The AI-based intelligent assistant for dairy farmers

Project Information

Ida

Grant agreement ID: 812312

DOI

10.3030/812312

Project closed

EC signature date 15 May 2018

Start date 1 June 2018

End date 31 May 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 2 415 625,00

EU contribution

€ 1 690 937,50

Coordinated by

CONNECTERRA BV
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Ida (The AI-based intelligent assistant for dairy farmers)

Reporting period: 2019-06-01 to 2020-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Milk is an important nutrient globally: 6bn+ people worldwide consume milk and milk products. In Europe milk provides
11-14% of dietary fat supply. Today we already have 274m+ dairy cows, doubling their headcount to serve the global need
for milk is not sustainable.
Health & well-being of cows are the main factors responsible for the difference in cow’s milk production. However, to
improve the cattle health, the dairy farmer has to watch every single animal non-stop, 24x7, which means an unaffordable
increase of at least 30% in labor costs. To address this challenge we have developed Ida, the world’s first dairy farmer’s
assistant that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to learn the behavior of cows & generate useful operational insights for the
farmer.
on how to improve animals’ health & improve productivity.
Ida combines sensor technology, machine learning & cloud computing to translate raw data from the field into meaningful
information that can be used to support decisions made by farmers every day. Unlike existing cow movement trackers that
simply relay motion data to a central collection point, we have built Ida as a system that carries out intelligent pattern
analysis.
By observing & learning how the cows behave, and by bench marking the farm’s performance against the most efficient
farms globally, Ida provides clear recommendations to the farmer.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The overall the progress of the IDA project is was as planned and we have successfully delivered on the objectives we set out. Throughout 2018 it was apparent that evolving the platform to a higher maturity level, we needed time to test everything on scale in a practical realistic setting since not all technologies that we originally envisioned to be using were suitable for our specific use case. We further developed our technology, deployed our trial cases and added features. We developed our sales channels and added new customers from in several different countries around the world.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

"The sustainability impact of dairy farming can be significantly reduced by ensuring that dairy cows live longer & healthier. The World Resources Institute showed that by improving highly inefficient systems, emissions per kg of meat or milk drops very sharply at first as output per animal increases. In other words, the more milk per cow, the less CO2 output per kg of milk. The results of our project show how our product is designed to enhance EU competitiveness & leadership in clean technologies. It is aligned with the following Green Deal pillars:
From “farm to fork"": designing a fair, healthy, & environmentally friendly food system
Increasing the EU’s climate mitigation and/or adaptation ambition"

IDA at farm 2

IDA at Farm