Dairy Data - Part One

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

The dairy industry has really been ahead of the curve when it comes to utilizing data for efficiency, herd health, and sustainability. But most milk data is still collected from bulk sampling, says SomaDetect CEO Bethany Deshpande.

Deshpande… “The most data that they get is from the bulk tank, which is a whole herd piece of information. But then so much of the actions that we take, especially relating to health and reproduction are actually about individual cows.”

To solve this problem, SomaDetect offers an inline milk sensor that uses artificial intelligence to collect data on milk quality and cow health in real time.

Deshpande… “They get a really clear sense of the cows within their herds. And sometimes it's a group of cows, but sometimes it's just outliers within the herd of animals that are producing lower fat than others and can look at, okay, well, why is that? Is this cow eating less? Is this cow doing something different or is it just something relating to that individual? And maybe I don't want to keep that individual within my herd or breed her genetics. And so we just kind of plug into the equipment and we've also tried to be a natural addition to management procedures and all those different things on-farm. Because you can supply all the data in the world to someone, but if they're not actually using it then you haven't moved the needle for that farm.”

SomaDetect is working with dairies across the country to help them collect this individual cow data.