IoT lets the animals talk

Patrick Honcoop

Bunisess Chair of the Dairy Trial

Product management at 365Farmnet

The dairy sector is a leader in applying new technologies. Milk robots are on the market for over 20 years now and well accepted since they reduce farmers’ workload and improve productivity. Automatic feeding systems, collars and more sensors came after to collect more and more data. This big question now is what we can learn from all this data.

In the Dairy Trial we are combining all dairy sector data sources in order to facilitate better decision making. Data from collars, milking systems and other sensors together provide new insights on individual cow-level, improving animal health and overall productivity even more. Combining the data of the dairy sector with crop production data, enables us to generate a comprehensive overview of the entire farm operation for instance to optimise feed production and fulfill legislation on nutrient usage.


Besides, we also enable data sharing with all stakeholders from farm-level upwards in the supply chain, all the way to the end consumer. Pasturing is recorded automatically, to prove it is real ‘pasture milk’. Processes at the dairy processors are being optimized by improved calibration methods that will secure high quality dairy products.

In Dutch we say: ‘milk is good for everyone’ and our Dairy Trial makes milk even better!

FOREWORD