The Farmers Mart Aug-Sep 2018 - Issue 58 | Page 65

TECHNOLOGY 65
• AUG/SEP 2018
SMALL ROBOT COMPANY RAISES
£50,000 WITH INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN
SMALL Robot Company, a British agritech
start-up for sustainable farming, today an-
nounced it has successfully raised £50,000
with its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.
The company harnesses the power and
precision of robots and Artificial Intelli-
gence (AI) to improve the way that food is
produced and minimise chemical usage.
The company will make farms more
profitable, and increase yield and efficiency,
through using small robots instead of trac-
tors. Its arable farming robots Tom, Dick and
Harry will enable farmers to be kinder to soil,
kinder to the environment, more efficient,
more precise and more productive. It will
also reduce chemical usage and cultivation
energy in arable farming by up to 95%.
Small Robot Company’s £50,000 fund-
ing will enable it to commercialise Harry,
its digital planting robot. Harry recently
won a prestigious Horizontal Innovation™
Award from the Institution of Engineering
and Technology (IET) and the High Value
Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC) to develop
the prototype technology.
Harry will accurately place seed individ-
ually in the ground at a uniform depth to
within 2cm accuracy, creating a plant level
map showing the location of each seed.
By punch-planting rather than ploughing,
Harry will also radically reduce soil run off
and associated water pollution.
‘ make farms more
profitable, and increase
yield and efficiency
’
Eventually, each process - from knowing
when to plant, to all aspects of crop care, to
knowing when to harvest - will be automated.
www.smallrobotcompany.com
Updated app simplifies flock
and herd record keeping
Allflex in partnership with Duradiamond has announced the launch of an
updated version of its ‘iLivestock’ flock and herd management app.
THE iLivestock app enables
users to perform a range of live-
stock management tasks via the
convenience of their smartphone
or tablet whilst on the go: from
ordering ear tags, to recording
animal movements and capturing
and recording weight data, the
iLivestock app has been designed
to save time and improve the
accuracy of farm record keeping,
thereby enabling flock and herd
managers to keep a full set of
sheep and cattle records in their
pocket.
The upgraded version of the
app features a new design and
easier to navigate menu which
includes larger buttons for easy
use in the field. The app’s tag
ordering section has also been
updated to make it easier for
users to view and order a wider
range of official, management
and replacement ear tags from
Allflex.
The new iLivestock app
offers various levels
of usage including:
Tag ordering: the free ver-
sion of iLivestock enables users
to order a selection of Allflex ear
tags from the convenience of
their smartphone or tablet.
Farm compliance: the app
helps producers to maintain fully
compliant farm records, thereby
avoiding the need to duplicate
paper-based management
records.
Flock and herd manage-
ment tasks: by using the iLive-
stock app in conjunction with a
compatible stick reader such as
the Allflex RS420 and EiD (elec-
tronic identification) ear tags,
users can automatically record
and upload animal management
tasks such as weights, breeding
events and other group manage-
ment events.
Stock management record-
ing : the iLivestock app can be
used in conjunction with com-
patible handling and weighing
equipment to automatically draft
animals and record weights.
Breeding events, scan results
and medicine records can also
be recorded via the app, with
users also able to create custom
groups to report and action
against multiple animals. The
app can also be used to import
and export CSV files, thereby
enabling users to upload existing
data, or to download herd or
flock books. All critical data
logged via the iLivestock app is
backed up via the iLivestock Hub
service giving users complete
peace of mind that their herd
or flock records are safe and
retrievable.
www.ilivestock.co.uk. entre at
www.abccomms.co.uk