Unlocking the value of data via Internet of Things in the fattening pig sector

As part of the IOF2020 project, the Pig Farm Management use case focuses on Internet of Things (IoT) in the fattening pig sector. The pig sector is facing challenges of high costs, difficult economic situation and increasing demands on topics like animal welfare and emission reduction. To keep up with these requirements, an ever-increasing monitoring-efficiency is needed. In fact, a pig farmer has to take into account many different aspects going from health inspection, managing stocks and personnel to optimizing feeding whilst also following the latest developments in the sector. The present-day pig farmer is already assisted in his job as caretaker and farm manager by technological installations (e.g. feeding and climate systems), but the data that these systems generate is most often under-used. Consequently, a clear overview of the on-farm data linked with technical results from the slaughterhouse and automatic problem detection, combined with tracking of actions and treatments is needed more than ever. To this aim, the Pig Business Intelligence Dashboard was developed as one easy tool that provides the overview that is needed to effectively steer the farm management. In this work, we will present the Pig Farm Management Use case, the development of the Pig Business Iintelligencet Dashboard, the encountered challenges and the solutions applied to overcome them. A data sharing agreement, for instance, was introduced to assure data privacy in the integration of heterogeneous IoT devices/platforms. While, the combination of an IoT platform, the FIWARE Orion Context Broker and a real-time warning system allowed the integration of IoT devices and platform. To conclude, we will report the experience of the 5 practical farms, where the product is tested and further developments are fostered by continuous feedback and recommendations.