Sheep 4.0

Intensive (concentrate-based) livestock farming is on the rise, along with concerns about environmental impact and animal welfare. Biodiverse sown permanent pastures (PSB), rich in legumes, are a promising solution in the Mediterranean area due to their high productivity and protein content. However, they have variable spatial, intra and interannual productivity and require significant fertilization with phosphorus. The intrinsic variability of pastures has led in the past to a shift from pasture based livestock to concentrate based livestock. But Industry 4.0, by acquiring, processing and analyzing massive amounts of data, which characterize this variability, can allow achieving an optimal balance between pastures and concentrate.

By optimizing the combination of legume-rich pastures with precise concentrate feeding, aided by remote sensing data, artificial intelligence and networked information gathering (Internet of Things IoT), Sheep 4.0 addresses the dairy sheep sector through an innovative combination of industry 4.0, namely through instruments for massive collection of data on animals and pastures, resulting in scientific modeling processes to maximize dairy production performance with the reduction of the GHG footprint. Remote sensing (satellite and drone) is used to measure pasture productivity and nutritional content (energy and protein), allowing the elaboration of maps of differentiated fertilization with phosphorus. Pasture consumption is estimated through animal movement and behavior, based on GPS collars. The modeling of animal metabolism uses the Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory, which then allows an optimal choice of the amount of concentrate and protein. Reducing concentrate and protein consumption leads to a reduction in economic and environmental costs (lower life cycle impacts, reduced methane production and reduced nitrogen emissions).

Led by Terraprima - Serviços Ambientais, this project is a consortium that has a multidisciplinary team with experience and knowledge in sustainability assessment, industry 4.0, scientific modeling and assistance to farmers (Terraprima - Serviços Ambientais); agricultural management (Terraprima - Sociedade Agrícola); ecology and agronomy of pastures (Instituto Politécnico de Bragança); animal science (Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco), as well as sustainable and precision livestock.