At World Pork Expo 2023, Alltech hosted a panel discussion with leading livestock farming technology experts to discuss the application of technologies across the entire animal agriculture industry.
Precision agriculture technology is an established mainstay of row crop farming in 2023. However, precision livestock farming technology is not as widespread in a uniform manner throughout the industry. For example, John Deere helped to pioneer self-guidance technology in tractors and that technology has now been implemented industry wide in the nearly 15 years since the technology was introduced.
Mark Hulsebus director of sales & portfolio with Alltech says that livestock agriculture does not have a similar example of a technology that runs throughout the entire industry and is used by all types of livestock agriculture.
One of the biggest challenges to livestock agriculture with regards to implementing technology is infrastructure. Livestock producers have many digital tools to collect data but have used that data to make decisions retrospectively. Producers would be better served with digital tools that provide actionable data in real time. Hulsebus says for that to happen farms need improved infrastructure to make the digital tools work for them.
Another challenge for implementing the same technology across the entire livestock production industry is the diversity within the industry.
There are so many different types of animal agriculture that not all industry practices are uniform, says Hulsebus.
As more companies produce technologies that can improve animal agriculture, Hulsebus says that they cannot be fully implemented until infrastructure improvements take place in rural America.
That was Mark Hulsebus with Alltech.
