Setting protocols on farms can benefit family and staff, but they don’t always get done.
Now a Canadian company is using artificial intelligence to create those protocols for you.
CATTLEytics, a company which helps livestock and mainly dairy farmers manage data, created the module for protocols in about 60 days, says Shari van de Pol, CEO of the company.
Why it matters: Taking the time to write protocols for employees takes time and skills farmers don’t always have.
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At the Ottawa Valley Farm Show, van de Pol showed farmers the system, which fits inside the larger CATTLEytics dairy farm data management and worker planning software. To create a protocol, such as how to feed colostrum to calves at birth, a farmer enters several points to define the protocol and can include multiple languages, including French, Canadian French and Spanish, along with English. Getting the parameters around the query correct are important, but then the protocols are fully editable, and it’s important to make sure to go through them carefully before implementing them. Each farm is different and has different facilities and priorities.
“What we say, is if we create the protocol, you need to read through it,” says van de Pol. “This is just an augmentation to make your life easier. You need to be the one in charge.”
The system also allows easy sharing and augmenting of the protocol for training. It can create an AI-generated podcast for employees to listen to about the protocol. Images and YouTube videos can be added to the protocol. Then, when it’s ready, it can be tagged to a certain calf or cow and can be shared quickly with personnel, who will receive the protocol on their mobile device.
Tests based on the protocol also can be automatically generated, which can test understanding.
It can be used for new employees, for reminders for existing employees, and as a resource so someone can quickly check the protocol on their device, which can help limit gradual change in a protocol.
The proAction quality assurance program requires farmers to create protocols and best practices for many activities on farms. Most of those living in laminated sheets on walls or in binders. The CATTLEytics system can make that process easier for farmers to create protocols and they can be shared to mobile devices.
The system is also customizable for each farm.
“We prepopulate the LLM (large language model) with some information, but then we also have customization within that LLM so that if you, let’s say, always want your protocols translated in English, in Spanish, we can set that up,” says van de Pol.
Being a small technology company allows CATTLEytics to make changes quickly and be able to respond to farmers’ needs, she says.
The system doesn’t replace any people, says van de Pol. The only thing is that all of that writing that would have taken you so much time, it makes it easier.”
