,500-cow dairy producing an average of 85 pounds of milk per cow are provided.
12-month dairy farm profit projections (as of Sept. 29, 2022):
1,000-cow dairy = $606,000 (DOWN about $394,000 since May)
2,500-cow dairy = $2.325 million (DOWN about $1.09 million since May)