The term “big data” describes the tremendous amount of information that a business generates daily, and companies are starting to extract insights that lead to better decisions and strategies using complex analysis of that data.
We know companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon are using big data approaches to reinvent and reshape entire industries, and there are high expectations for how big data will impact integrated poultry production as well.
It is believed that a big data approach will create better precision livestock farming with such outcomes as being able to grow more efficiently, with more precise use of inputs, and with reduced antibiotic use, but how exactly do we connect these same approaches to integrated poultry production in ways that bring these benefits to broiler and egg industries?
I believe we still must solve key concerns about data security, infrastructure and economics to make this real.
To extract and deliver the insights that lead to better decision-making, we need big data. That means millions of data points flowing in from the farm, flock and bird. It must all be correlated with data on feed formulations, ingredient choices, profitability and management practices and will be most impactful when collected industrywide.
Opportunities and risks
While the poultry industry is familiar with supplying data for benchmarking services, we are now talking about information transparency and sharing taken to an entirely new level.
Data security and information leaks are key risks, and we see the consequences of this with every news story about the latest personal information leak. It is unclear whether the poultry industry is prepared to be as complete and transparent as necessary to truly deliver the benefits promised by a big data approach.
Another key component to big data is the employment of embedded sensors. If you have an Amazon Echo in your house, you already have a good example. There are internet-connected sensors that watch your flocks, listen to your animals, smell your barns, analyze carcasses in processing plants, analyze your feed ingredients, and many other things. These embedded sensors result in better and higher-quality insights that increase the value of the big data that is generated, but also raise infrastructure concerns. Can you reliably install and keep these sensors, and their data, active, connected, and operating across a large poultry production system?
If you can’t keep the data from these sensors linked together and to production outcomes, and if the analysis isn’t fast enough to create immediate management opportunities, then you have a clear infrastructure problem that dramatically lessens the value of a big data approach.
Potential new revenue stream
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the value generated by a big data approach is founded in the data collected about chickens grown by producers, ingredients owned by poultry companies, management practices honed by integrated systems, and in processing plants run by food companies.
Yet it seems that a big data approach is frequently being sold to the poultry industry, when perhaps the game changer needs to be that data is bought from the poultry industry instead. If the poultry industry were able to convert its data into an additional revenue stream rather than an incremental cost, the advancements in precision poultry farming may start coming very fast.
As with other industries, a big data approach to poultry production could revolutionize the industry, but we have very specific industry concerns that must be considered before it becomes real.
If we can’t answer the issues around data security and ownership, if we can’t deliver the robust and connected infrastructure required, and if we don’t better align the incentives with the economics of big data for producers, I’m afraid that the benefits of big data will remain out of reach.
Is the next frontier in poultry health the microbiome?
