Biologically, Farming is an important phase since a balanced and conscious management of the ecosystem has a decisive impact on food quality and nutritional characteristics.
An essential feature of farming is that it starts, in any production environment, from soil, water, nutrients present in the soil: environment essential elements.
Activities on farms, cultivation and breeding of animals, represent the first phase of every cycle of food production. In this phase we are dealing with goods of animal and vegetable origin that become raw materials used in the following production of consumable goods phases. Pet food is also part of the food transformation process.
The introduction of modern digital management and observation facilitates the application of sophisticated methods and algorithms, and makes events measurable and traceable along the process.
The farming of the future will be digital and will allow, in a technically and scientifically accurate way, to obtain a holistic model of the entire process to be observed, from the field to the shelf.
People, Profit & Planet, human and planet well-being and profit, are the values that nutritional science and the new models that are establishing themselves in it, it is very important that they are in balance. Modern food production techniques must aim to achieve this balance by monitoring and controlling all the parameters of the agri-food chain, the quality of which comes from proper soil management.
In order to achieve SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) defined by the European Commission, operators involved in food production should operate by setting a series of new objectives that require complex management of the production chain. iChain enables the creation of digital supply chain management models that allow an objective measure of the evolution of processes towards the achievement of these objectives.
Agree with this innovative vision, agro-food chain operators will be involved both in the production process and into production of data relating to their processes and the goods they produce. The more operators will be able to generate and manage high volumes of data, the more they will be competitive and successful in a constantly evolving modern context.
Animal welfare and PLF
Animal welfare is an increasingly sensitive issue for consumers, institution and for breeding, treatment and sale operators of meat and the resulting processed product (cured meats, hams, but also eggs, milk and derivatives).
Animal welfare, indeed, goes hand in hand with Derivatives quality and therefore with healt consumer protection.
For this reason, companies inventing in increasingly careful monitoring of animal health parameters: environmental parameters (temperature, humidity and CO2 …) specific to livestock farming (size, space/animal, hygiene …), kind and amount of feed at various stages of growth, care of the Staff, health check and any additional care required.
Nowadays, technologies for data capture are very widely developed, from sensors for detecting environmental parameters to video cameras for monitoring animals and their behaviors. These elements allow accurate data collection.
Using sensors to digitize physiological changes, animals are constantly monitored and the generated data are predictive and prescriptive. In this way, trends and patterns of behaviour can be predicted and it will be easier to support the decision-making process: Cameras, microphones and sensors improve farmers' eyes, ears and nose. This remote livestock monitoring technology, called precision farming (PLF), is the ability to track automatically individual livestock in real time.
Through sensors (cameras, microphones and accelerometers), images, sounds and movements are combined with algorithms to non-invasively monitor animals, to detect their well-being and predict productivity. In addition, this remote livestock monitoring can provide quantitative and early alerts on poor welfare situations that require the farmer's attention.
The types of data to show animal welfare are several and heterogeneous. What’s valuable is monitoring continuous and constant and above all the understanding of the interrelationships between these data.
According to existing regulations, it is further necessary to trace documents that certify both the characteristics of the companies involved in the rearing and slaughtering stages, as well as the health certificates and any internal and external audits carried out.
WHY iCHAIN FOR SMART AGRIFOOD?
COLLECT AND SHARE DATA
ALONG THE SUPPLY CHAIN
- Integration with own automatic systems (eg. sensors)
- Integration with existing systems
- Collection of heterogeneous data, both dynamic and static
SHARE DATA
WITH THE CHAIN
- Feeding of databases shared with the stakeholders involved
- Personalized sharing with the stakeholders involved
- Access to data via web and mobile app
MONITOR DATA
- Homogeneous representation of heterogeneous data
- Automatic graphic display tools
- Advanced analysis algorithms (statistics and predictive models)
- Alert systems for detecting indicators in real time
What operational advantages do I get with the use of iChain?
iChain can be used for various business processes, even implemented gradually:
- manage products and / or batches traceability from raw material to finished product, at different levels of granularity of information;
- collect and analyze data on farms and check for any anomalies, compare the performance of different farms, detect point of attention in real time or make make best practice comparisons;
- Optimize operational, logistic and material consumption;
- share data between supply chain operators in order to obtain real-time information and improve reaction times;
- associate all health documents or documents relating to inspection visits up to the single event, both at the level of the batch, the individual head, or farm.
How do I measure iChain benefits?
The use of iChain as a traceability and transparency system constitutes, in addition to a system to minimize food waste and costs, also a greater credibility of brand image towards consumers, business partners and the community in general.