Blockchain based Herd Management Software for dairy farms and milk cooperatives

Introduction

The cattle and herd management software is very essential for any farm with livestock. Any size of farms, dairy, cooperatives, meat and egg producers will need efficient herd management software. The solution helps farmers to maintain and track their livestock, production, feed and treatments done. Entire cattle lifecycle, right from when they are born till the time they are sold or disposed of. Various alerts and notifications are provided to the farmers at different events animal go through its life cycle. With this platform, farmers and owners can easily keep track of the number of farm animals, their performance, cost metrics and sales.

Blockchain has immutability and provenance capabilities. Inputs given to the animal can be saved in the blockchain and tracked. Smartherd allows farm owners to enhance traceability and prove humane handling. RFID tags and other IoT device upload information to the blockchain to establish immutable, auditable provenance to better capture the free range, grass-fed premium. Medicines given, treatments and vaccinations done can be stored in Blockchain

Modules of Herd Management

Animal Lifecycle Management.   Centralised management of the entire lifecycle of the cattle from birth, AI, milking and disposal.

Farm Productivity.  Track the productivity of each cattle like milk production, SNF entry, Fat content. Analyse the productivity of each cattle with reports and graphs.

Veterinary and Health Data.  Add health and medication details like AI, Antibiotics given, Health Diagnosis, dehorning and Medication details.

CUSTOMIZABLE AND ADAPTABLE

Thanks to its modular design and cloud-based architecture the software can be scaled to match the specific needs of the dairy farms. It can also be used by dairy societies which pool milk from individual farmers.

The solution has custom built milk management system, animal as well as farmer identification, feeding, treatment and disposal entries. The solution can also be integrated with systems in the farm for milk yield calculations.

The online digital wallet has a software component that enables security and encryption. The platform has easy access features for storing user data, transaction details and payment options.

Customer-Centric Features Needed in a Herd Software

Animal Registration.  Animals can be registered by a tracking ID and mapped to a herd within the farm. They can be mapped to QR code via scanning the ear tags. A milk cooperative managing the software can also tag the animal with a farmer for better traceability.

Farmer Registration.   Milk Cooperatives can register farmers and their animal who pour milk to their milk society. The farmer can also be allocated a QR code for easy scanning and tracking.

Multiple Roles.  The Smartherd system provides features for multiple roles in the software for user such as admin, farms, societies, veterinary doctors.

Milk Production.  Able to cattle wise milk production with entries for quantity, SNF, Fat content. The data can be extracted from systems in farms also.

Meat.   Animals reared for meat can be tracked separately or along with milking animals. The feed, medications, vaccines, etc given to animals can be tracked.

Reproduction Entry.   The reproduction life cycle of the animals which involes vaAI, Calving, dry off, in-milk and abortion related entries can be added for animals. Alerts can be set specific incidents.

Animal Health.  Track the animal health with parameters such as body weight, age, treatment, lactation curve, dehorning, etc

Treatment.  Add and track treatments done to animal like diagnosis, medicines given, surgery done and dehorning along with costs

Doctor Features.   Veterinary doctors can add their visits to the farmers, hospital visits, treatments done for animals and receive queries online

Analytics.  View and download detailed reports on productivity, daily summary and complete activities in the animal life cycle.

What is Blockchain?

How Blockchain can help Dairy and Meat Industry?

Dairy and meat industry is ideal for blockchain technology because of the necessity of data collected at each point of the supply chain, starting at the herd level. Data can be recorded at any point in the process from calving, feed, medications, milk or meat produced on the farm to all the way up to the time it gets sold in a store. Blockchain could automate and sequence information by timestamp.

At the farm, data could be attached to milk or meat shipment via QR code, including when it was picked up and any lab work that goes with it. It’s even feasible that production practices could be attached with the data, including any animal welfare activities, environmental practices, carbon footprint impacts, antibiotic applications and so forth. Once it leaves the dairy farm, each stop along the product production chain would have another set of data that could be attached to the product. Once that product reaches the final consumer, that customer could have access to the complete ledger of data on its production and supply chain.

Who can use the Blockchain Smartherd?

1. Dairy Farms and Animal Farms

2. Veterinarians

3. Farmers

4. Milk Co-operative Societies

5. ther stakeholders such as Logistics, Insurance companies, Banks and authorities manage state dairy cooperatives

Animal Health Service stored in SmartHerd

Preventive

• Vaccinations that are given to animals

• Entries for Deworming done to animals

• Disease Diagnosis

• Examining repeat Breeders

• Investigating production related issues

• Generate performance report of animals

Clinical

• Farmers can send a request for vets through the app

• Veterinarians can get a notification via app and SMS

• Farmers can communicate the progress of animals

• Call centre integration for call recording, forwarding to concerned vets and track call compliance

Summary

Providing this transparency throughout the production chain also allows for enhanced food quality through better traceability, especially in the event of a food recall. Using the blockchain technology companies could get to the source of the food quality issue in a matter of hours rather than days, Ramachandran says.

This system could also help producers understand what happens to their milk once it leaves the farm, Ramachandran says, and allow them to make adjustments based on what the final customer demands that enhance the value of their product.