The precision livestock farming journey: from a scientific dream towards commercial reality

The Australian Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) dream was born in July 2002 when a small but dedicated group of individuals managed to stage the First Australian PLF Symposium in Adelaide, South Australia. The workshop was successful in attracting a large group of high quality participants. Since then, a difficult journey was undertaken to bring the ideas that emerged during this first meeting to commercial reality. Two follow up workshops (one for the pig and one for the poultry industry) were conducted in late 2002. A large commercial and scientific literature review was conducted in 2003 to assess the available commercial components of the envisaged and quite futuristic PLF system. Commercially available hardware and software products were assessed and a literature review of current research was undertaken to capture emerging technologies. In 2004 and 2005, a number of attempts have been made (with varying degree of success) to obtain the considerable financial resources required to launch an appropriately sized research program in the PLF area. In 2006, significant funding was successfully obtained from the Australian Pork Corporate Research Centre and, as part of a 3-year research project, two innovative PLF technologies were developed. The need to develop these key PLF components (feed and weight measurement systems) emerged during the PLF review. The technologies developed were patented and licensed to a suitably qualified spin-off company with the aim of commercialising the technologies and undertaking the further developments required to make a fully integrated PLF system available to primary producers. The strength of the Australian developments was that it was based on a systematic review of industry needs rather than a review of available technologies. The initial industry consultations highlighted the need for obtaining certain key pieces of information on farms, so the development of the PLF components was based on the need of the industry and not on the availability of technical solutions. This chapter focuses on pig production issues, but the principles discussed are applicable across all livestock species