Robots, sensors, connected devices, virtual reality and even artificial intelligence (AI) have become a daily presence in our hospitals, care facilities and homes. As we face our own digital transformation as pork producers, what lessons can we learn?
1. Robots
Every day, up to 3,000 blood samples are transported by robots in Denmark’s Aalborg University Hospital from bedside to the lab, with the same robots being witnessed in the corridors of America’s biggest hospitals. Robots enable consistent, accurate sample analysis through maintaining stable temperatures during transport without deviating from their path or getting distracted from their task.
Agricultural robots are being embraced in a similar manner on the farm, shouldering the burden of harvesting, planting, irrigation and other manual tasks in the field. Taylor Farms use robots to pack 60 to 80 bags of salad a minute, double the output of a human. The adoption of robots in hog barns has been the fastest in China, but more commonly seen in the rest of the world on meat processing lines.
2. Internet of Things (IoTs)
IoT technology, smart devices like Fitbits and Apple Watches, are changing the game in our hospitals. Wearable health devices provide real time relevant data for doctors and consultants, freeing bedside staff from constant monitoring.
Likewise, precision agriculture is using sensors to monitor crop conditions for moisture (irrigation efficiency), diseases, readiness for harvest and other factors. Before, this was a time-consuming and labor-intensive task with frequent observational errors. Now, IoTs can accurately analyze farm inputs and management in real-time, om the feed mill or in the barns. This increases precision and gives swine production managers back time.
The most visible examples of this in our barns are environmental sensors, such as the use of ear tags, the most recent example of this is Xsights who have demonstrated the location sensing can be a service, providing information on pig movements, health and vitals before problems become visible is worth hundreds of dollars per animal per year to both producers and integrators.
3. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Clinicians’ mistakes cost the healthcare industry over $2 billion annually and the lives of over 200,000 people. Artificial intelligence (AI) can play a critical role in eliminating this. Errors caused by fatigue, memory, lack of experience or training and misapprehensions are significantly reduced when AI supports decision-making.
What errors could we eliminate on our farms? When so much knowledge relies on being passed from generation to generation, AI can eliminate human errors by accurately analyzing data, predicting yields, identifying potential health challenges, optimizing resource allocation and linking decisions to market demands and prices. In fact, AI computations can play a crucial role in addressing carbon credits and resources such as water scarcity. Big data and cloud computing are also allowing farmers to address the real complexity they face of weather, genetics, market turbulence and the microbiome of soil and the animals they feed. Partners for Production Agriculture is an example of how specifically focused technology on hog production and integrators enables better decisions to be made in real time based on market movements, with fewer mistakes.
Lessons for the World of Agri-Work
The World Bank has raised concerns about technology replacing workers but as we’ve seen in hospitals, we don’t have fewer doctors, nurses or caregivers. Human labor is not being eliminated but the jobs humans fulfil have shifted, and the same is expected to happen in agriculture.
Future workers in the swine industry should be recruited considering new skills, such as data analysis, software engineering and coding. A McKinsey survey revealed more than 50% of large farms and nearly a quarter of small farms are using (or planning to use) precision agriculture technology, so the demand for high-skill jobs will only grow.
What is the best way to prepare the agriculture for these changes? Retain and invest in talent. Agricultural employment in the U.S. is only expected to increase by 1%. Agriculture has always had a “people problem.” But as an executive with search group Kincannon & Reed said, “If it was difficult to find good help before, then it’s even more difficult now.”
Automation could also help. Historically, workers have left farming because of poor pay and difficult conditions. If automation replaces the jobs laborers don’t want to do, the opportunity will be for stimulating, higher-paying work that attracts and retains an adaptable workforce.
Talent retention goes hand in hand with talent investment. As I noted in the The Future of Agriculture, education and training programs cultivate a diverse and flexible workforce that evolves with each innovation.
Technology on the farm offers solutions to many of agriculture’s most pressing problems, but if pig producers can learn from healthcare and invest in the workforce now, these technologies will boost productivity and profits. Is healthcare’s transformation a road map for farming? Using robotics, sensors and AI to grow food efficiently, precisely and cost-effectively, offers safe and affordable food while answering the sustainability demands of the consumer.
Aidan Connolly is the president of AgriTech Capital, and is described by Forbes as a food/farm futurologist. Download his new book, The Future of Agriculture.
