Precision livestock farming: new information useful for decision-making ?

Abstract

New technologies for sensors, communication and data processing have entered farms. This new source of information is more diverse, obtained at higher frequencies, for longer periods of time and from more entities. They raise new problems of qualification, reliability and maintenance of information, which remain largely to be explored. In decision theory,’information’ relates to what is likely to have an impact on a decision. When the information is acquired by automatic devices rather than obtained by observation or measurement by humans, such devices quickly find their place on the condition that they are reliable. Information on animal health and welfare or on the environment, resources are still little used and their integration into effective decision-making tools is still insufficient. In addition, today, the use of this information is not limited to the livestock farm. Consumers want to know where their food comes from, how it was produced, with what level of environmental protection or animal welfare, and to be able to trust this information. In conclusion, new information technologies allow accessing a lot of new information in animal production, but it is not yet clear how it can be used in decision-making by livestock farmers or other actors of the food-chain.