The right decisions start with the right data.
Especially when the name of the game is efficiency, leveraging on-farm data to identify areas of a dairy operation that need tweaking can make a significant difference in optimizing farm management and, of course, profitability.
Sustainability also plays a key role in managing a dairy herd for long-term profit. In this sense, data can help an operation determine if inputs are being used efficiently and that energy isn’t being wasted.
These days, there’s no shortage of data that can be collected to drive strategic decision-making. Sifting through all the available data, however, can be a challenge.
For instance, a typical dairy farm receives input about individual cow health and production as well as whole herd numbers. There’s genetic data, herd health monitoring, nutrition and feeding, and other data sets from a variety of farm management areas.
Determining the right data sources and sets are key to making those efficiency and sustainability linked decisions. It all comes down to making data easy to access.
Data-driven solutions are key
Dairy Data Warehouse (DDW) focuses on helping farms successfully navigate the rapid digital transformation of the dairy industry. Essentially, they turn masses of raw data into on-farm potential.
A commitment to provide farm advisors with a tool to optimize dairy farm data usage and to ensure data privacy for farmers has made DDW one of the largest global dairy databases for secure, high-quality data collection.
Through DDW, dairy data that varies in structure and data quality is transformed into consistent data sets through services such as Herdnet, Optiherd and Predicta.
DDW collects farm data from several types of herd management and other on-farm software, cleans the data and turns it into one standardaised data set to help farms benchmark best management practices and identify areas for improvement.
Unique to the dairy data market, the powerful artificial intelligence (AI) predictions component of DDW’s services is constantly improving farm operations. When cows, advisors and farm managers are sleeping, AI works through applications such as Predicta to identify cows at risk for transition cow disease or support replacement decisions.
Dairy farm consultants can use DDW services to help their farm clients monitor 140 key performance indicators, such as cow movement, feeding habits, reproductive health, culling management and milking equipment.
A growing industry needs the right support
As overall global demand for food increases and farmers feel the pressure from rising input costs, finding ways to manage a dairy farm efficiently and sustainably is critical.
Today’s farms need to react quickly to changes, and data can help them do that. For example, AI-based data can help a farmer or advisor forecast milk production, monitor udder health issues to avoid production and profit losses, and analyze risk factors for individual animals to identify those susceptible to transition diseases.
Since milk production is a long-term strategy, the primary data management tool an advisor or farmer chooses should be able to flag potential issues and predict which animals will give the highest production. It should help prevent diseases rather than treat them and it should help a producer proactively address culling and insemination strategies.
A complete and concise data set, such as those available through DDW, can help today’s dairy farms identify risks and plan their investments to create a more sustainable and efficient operation tomorrow. For more information on data-driven solutions for dairy producers and advisors visit dairydatawarehouse.com
