El IRTA has carried out a pilot test on cows, mares and sheep in the mountains of Pallars Sobirà, coordinated by Unió de Pagesos, with the participation of the Sort Cooperative and the Pirenaica Cooperative, advised by the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA ) and with the support of the Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda. The test has consisted of a new tool for extensive farmers in the Pyrenees, where locating and monitoring the herds and their state of health involves long daily trips.
With the aim of being more efficient and obtaining more information, geolocation collars have been successfully applied to extensive livestock farming in the Pyrenees and new dimensions have been added to the live control of the herd.
With the data obtained from the herd’s routes, heat maps are obtained on the intensity of the pasture, which would allow the farmer to redirect the animals to other areas and thus rebalance the use of resources and the animals’ diet
The data recorded by the devices could warn of the presence of bones, and an adequate triangulation of this data would allow the creation of alarm systems to warn farmers and dogs or to activate systems to dissuade them.
In the project, work has been done between 2019 and 2021 with a total of thirteen farmers who had cows, mares and sheep. Based on this experience, the challenge is to refine the collection of information and automate processes.
