Better decisions start with a clear view of the whole farm system

A lot of data is already being collected in livestock farming. Milking robots record production, sensors monitor behaviour and detect irregularities, manure samples provide insight into nutrients, and crop scans show what is happening in the field. Often, this information remains disconnected. Yet farmers want to understand why milk production is declining, why an animal is showing unusual behaviour or why a field is yielding less than expected. Technology becomes valuable when it brings these separate signals together into useful insights that help the farmer make better decisions.

Livestock farming is closely connected to what happens on the land. Feed crops, soil quality and manure flows directly link the barn to the open field. This connection only becomes valuable when it can be analysed as one whole. Within IP1 Open Cultivation, NXTGEN Hightech Agrifood is working on exactly that combination. Not as an organisational choice, but because the practical questions of farmers arise where animals, feed, manure and crops come together.

For farmers, technology is only relevant when it provides useful information at the moment a decision needs to be made. These decisions rarely affect just one part of the business. A change in feed ration influences feed intake, animal health, manure composition and emissions. Labour is scarce and the pressure to work more autonomously is increasing, from milking robots to automatic feeding systems. Yet these systems often do not communicate with each other. Animal health is increasingly becoming a data issue. The earlier a signal is detected, the lower the impact. Emissions are no longer only an environmental challenge, but also a steering variable that directly affects business economics and permit space.

That is why livestock farming needs technology that is not assessed per individual process, but on the connections between those processes. An adviser or coach can help translate data into logical next steps, because data without interpretation does not change behaviour.

Within IP1 Open Cultivation, livestock farming focuses on technology that helps farmers make better supported daily decisions. This involves information from different parts of the farm, from feed ration and feed intake to signals related to animal health, manure flows, soil condition, crop growth and emissions. The value is not in having more data, but in having a better view of what is happening and what the next logical step could be.

By placing information from different parts of the farm side by side, farmers, researchers, technology companies and advisers can see more quickly where connections emerge. This helps explain effects more clearly, make sharper decisions and develop technology that fits the daily reality of the farm.

Within IP1 Open Cultivation, livestock farming shows how technology can contribute to better decision making at farm level. Not by changing everything at once, but by making visible the connections that often remain hidden. Within the Handsfree Agrifood ecosystem, practice, research and technology come together to test solutions faster and make them fit the daily operations of the farm more effectively. From animal health and labour to emissions and circular flows, the route to next steps runs through use cases, Agro-innovation Centre De Marke, public summaries or direct contact.