New Technology

[David roche]

Hey Everyone, very new to the forum and quite new to farming tbh.
My name is David Roche im from bolton originally but now living in israel (long story) and im involved with a startup called Co-Exist.
This is a pdf from us giving a quick outline of what we are doing, hopefully some of you give it a once over and find it interesting.

Any and all questions are welcome.

Thanks and have a good day.

 

[Agrifool]

How are you physically going to get cows to get up from a cubicle/stall and get them to move in the direction of a robot to get milked?

There are many similar systems already on the market to interlink farm data with feed companies etc, how will your system differ?

 

[David roche]

Hi thanks for the questions, so over the last 18 months we have developed a method of communication with cows at the individual level that gives us the ability to direct them where you want when you want, its not intrusive and the system as a whole makes the heard more relaxed as there is very little human interaction with them day to day.

 

[dairyrow]

The problem with this and many cloud based systems is who's the owner of the actual data? It seams to be every where in farming now from tractors, robots and maybe management programs. That the data bit is very sellable to other people. Genomic testing surely takes out feed efficiency and animal performance. Surelt the feed firms and other assorted industries have to pay for a portal as well. How far do we go down this route and replace good stockmanship

 

[NI farmer]

Please David run that by again in simple terms as I am struggling to see how it works
Eg moving cows?

 

[David roche]

I think this is more of a tool to be used than a replacement for good stockmanship. Unfortunately 7.5 billion people on earth seems to be a little too much so we are focusing on helping with the issues caused by this number.

 

[David roche]

Please David run that by again in simple terms as I am struggling to see how it works
Eg moving cows?

The system communicates with the cows and its been running for 18 months, to get anymore specific id be giving up one of the advantages we have over everyone else.

 

[Agrifool]

Could I put the technology on my employees to get them out of bed in the morning and get them to work?

 

[David roche]

Could I put the technology on my employees to get them out of bed in the morning and get them to work?

If we could look at it case by case, probably yes lol

 

[Jdunn55]

The system communicates with the cows and its been running for 18 months, to get anymore specific id be giving up one of the advantages we have over everyone else.

So the system communicates with each individual cow via some sort of technology I presume placed on or in the cow eg: ear tag or chip underneath the skin and tells her what she should be doing as such?

Coming from an outside perspective I would have said that's fairly intrusive and would argue that human interaction is a good thing not a bad thing. Time spent with your cows is never a bad thing as you learnt them and they learn you which enables you to build relationships and trust each other - something that tech will never be able to do.

Maybe a daft softy who loves their cows but for me anything that replaces getting to know your cows is a bad thing and represents what for me is the main issue with the industry

 

[David roche]

So the system communicates with each individual cow via some sort of technology I presume placed on or in the cow eg: ear tag or chip underneath the skin and tells her what she should be doing as such?

Coming from an outside perspective I would have said that's fairly intrusive and would argue that human interaction is a good thing not a bad thing. Time spent with your cows is never a bad thing as you learnt them and they learn you which enables you to build relationships and trust each other - something that tech will never be able to do.

Maybe a daft softy who loves their cows but for me anything that replaces getting to know your cows is a bad thing and represents what for me is the main issue with the industry

So firstly the communication part of the system places no tech on the cow, the cows do have tags but this is solely for identification.

Human interaction with cows is a broad subject, i think good farmers interact with their livestock correct, but globally good farmers are not the norm.
Simply moving cows from one area to another causes stress to the cows, they move away from us because of fear, imagine that part of your work being done automatically under their will and on their timescale. Going into the fields getting to know your cows without interfering with them still takes place.

Our tools essentially make good farmers lives better and bad farmers into good ones.

 

[Philip Bealing]

Hello , have i misunderstood this ? are you saying you have tech that can move an individual cow , move her around as if she is remote controlled ?

 

[David roche]

Hello , have i misunderstood this ? are you saying you have tech that can move an individual cow , move her around as if she is remote controlled ?

Remote controlled is too strong of a description, but we can get the cow you need to come alone to one of our gates when you require.

 

[Philip Bealing]

Remote controlled is too strong of a description, but we can get the cow you need to come alone to one of our gates when you require.

I look forward to seeing a demonstration,

 

[Jdunn55]

So firstly the communication part of the system places no tech on the cow, the cows do have tags but this is solely for identification.

Human interaction with cows is a broad subject, i think good farmers interact with their livestock correct, but globally good farmers are not the norm.
Simply moving cows from one area to another causes stress to the cows, they move away from us because of fear, imagine that part of your work being done automatically under their will and on their timescale. Going into the fields getting to know your cows without interfering with them still takes place.

Our tools essentially make good farmers lives better and bad farmers into good ones.

So where is the tech in order to move an individual cow?

Cows move because they have been told or want to, this doesnt mean they are scared. Cows come into a milking parlour towards you on their own free will for instance. Again it's part of building a relationship with your herd and knowing which ones are more timid and working with them to build some trust which will always be needed at some stage in their life.

Imagine a cow has mastitis, unless your technology is able to inject/tube a cow it's still a job you have to do. But because you havent spent any proper time with the herd (because the technology has meant you dont have to!) Shes absoulutely scared stiff of you and wonr come near you, so you race her into the crush area and she falls over and dislocated her hip! Had she have been used to you she would probably have walked a lot calmer into the race etc

That's my issue with technology like this, you dont want to be spending less time with your cows, you should be spending as much time as you can possibly allow with them.

Why people want to spend less time with their cows is beyond me - if they're just machines earning price tags for you, why bother doing it?! The housing market is a much safer and better investment than dairying... there's plenty of people like me desperate for a farm and land to have a go at it because they love the job and the cows

If the tech can assist you for the right price then maybe it's different but if it takes away time from the cows then in my eyes that's not a good thing - machinery will never be able to replace a human-cow relationship

 

[David roche]

The cows are the tech, they are much smarter than people think.

Most of the time cows move because of fear....you don't move a cow from behind you stand off on an angle and they move because they still fear predators. The angle used is inline with the udder ie their weak spot.

I genuinely think we agree on 90% of farming practices, i think maybe your just focusing on a small part of what we are doing.

Our starting point was better welfare for cows not less work for the farmer, we have met with multiple animal behavioral specialist and specifically cow specialists over the last 18 months and some we took advice from and some took advice from us. We don't separate mother and calf, does this not indicate to you we are focused on the welfare of the cow over everything else?

Again this is a tool and it is truly game changing for farmers, it's not a replacement for farmers.

 

[Rossymons]

globally good farmers are not the norm.

Our tools essentially make good farmers lives better and bad farmers into good ones.

I'm just making sure that I read that right and that you're not criticising your market?

Considering that there are already products and practices that are well established and providing significant benefits to farmers already to then come out with that claim considering your very experimental idea is quite a ballsy move.

 

[upnortheast]

Most of the time cows move because of fear....

Now that is the biggest load of rubbish I've heard for a long time. Has the op actually worked with cows ?

 

[David roche]

I'm just making sure that I read that right and that you're not criticising your market?

Considering that there are already products and practices that are well established and providing significant benefits to farmers already to then come out with that claim considering your very experimental idea is quite a ballsy move.

The uk has one of the highest if not the highest standard of farming so i get why you think that's critical but its not. Our tech will improve the places around the world that don't have the standards of the uk and some other places in europe.

 

[David roche]

So think global farming, the uk is a leader in cow welfare so this doesn't apply to most uk farmers.