Apologies for the tortured post title. In a break with normal service, this morning I report on a technical advance in the business of animal husbandry. It seems that the days of a farmer rising before dawn, performing certain tasks in the breaking light and touring his beasts first thing in the morning to check on their health may be about to become an historic curiosity. Soon farmers in countries with technologically advanced markets will be able to lounge in bed reading twitter, safe in the knowledge that anything untoward in their herds will be notified via instant messaging.
Not yet available for commercial purchase, the Silent Herdsman will use motion sensitivity to detect how cows are behaving. Just like humans, behaviour is a key indicator of a whole range of physical factors and some moods as well. Funded mainly by a £2,000,000 grant from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board, the project brings together the University of Strathclyde, Morrisons, the Scottish Agricultural College, Harbro, Well Cow, National Milk Records (NMR) and Embedded Technology Solutions. The technology is by no means the first to monitor cow herds but it does promise to be the first to do so in three dimensions and in real time. The project’s backers say that it is an important step in the bizarrely named food security jigsaw. Sounds like a child’s toy which has a part intentionally missing.
The idea is that the cow’s head bobbing patterns will reveal whether it is limping, whether it is struggling to eat or whether it has any other health problems. Some hope that it will also reveal whether the cow is in the mood for meeting the expensive to hire stud bull from the farm next door. A system like this could reduce the need for the cows to see their human masters at all which might lessen their general stress since they probably associate us with the loss of their children, with mindless slaughter and a general master and slave relationship. Whether there will be any real gain in efficiency is hard to predict. Will Scotland’s farmers take to lying around in bed, tweeting to the world and engaging in other distractions more popular in urban areas? Perhaps…