The fourth agricultural revolution is here and data driven food production will provide a sustainable future for all

Cainthus, a Dublin, Ireland-based agtech company, was founded in 2016 with a vision for the sustainable abundance of food which could in part be delivered by the adoption of data driven systems that provide meaningful measurement for dairy producers. Over the past four years Cainthus have worked alongside their farmer advisor group to develop a technology that helps address the pain points of farmers,  particularly on large scale operations; pain points like labor shortages, disease, and animal welfare perceptions.

With large dairy operations now housing thousands of cows its more important than ever to ensure that the best farm management practices are in place while also having the ability to know what’s going on at an individual level.

“Technology in ag is becoming more and more important, especially in dairy where efficiency is everything to survival because our net revenues are getting smaller and smaller” said Steve Maddox, Jr., one of Cainthus farm advisors.

“To be able to make it in the dairy industry we have to embrace technology and we are starting to do so more and more. Technology gives us the ability to treat every cow like it’s our only cow.”

The first product to be released by Cainthus is ALUS Nutrition. This custom technology allows a producer to input their unique feed management plan or create a new one. Once data is input, ALUS Nutrition will then passively monitor events like feed deliveries, push-ups and cleanouts and track those movements relative to the desired schedule.

If the events are not taking place as desired, then ALUS will alert the farmer. ALUS Nutrition also tracks accessibility of feed 24/7 and will highlight times when feed is inaccessible, allowing the farmer to adjust the feed management plan if necessary.

All of this is achieved by using a smart camera system that collects video data on-site, processes the visual information in real time and gives back key insights that highlight any action to be taken to improve the farm’s overall profitability and productivity. Insights are delivered daily to your phone or computer via an easy-to-use interface that can also provide access to detailed analytics for those who want to take a more in-depth look at feed management actions.

ALUS Nutrition is the first product release from Cainthus in early 2020 but will soon be followed by a wider technology suite that seeks to further enhance farm management systems from a nutritional, health, behavioral and environmental perspective.

“It is clear that AI will revolutionize animal husbandry and dairy farming in particular”, says Aidan Connolly, CEO of Cainthus, “and we are excited to a company that is leading the process”.