Focus: agri technology can reduce workload and increase safety

Agri technology is now starting to take a firm grip on agriculture in Ireland, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is well-known that one of the most limiting factors for primary agriculture in Ireland at present is labour. The struggle to attract young people into the sector and the increase of farming in a part-time manner is leaving a void in terms of on-farm labour resources. While technology can’t solve this problem, it can certainly help to alleviate the issue.

A recent statistic showed that 40% of calf registrations occur between 8pm and 6am. And calf registrations are only a small part of the records that farmers are obliged to keep. Add Department records, quality assurance information and even accounting and tax obligations to this and the workload gets a whole lot greater, particularly if it isn’t being completed until after 8pm. This is when mistakes occur.

It is because of this that more and more farmers are beginning to turn towards technology. The first thing that springs to mind is the smartphone. There are a number of phone apps now designed to allow for farm records to be completed on the go. The pen and paper is slowly being replaced. But labour-saving technology does not just come to eradicate form-filling. A wide range of technology is also available to farmers now to assist in shortening the average working day on the farm and to cut out these 8pm finish times where possible.

The beauty about technology is that while it can certainly get things done more quickly, it can also get things done more accurately and to a better standard. We can see first-hand examples of this in the areas of heat detection in cows, diagnostics in machinery and precision technology in the tillage sector, for example.

What is perhaps most significant of all about agri technology is its application in terms of farm safety. While cutting labour input and increasing efficiency is of course a contribution to farm safety in its own right, technology can have a direct impact on keeping people safe on the farm through a number of useful pieces of equipment.

By now, AgriNet is a household name when it comes to farm management software.

Having already brought AgriNet Herdmaster, Cashminder and AgriNet grass, farmers are now being offered a unique new cloud-based smartphone app that links directly to agfood and ICBF.

The app allows farmers to instantly record daily tasks such as calf registrations, request movement permits, animal remedies and weight records, for example.

The software even allows these tasks to be recorded without an internet connection and later when connection is established, the data will be sent to the relevant locations.

The app is available to existing AgriNet customers free of charge and to new AgriNet customers at an annual cost of €50 to €150, depending on herd size.

The AI and breeding section is free to all Irish farmers due to sponsorship by Progressive Genetics. The app itself is free to download from the App Store and GooglePlay platforms.

MartBids is a new farming app produced by the Irish Farmers Journal in partnership with Irish marts.

The MartBids app is designed to help users find the right livestock to suit their farming system.

The unique database of all animals entered into a particular sale allows users to filter these animals based on age, breed and sex.

Users can then mark the animals that they want to bid on and find them in the favourites section.

In simple terms, all of the information that is displayed on the mart board is now available on your smartphone, long before the animal enters the sales ring.

It has the benefit of taking away that split second to decide if the animal is young enough to be finished on their farm, to decide that the number of moves works for their system or to note whether it is coming from a BBQA herd.

The app can be downloaded from the App Store and GooglePlay platforms.

Met Éireann, Ireland’s national meteorological service, launched its new website and mobile phone app earlier this year.

Met Éireann’s website is one of the most visited public sector websites in the country and the provision of a smartphone app is an added bonus, particularly for farmers.

Key features of this app include the ability to check for any active weather warnings, a national and regional five-day forecast, and a high-resolution rainfall radar, which updates every five minutes.

For greater detail, users can avail of a geolocated forecast, meaning the app utilises the GPS functionality of your mobile device to provide a seven-day detailed forecast for your exact location.

Specific to farmers, the farming commentary provides information on rain, temperature, sunshine amounts, drying conditions, spraying and field conditions for the past and the coming week. The app is free to download from the App Store and GooglePlay platforms.

The Irish Farmers Journal launched its new-look app earlier this year. The new app allows users to personalise their content so they can see what’s most relevant to their farming life.

For example, if you are a sheep farmer and want to keep up to speed with the latest news and management notes, you can save those topics. If you don’t really want to see what is happening in the world of machinery, you can hide that section. If you are not into dairy, you can hide that too.

The new myJournal feature also allows users to follow individual writers and save articles to your collections to read at a later date. To become a premium member and gain access to everything the app has to offer, including the Knowledge Hub tools, calculators and market data, members can sign up via iTunes for €11.99 per month.