Tech: Device places order when feed bin needs refilling
The Insylo product has been launched by Spanish company Ubikwa. This low-cost solar-powered sensor can be installed in only five minutes, and placed in the silo.
When feed stocks reach a critical level, the farmer receives an alert on his mobile phone. Via cloud computing, Insylo can also be linked to the feed supplier, and when the farmer receives an alert, he or she can press a button to send a feed replenishment order to the supplier.
The system can help feed suppliers to better organise feed production and shipment, so Insylo could reduce logistics costs and carbon dioxide emissions in feed supply firms as much as 25%.
Ubikwa was helped to develop the Insylo product by the EU-funded SmartAgriFood Consortium and Fireware Foundation which accelerates development of inernet-based services.
Insylo was one of three Smartagrifood companies selected to pitch to the 100,000 visitors at the recent Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, to demonstrate how digital technologies can be successfully applied for agriculture.
One of the others is Stepla, developed by Sensowave in Spain, for location, monitoring and tracing of outdoor livestock. One of the advantages for farmers whose cattle are fitted with Stepla necklaces is that “rustling” can be quickly detected.
Stepla also monitors cattle for signs of animal disease, and can record animal lifetime information for meat tracing and information.
The third Smartagrifood company at the Mobile World Congress 2016 was Team Dev of Italy with their Agricolus system for collection of geo- localised information on agricultural practices such as crop treatments applied and signs of plant diseases.
