The meat and poultry industry is one of the largest industries in the U.S., accounting for 5.6% of gross domestic product. It also accounts for $257 billion in wages in the U.S., making protecting this industry a priority. Although most people may not think of farming as technologically advanced, AI and facial recognition are at the forefront of finding ways to protect the livestock farming industry.
Issues Facing Farmers in the U.S.
A serious issue affecting livestock farming is the health of the animals. Disease control between farms and among herds is pivotal. In 2015, death of cattle resulted in a loss of $3.87 billion and each year, 2.5 million U.S. cattle die from health issues, accounting for 60% of the cattle losses. Illnesses in cattle herds can spread quickly, resulting in contamination for the entire herd. When this happens, entire herds must be euthanized to protect those who consume them. These issues result in huge financial losses, not to mention lost time.
Another issue that faces the farming industry more broadly is labour shortages. The California Farming Bureau reported that 56% of farmers are unable to hire enough workers to keep up with their demands. Many jobs are temporary, whether they are contract or seasonal, to keep up with fluctuation in production. In an attempt to persuade more workers to join the farming industry, employers are offering full-time work even if it is not needed. In addition, nearly half of all farm workers are not legally authorized to work in the country, making employees transient. This has resulted in many farmers turning to technology and mechanization to fill gaps in labour. Facial recognition helps farmers tackle both of these issues.
Facial Recognition in Farms
Disease between livestock can easily be transferred, even between farms, due to the transient nature of the workers. Because much of farm work is part-time or contract, workers move between farms frequently in order to find enough work. Workers can become unintentional carriers, often taking diseases with them and increasing the spread. For example, if a worker is at a farm where the cattle is infected with mad cow disease, he can transfer the disease to the next farm he works at and infect that herd. Facial recognition is a relatively new method that is helping stop this spread of disease.
To do this, all workers have to create a profile on a shared farming facial recognition database. Each time they work on a farm, they simply approach the farms entrance, and their presence on the farm is logged against their identity. If a farm notes an infection in the herd, each worker that was on-site leading up to and during the infection can be accounted for. When they go to a new location and attempt to sign in, it will immediately be flagged that they could be contaminated and they will not be able to work on other farms until the contamination ban is lifted. This helps stop the spread of diseases among livestock which can result in major loss.
Another new way that facial recognition is changing the industry is through drone surveillance of livestock. Technology is being pioneered to allow farmers the ability to log the identity and information of their cattle on a database. Drones and facial recognition will then be employed to identify each cow, locate them in the pasture and measure vital health information like weight, size, facial features and physical activity. Not only does this mean the health of cattle can be constantly monitored, allowing for disease to be quickly identified, it also reduces the work of farmers. Rather than having to go out and find the cows in the pasture themselves and monitoring health manually, which is currently done through heart-rate monitors and GPS locators, all information can be fed into a computer database and analytics can be used to review variations in health.
Although this technology is still being developed, researchers have been working on how to allow for facial recognition to recognize individual cows for tracking. Currently, the idea is that each cow will create a profile in much the same way humans do. A pen will be set up with a few 3D cameras, which will simultaneously capture images of the cow’s entire body from over 40 angles. These images will then be used to create highly accurate models of the cows, which will let the technology know what they are looking for in each cow. Although this has only been implemented for use in cattle farms, the results of this pioneering research could be used throughout the livestock industry.
The livestock industry is undoubtedly huge in the U.S., as well as in Brazil, Canada and many other countries. Technology that can keep animals healthy and reduce loss in the industry will be imperative while facing labour shortages.These groundbreaking technologies will help change and optimize one of the oldest industries in the world.