The Data Literacy for Cow-Calf Producers project aims to give farmers and ranchers the chance to discuss best practices and learn from experts and peers about how to use data to make better business decisions.
Data management has varied adoption in the cow-calf sector.

“It’s all over the map. Some are tracking a lot of data, like how many animals they get out on pasture over a period of time, so they get some productivity and performance data,” says Alan Hall, executive director, of the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA), the organization that provides services to the 12 forage and applied research associations around the province.

“There’s still a fair chunk of the cow-calf operations that don’t weigh the calves when they come off” pasture, he says.
Barriers to the adoption of more data recording and analysis in the cow-calf sector include the extra work that recording data can take, says Hall. There also can be challenges with service to help with software, troubleshoot hardware and data services like internet and cellular connection.

“The technologies are there, but it’s one thing to have the technology and it is quite another to make it work seamlessly,” says Hall.

The project will accept 30 cow-calf producers from Alberta. Two workshops bookend the program. The first is June 13, 2024 and the second Nov. 28, 2024 and both are based in Red Deer.

Attendees will have to attend both sessions.

In between, the producers can go back to their farms and work on what they learned, but they will also be part of a six-month mentorship program, where they will be able to virtually connect with the rest of their cohort and experts between sessions.

Susan Markus will be teaching part of the course, including looking at metrics producers can measure and evaluate that will have an impact on their farm or ranch.

The real win for producers is to be able to find something in the data that helps make basic jobs more efficient, so the data collection isn’t as onerous.

“If people took a look at some of this data, they maybe don’t realize what more it can do for them,” says Markus, a livestock research scientist with Results Driven Agriculture Research. She’s based at Lakeland College.
Collecting data is one step of the process, says Markus, but interpreting the data is another and that’s really the focus of the project.

“It’s one thing to tell people to keep better records, but if you do nothing with it, what good was that?”
The technology for data collection on beef operations is available, says Markus, including the fact that cattle are required to have RFID tags which can be read by wands or panels and Bluetooth scales can automate the recording of data onto digital devices.

“But you have to do a really good job with your basic information, know how you stack up against industry benchmarks, to know what areas you’re going to focus on, where you’re going to change,” she says.

The next step is to match production data to financial data and Agri-Food Management Excellence will be involved in the program to help producers make that connection.

Program partners include Olds College, Lakeland College, EMILI, Agri-Food Management Excellence, RDAR, and the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency. It is being coordinated by the Simpson Centre in the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.

Funding comes from the Alberta government’s announcement in April of $1.2 million for the Alberta Digitalization Agriculture Program run by the Simpson Centre.

Many other organizations are involved in helping to promote the program, such as ARECA.

“We see this as a pilot to get started but this could well lead to some longer-term kinds of efforts. Bringing some of this type of data collection and data analysis that producers have can help them sharpen their business decisions,” says Hall.

For more information visit the University of Calgary’s website. 

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“The goal of these technologies is to make data capture easy so that you are better informed to help you make the decisions that you need to make — and make more money at the end of the day,” says Almond, the general manager of AgSights. Almond presented at the Grey Bruce Farmers Week Beef Day. AgSights is a not-for-profit co-operative that provides data capture and analysis tools to the food supply chain.

The tools

Almond outlined some of the tools currently available. There are livestock collars that have RFID and sensors that can take biometric scans of the animals — the information collected can then be turned into insight into management directions.

There are also RFID boluses, which are more prevalent in the dairy industry. The boluses are ingested by the cow and monitor rumen activity to warn of potential illnesses early.

Camera technology has taken two tracks. There’s a kind of facial recognition camera that notes marks on the animal’s body to identify it. The camera connects to the RFID tag and can track the animal and its movements. In this case, the camera tracks movement and can detect, for example, how often the animal lies down, or whether it’s limping.

The thermal imaging camera can detect whether an animal is in heat or is sick. A company called Alpha Phenomics has a 3D imaging machine that can also do weight measurements and calculate average daily gains.

Almond points out that all of these products have to go through a three-step process: proof of concept, validation and commercialization.

“These tools exist, they are there for your use,” she says. “The question is, when does it make sense to add them to your farm?”

Deciding what’s needed

Using the Eisenhower principle, a decision-making matrix that uses important, unimportant, urgent and not urgent filters, Almond demonstrated how the technology could help free up time and improve production.

The urgent and important tasks such as calving, breeding, health treatments and nutrition management can be better accomplished if the farmer has useful information coming directly from the cows early on.

The technology can also make tasks that are not urgent but important such as business planning, genetic improvement and record-keeping more easily and quickly done with accessible data.

She then listed several questions for the audience to consider when deciding on technology tools.

“What is your big-picture goal?” she asks, adding it’s a good idea to have it written down. “If the tool doesn’t get you where you want to go, it’s probably not the tool you need today.”

She says farmers should know what kind of information they should be collecting to achieve their goals. These are divided into mandated, needed and desired. For example, RFID is required by the government for all animals leaving the original herd, along with deadstock records, treatments, livestock movements and financials. The needed information includes herd productivity, data for culling decisions, selection criteria, feed inventory and rations, and mortality rate health records. The desired data could include pedigree tracking, performance records and genetic evaluations.

