Emailed in by James Higham from The Register:
If you worry the Internet of Things is bollocks and that the industry's just milking an old idea, think again: research outfit Arcluster has declared that the “Connected Cow and Farm” market will become a US$10.75 billion concern in 2021, a rather nice jump from today's $1.27 billion.
Byte-blowing bovines are going to drive most of the growth, says Arcluster's research director Arun Nirmal, who says “the intersection of highly sophisticated automation and M2M technologies combined with the application of Industrial Internet of Things in this space is set to disrupt the industry over the next decade."
How will cows be disrupted?
The Connected Cow market apparently comprises seven sub-markets, namely:
•Health Monitoring
•Mating Management
•Herd Management
•Automated Milking
•Comfort and Cleaning
•Automated Feeding
•Others
* In the context, more accurately "cowshit".
Bond
34 minutes ago
6 comments:
Considering the poor cow is being reduced to a machine that you put grass in one end and get milk out the other, it should not be long now before someone produces a real machine to do the same thing.
That's already past the experimental stage, Bayard. And about to hit the supermarket shelves.
Lab grown meat
Lab produced milk
If these products end up cheap enough, it soon won't be competitive for farmers to keep actual cows. So developing this Internet-Of-Things cow tracking technology could turn out to be pointless.
Internet of Things spin and marketing bull aside, he hasn't really scratched the surface. I'm currently in Norway, and there are several local farmers who've gone to this system. The norm is about a 15% improvement in milk yield, and there's all sorts of things they can monitor now, to the point where it checks the cow and milk for infections, and can even send messages to the local vet. to come out. It's not a cheap system, but not out of the way for major farm machinery
Derek,
If cultured milk hit's the big time, there will be less unhappy cows, but OTOH, there will be less cows full stop. Is that a win or a lose?
I suspect that milk from cows will become a niche product. Just want something to put in your tea? Buy "frankenmilk" (as I'm sure it will be christened). Want something that comes from a cow? Be prepared to pay a lot extra.
I have no doubt that you are right, Bayard. Look at what happened to the number of horses after the IC engine came along. It just shocks me a bit that it is so close to happening.
I can't see cows regaining their market share by breaking into the leisure market in the way that horses have done, though.
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