REMEDY Plus: Adding automation and powering predictions for sustainable production

This project involves expansion and further automation of REMEDY (**RE**al ti**M**e **D**air**Y**), a novel, precision, data-driven solution for dairy farmers initially developed with support from Innovate UK.

Current on-farm precision technologies often deliver isolated solutions to individual components of complex dairy production systems. REMEDY has successfully combined data and precision technologies to create software for a real-time decision support system placing precision, data-driven, solutions at the finger-tips of dairy farmers as evidenced by the recent launch of the Mastitis Pattern Analysis Tool (MPAT) to the industry which has already been adopted by over 300 farmers to aid and inform mastitis management on farm. We now propose automating new data feeds and to develop a new remote energy monitoring system, in collaboration with Gridimp, feeding live data on energy use into the REMEDY Platform. This will enable dairy farmers to calculate and evaluate their efficiency, productivity and environmental impact and then use sophisticated simulation tools, calibrated for their own farm, to identify optimal management decisions in real time, all with minimal effort involved in data collation and processing. These enhancements to REMEDY will thereby help remove one of the biggest barriers (lack of time) to efficient and effective farm planning.

'REMEDY Plus' will be an enhanced tool for powering predictions and informing decision making at the cow and herd level. 'REMEDY Plus' will provide the dairy farmer with a unique holistic system, fueled by an unprecedented array of technological and farm-based information. 'REMEDY Plus' will allow farmers and their advisors to run a multitude of farm-specific 'what-if' scenarios and evaluate the outcomes of competing decisions, providing a framework for optimal farm-specific solutions to improve productivity via nutritional efficiency, reproductive performance, animal health, and sustainability by reducing net carbon emissions, reducing and refining antimicrobial use associated with each farm.

We will ensure 'REMEDY Plus' retains relevance and a focus on end-users. To ensure this, we have a team of academics, dairy industry specialists, precision technology specialists, veterinarians and farmers. This team has the infrastructure and substantial proven experience to deliver KE, identify target markets, establish the widespread adoption and support ongoing user needs. We intend to continue to co-design REMEDY with a group of vets and our co-developing farmers.