28 Oct 2024
Pharmaceutical giant also wants food supply chain to support and promote advances that improve welfare and production efficiencies – and help safeguard economic viability.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
A major pharmaceutical company has called on the UK Government and food supply chain to support and promote the use of new technologies for livestock animal health and welfare.
MSD Animal Health UK says technological advances would improve production efficiencies and safeguard sustainability and economic viability of the UK’s £14.7 billion livestock farming sector.
Addressing some “mistrust” and “hesitancy” on wider adoption of precision farming technologies, MSD has published a technical white paper on benefits for farmers, the wider supply chain and consumers.
Within the 23-page paper, called “Time for Tech: The Time is Now”, it has highlighted benefits of advances that automatically monitor behaviour, productivity and reproductive status in beef, dairy, sheep, pig and poultry systems.
Featuring UK farmer case studies that illustrate productivity improvements, it includes a commentary by Jude Capper, a livestock sustainability consultant and professor of sustainable beef and sheep production at Harper Adams University.
Prof Capper said data from monitoring technology could be used to prioritise labour, while it could also reduce the impact of stress and disease on productivity and help farm managers make better management decisions.
Helene Lanz, managing director of MSD Animal Health UK, said: “With the ongoing digital revolution rapidly re-shaping the way society works, it is important that we, as livestock farmers and the industry that supports them, embrace the opportunities that new technology can offer.
“New systems such as those which enable us to remotely monitor our livestock in real-time are already a key component of many forward-thinking farming systems in the UK and globally.
“But there is still an element of misunderstanding, of mistrust and of hesitancy, which is preventing the animal protein industry from adopting precision livestock farming technologies on a truly wholesale level.”
Ms Lanz added: “The initial investment in monitoring, tagging and automation technologies can be prohibitive for many businesses, and not all UK farmers want to, or feel comfortable in using tech to help them decide how to manage their animals.
“We hope the white paper will inspire discussion within government around technology initiatives to help incentivise the uptake of on-farm technology, to simplify the grant funding window and to make subscription products eligible for grant funding so that more farm businesses can access precision livestock technology with the backing of long-term, consistent support.”
