Real-time feedback changes behavior. That’s why a new technology was launched at World Pork Expo to provide biosecurity breach alerts for trucks and trailers.
Ryan Strain, director of transportation and environmental at Pillen Family Farms, helped test this new Farm Health Guardian technology at their commercial system in Columbus, Neb.
“It’s an efficient way for the team to receive communication about the health status of different farms,” Strain says. “Everyone who needs to know is in the loop with this technology.”
Farm Health Guardian’s newest feature enables farm managers and veterinarians to verify biosecurity compliance and reduce the risk of disease spread between farms. Within a system, customers decide who gets notified, which properties are assigned to a particular rule, flow, or group, and which vehicles to include.
“The reality is, if you have a health issue arise, communication doesn’t need to be difficult,” Strain says. “The phone app allows team members to be informed immediately if they are in conflict of a protocol.”
He says it’s exciting to think about the ways tools like this can help prevent bigger challenges in the future. If a problem does arise, the app sends him an alert so he can coach his team through it.
“We have a lot of movement of animals, machinery and people in our system,” Strain adds. “Every day we make a plan that hopefully limits exposure. But what’s not in the script is how you get from A to B. Understanding that cross traffic is key. This helps put things in perspective.”
‘Rules’ for trucks and trailers can be configured so that specific vehicles are assigned to a property group, property flow or visit order, or even if a truck wash is required prior to a visit. Source: Farm Health Guardian
Biosecurity breaches can cost a lot of money. Strain’s team is excited to utilize this technology, but he is quick to point out that there were some questions at first.
“Most of the questions that arose were around privacy,” he says. “Once they understand how the app works, people realize and understand how valuable it could be for our operation.”
Strain supports the environmental department which addresses everything from manure pumping, sewer jetting and varied external grounds maintenance. He says this team is very excited because they see great variation in the services requested of them and because of this, they encounter many biosecurity conflicts as it relates to work scheduling.
“Biosecurity isn’t a simple subject,” he adds. “Every day things change. We also rely on human interpretation. This helps eliminate varied responses to what’s happening in the health pyramid.”
Farm Health Guardian software can be linked to an existing truck GPS system. For livestock trailers or vehicles that aren’t equipped with GPS, FHG passport devices can be easily installed. ‘Rules’ for trucks and trailers can be configured so that specific vehicles are assigned to a property group, property flow or visit order, or even if a truck wash is required prior to a visit. The customer determines who will be notified if the rules are breached.
“Biosecurity breach alerts give our customers the ability to configure their own rules and get notifications if those requirements aren’t met,” says Kent Andersen, U.S. Business Development for Farm Health Guardian. “We know how busy our customers are and that they only want to know when their biosecurity protocols are breached, or to put it another way, ‘the dog should only bark when there’s a problem.’”
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