Almond advises producers to know how the tool would help them achieve SMART production targets: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. She says it’s important to have RFID tags attached to calves right after they’re born to take advantage of any of the newer technologies.

“How do you record information when you’re on the go?” she asks, noting that, to get the full value of information in, say, calving records, producers must be able to incorporate the technology into how they do their business.

Information security is something that should always be considered. Whether it’s copies of paper records, computer backups or cloud storage, producers should be asking questions about how the data is collected and used, who owns it and whether they can get it back out.

Adding value

Beyond collecting the data, Almond says the technology should create value.

“Data should produce insight and there’s software available that can do that for you,” she says. “If it’s good and working well, it should provide suggestions for action.”

She provided some examples of how the technology could help. For instance, a producer could select a cow because she has the highest adjusted weaning weight, cull a poor-performing cow, or see the need to talk to the nutritionist about increasing feed efficiency to reach an average daily gain of, say, two pounds a day.

Once the tool is selected, she says it’s important for producers to know they will continue using it. She notes sometimes the advantages of technology aren’t realized because they don’t get used enough — such as weigh scales or RFID readers. She suggests scheduling a time of day to check in with your technology.

“You don’t have to use all that some technologies offer all at once,” she says. “You can start simply, and tell yourself, ‘This is what I can handle today’ and move on from there.

“Make sure the technology gives a quick, easy way to monitor what’s going on and a way to compare one animal to another or one season to another.” Finally, she advises producers to ask the seller about technology support — and whether ongoing services are an added cost.

Almond points out her own organization’s BioTrack program offers a whole suite of solutions, but producers can start with one and grow into others over time. The tools include everything from simple inventory tracking to reproduction records and body condition scoring to genetic evaluations.

AgSights also has a system for small and medium-sized processors called BioLinks. It connects animal and premise identification information with the carcass and, finally, the finished meat product. It also includes an e-commerce option for selling meat online.

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“I’m not a big technology guy,” said Ferguson, who with his wife Regan farms 3,000 acres at Melfort, Sask.

But for him, using the various data-based management tools available in farming today isn’t just helpful, but essential. The problem is that bringing it all together in one place is critical so that he can handle it and not become overwhelmed, which is why he like Bayer’s FieldView.

AG IN MOTION VIDEO: Farmers review their data-driven decisions

The system brings together data streams from various sources, allowing a farmer to take a more holistic approach to management than hopping from app to app to app.

“Take time to learn it,” said Regan Ferguson, who likes the logistic and cost insights the program allows her to develop.

On Tuesday at Ag in Motion, Bayer put together a farmers’ panel to talk about how each uses the program. While it allows for much sophisticated analysis, if that’s what a farmer wants, it also allows for simpler but essential tasks, said Chris Bauer of Lake Lenore, Sask.

“We mark rocks with FieldView,” said Bauer about one of those basic uses, in which rocks are spotted during field operations, pinned and then picked up later.

Integrating data flow is important when most farms run various types of equipment.

“With the rainbow of colours of equipment on the farm, having a single data point … was number one for us,” said Bauer.

Eston, Sask. farmer Dave Hewlitt said that as well as the management and production gains that are possible with better data management, being able to show others a farm’s true results is likely to become more and more important.

“Verification might start to really matter,” he said.

While systems like FieldView are relatively new developments, in another way they have been around as long as farmers have been able to read and write.

“We used to say you have to put it down with pen and paper,” said Mike Ferguson.

“Now it’s on a tablet.”

— Ed White reports for the Western Producer from Winnipeg.

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“You have got to have the root purpose of why you got that technology. Either that or you talk to others to help you find that purpose,” said Regan Ferguson, who farms with her husband, Mike, near Melfort.

“I find that once you have a purpose, you’re more apt to dig into it further and become more comfortable with it because you’re finally finding the value in it.”

The Fergusons are first-year users of Bayer’s Climate FieldView, a multi-application digital agriculture platform. They discussed Fieldview and digital ag in general at a roundtable held Tuesday at Ag in Motion near Langham, Sask.

Research can take the mystery out of unfamiliar technology, said Ferguson.

“The more I looked into Climate, did research and learned about it, I found the ‘why’ and the purpose of its need on our farm and got more excited to get it in place this year.”

Climate FieldView has given her the ability to keep track of all equipment in the field, what it’s doing and whether it’s doing it right. It also provides a detailed record of the operation.

“It was reassuring to know that we had some kind of data to back us up if we ever needed it,” said Ferguson.

Bayer says Climate FieldView was designed to centralize data, visuals and reporting in a package that producers can interpret and act upon, by optimizing fertility, seeding management or other crop operations.

“We’ve got to do this because of our return on investment with chemical and fertility. We just want to put the fertilizer where it needs to be,” said Ferguson.

— Jeff Melchior reports for Alberta Farmer Express from Edmonton.

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