2021 CIDA Symposium_"Promoting Sustainable and Resilient Animal Agriculture through DA"
From Gabriela Cestero October 19, 2021
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2021 Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture (CIDA) Symposium
Session 3: Promoting Sustainable and Resilient Animal Agriculture through DA
October 11, 2021, 1:20pm-2:40pm
Digital agriculture tools are poised to contribute to more environmentally sustainable and resilient food animal production systems. This symposium will focus on the role of digital technologies for overcoming current and future environmental sustainability and production challenges for the food animal industry. We will discuss the contribution of existing technologies and current gaps in technological innovations for estimating the environmental footprint of food producing animals. Improving animal health and welfare is also central to the resilience and sustainability of food animal production systems. Thus, we will discuss recent applications in smart sensing and computer vision systems for monitoring animal health and welfare in modern farm animal operations.
Moderator: Julio
Giordano
Associate Professor,
Animal Science, Cornell University
Prof. Giordano’s research focuses on dairy cattle reproductive physiology, health, and the implications of health and reproductive performance on the economics of dairy farms. A key component of his research supports the development and on-farm implementation of new technologies to simplify reproductive and health management programs and to enhance the potential of dairy cattle.
Speakers:
Mario Herrero
Professor, Global Development, Cornell University
The livestock sector requires a deep transformation to ensure it contributes to sustainable food systems. Novel technologies exist for creating the necessary transitions to more sustainable states. This talk discusses these technologies and all the ancillary actions and socio-technical bundles that are required to ensure their improved adoption.
Mario Herrero is a professor of sustainable food systems and global change in the Department of Global Development, a Cornell Atkinson Scholar, and a Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences. His research focuses on increasing the sustainability of food systems for the benefit of humans and ecosystems.
Hao Gan
Assistant Professor, Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science, University
of Tennessee-Knoxville
Dr. Gan will talk about recently applications of smart sensing systems in animal production. He will discuss sensors and computer vision systems, and their applications in monitoring animal health and welfare.
Dr. Gan is an assistant professor in the Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Gan’s expertise include sensor development, wireless sensor networks, agricultural IoT, agricultural robotics.
Stacey Gunter
Research Leader, Rangeland and Pasture Research, U.S. Department of
Agriculture
In an effort to more precisely manage the performance and efficiency of grazing cattle for more sustainable outcomes, scientists at the Southern Plains Range Research Station over the last couple decades have been conducting research using digital technologies to assess the metabolism of grazing cattle. We have been extensively involved in developing indirect calorimetry techniques for grazing cattle using respiration gas flux data, modelling energy intake and comparing it to measured energy intakes. Further, we have been working to improve digesta kinetics modeling techniques that utilize external markers to more precisely and easily model the site and extent of digestion within a ruminant's digestive tract.
Stacey Gunter is currently the Research Leader at the USDA-ARS Southern Plains Range Research Station in Woodward, Oklahoma. During his 34-year career, he has conducted research in grazing livestock nutrition and management. Stacey and his colleagues have authored 104 peer-reviewed articles and 316 proceedings, research reports and scientific abstracts concerning the nutritional management of grazing cattle.
Thought for food…
Our global agriculture and food systems require a radical transformation relying on expertise in multiple areas and research collaborations across disciplines that include agriculture, food safety, engineering, information and computer science, biology, business and the social sciences.
More than 100 faculty from across Cornell’s colleges – Agriculture and Life Sciences, Engineering, Computing and Information Science, Arts and Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Business – have come together to develop a robust research agenda for CIDA, weaving unmatched excellence into holistic solutions for food and agriculture. CIDA’s mission is to inspire learning, catalyze innovation, and integrate fundamental discoveries to achieve new levels of sustainability in agri-food systems and new food for thought.
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