Picture: James Connolly
Reap Interactive, which is disrupting the farming market with data-driven performance monitoring, is aiming for global expansion after a recent private investment of almost €1 million.
The company’s main product BovinePlus enables farmers to make better decisions by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to monitor the ongoing health and wellbeing of their animals.
WiSAR recently collaborated with Reap Interactive in a research partnership under the Data2Sustain European Digital Innovation Hub.
Reap Interactive founder Kieran Supple noticed a gap in the market for the product when he returned to the family farm after obtaining a degree in computer science and working as a chief information officer in the IT sector.
The physical element of the resulting product is a weighing scale and water trough. BovinePlus calculates the weight data from an animal’s two front legs when it steps onto a platform to access the water trough.
It then uses algorithms to provide an accurate estimation of the full body weight, which along with the water intake allows for predictions of an individual animal’s performance and potential health issues.
This simplifies the conventional livestock weighing practices, which typically happen every six months. The manual practice is time-consuming for the farmers and stressful for the animals as it involves hoisting them onto a platform.
The critical element of the product, according to Supple, is it allows for more farm efficiency. According to the company’s calculations if a farm acts on all the findings BovinePlus provides it can boost returns by 200 per cent.
“We build in an animal’s behaviour analysis from the information and that is the overall basis for growth targets, for carbon emission for fertility, for genetics, disease control, antimicrobial resistance, grass management, feed management, and overall profitability,” Supple said.
Supple is also hoping to launch a new iteration of the product with “technical add-ons” at the National Ploughing Championships in September.
