Roadmap for Livestock Automation through AI Workers
Our Mission
Digital Transformation to Sustain the Livestock Industry for the Next 100 Years
Background
I believe that the advancement of artificial intelligence technology brings progress to all industries. AI has firmly established itself in our lives and has already brought many changes. It is involved in the education of young children, detecting diseases through medical imaging, and even replacing financial company consultants. However, the livestock industry, which is responsible for the most important aspect of our lives—food—remains largely unchanged.
While the world's population has increased by one billion, the production of pork, the second most consumed meat, has actually decreased. To ensure a steady supply of protein in the future, changes are necessary.
As a Ph.D. in Computer Science, I have always contemplated how technology can positively impact society and humanity. From the early stages of my career, I aimed to develop technology that could be practically useful in the field and wondered which industries were untouched by artificial intelligence. This contemplation led me to the field of the swine industry, where I witnessed firsthand the practical difficulties of farm operations. Farms had relatively few workers compared to the number of pigs, making technical investment and efforts to improve productivity desperately needed.
These observations strongly motivated me to apply AI technology to the swine industry to maximize productivity.
Our vision goes beyond merely increasing the productivity of the livestock industry it is about creating a sustainable future for livestock farming. Intflow's remote livestock management solution, 'edgefarm', will replace workers on-site, overcoming labor shortages, and monitoring farms 24/7 to reduce the number of livestock deaths due to disease. Additionally, it will support decision-making to improve productivity through video analysis and help determine the optimal feed supply. This will not only address future food issues but also shorten the breeding period of livestock, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and minimize wasted feed, thereby positively impacting the agricultural environment.
Potential
The remote livestock management solution, 'edgefarm,' monitors and records data on weight gain, feeding amount, meal consumption, and activity levels 24/7. Based on the analyzed data, it provides crucial information needed to improve productivity, such as shrinkage alerts, selection plan guidance, and feeding pattern suggestions. This allows for efficient farm management even with limited manpower. By implementing the EdgeFarm solution tailored to the farm's structure and goals, tasks like individual weight measurement and data recording, which required significant labor and were often avoided, can be streamlined, allowing workers to invest their time in more important tasks. Customers using EdgeFarm have improved their growth rates by 5%, reduced labor hours by 10%, and enjoyed welfare benefits.
The advancement of artificial intelligence offers innovative possibilities for the livestock industry, particularly the swine industry. The swine industry in many Asian countries, as well as in North America and Europe, shares similar structural environments. EdgeFarm, a convergence of AI technology and IoT, does not require expensive specialized equipment. All that is needed are CCTV cameras and a few other pieces of equipment to observe the farm environment. This minimizes cost burdens and makes implementation easier.
Here are some important possibilities that artificial intelligence can bring to the livestock industry.
Profitability Improvement
In pig farms, the weight of pigs is a crucial indicator of performance. Weight determines the timing of shipment and can be used to check the health status of the pigs. Traditionally, a lot of time and manpower was required to move pigs onto scales. If weight can be accurately measured using AI technology, it minimizes labor waste and improves shipment performance, leading to increased profitability.
Disease Management and Prevention
African Swine Fever (ASF) continues to devastate pig farms across Asia. Once infection begins, it spreads continuously as pigs move to slaughterhouses. According to recent studies on losses due to ASF spread, if the virus is introduced and controlled within two years, the U.S. pork production could face a loss of $15 billion. In a scenario where ASF cannot be controlled, losses are estimated to exceed $50 billion. Utilizing AI technology, we can learn the early symptomatic behaviors of diseases and alert workers before the situation worsens. Along with early disease detection, we will use AIoT technology to provide users with optimal breeding temperature, humidity, and environmental information, making it easy to control.
Sustainable Livestock Practices
Understanding livestock eating patterns and efficient resource management through AI can reduce feed waste and minimize the negative impact on the environment. Disease prevention, shortening shipment times, and improving breeding conditions can reduce the Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) by over 10%. If the FCR is 3.3, the feed amount for one pig is 380 kg. A 10% reduction is 38 kg, which, when calculated for the global pig population, can significantly reduce the environmental pollution caused by feed production.
Current Status
Our team was established in 2019. Currently, our solution is being used in a total of 10 countries, and in 2023, the year we officially launched our service, we achieved a 714% increase in customers compared to the previous year. We receive various farm information from 570 installed channels worldwide.
Future
In addition to the strong partnerships we have established domestically, we are also collaborating with global swine companies. We recently succeeded in data generation research, and we are now capable of learning data for poultry, cattle, and many other livestock species. We are moving towards becoming the global No.1 AgTech company.
To summarize our roadmap
We develop AI workers to meet the needs of farms.
We address labor shortages and hiring difficulties in the livestock industry by replacing them with AI workers, thereby improving productivity.
We maintain the primary protein sources for humanity.
