Public Funding for Dairy Crest Limited

Awaiting Public Summary

This project is a collaboration between Harper Adams University and three progressive British enterprises: sensor manufacturer IceRobotics, dairy consultancy Kingshay, and dairy company Dairy Crest. It will develop a comprehensive sensor-based engineering solution that enables dairy farmers to improve the health and welfare of their cows through timely and reliable alerting of health issues concerning individual animals, enabling them to take swift action to address animal health problems before they become more serious. The system will be designed to integrate as far as possible with existing farm systems and equipment, and will be fully accessible via mobile devices and over the internet. As well as system development, the project will involve field testing on research farms, economic validation on commercial herds, and various communication forums and events for the dairy farming community.

The need for traceable, sustainable home grown protein sources for livestock is increasing, particularly given recent price increases for feed and fertiliser. As such, ruminant farmers in the UK are under increasing pressure to maximise use of grassland-based systems to feed livestock. Forage proteins such as red clover and lucerne have been proven to improve feed intake, feed conversion efficiency and increase productivity among ruminants. This project aims to increase the uptake of least-cost, low-carbon forage proteins on UK livestock farms. Beef, lamb and dairy producers will work with researchers, a seed producer, processors and a retailer. Alternative forages and innovative techniques will be trialled through controlled scientific evaluations and on-farm research to determine successful forage strategies. The economic and environmental effects of the different strategies will also be assessed. Participating farmers are drawing on their own experiences to inform the selection of techniques and will run projects on their own farms. This participatory approach will help address some of the practical challenges and constraints experienced in the sector to date.