The target market is not necessarily limited to the top five percent (5%) of farms (farm income as opposed to farm size although in the majority of cases they have a close correlation).

Further more the concept is not limited to just livestock as many possible direct cost and management efficiencies could be identified across numerous agribusiness sectors, as well as other industries that face similar logistic conditions. 

Finally the concept is not just limited to a regional basis but can be delivered on a world scale.

For the purposes of this profile and for the initial commercial development of the platform, it is intended that the larger Australian cattle farms (non-dairy) will be the target commercial market. This may of course change should more favorable conditions for the development of the platform become evident in another sector. 
 
 
 

The Concept.

The concept of the platform is simple enough. It has been an interregnal factor of the industrial revolution and is in operation within industry all over the world. 

The process is the manual and automatic opening and shutting of valves and gates or, the control of the motors to turn gears that perform these functions from a remote location, such as a control room or a self contained automatic control system. Control rooms and self contained devises currently manage valves and gates that may be located ten metres away, halfway around the world and in outer space. 

There are only really three critical limiting factors associated with the location of a management devise and the devise to be managed.

1. Electrical Power (purists may argue a manually levered cable-pulley system does not require electrical power however cable is not feasible for long distance control)

2. Communication Medium. Control data needs to be communicated via a control switch or software which in turn requires a a transport medium such as a telephone line, satellite or optical laser technologies. 

3. Costs. The benefits of being able to remotely control a devise needs to be weighted against the costs of the process so that commercial viability is maintained.
 

The top 5% of Australian Cattle farms are businesses that turn over 100's of millions of dollars. 

They incur large costs in:
 

• Time: moving men, machinery and animals over hundreds of kilometres equating into thousands of man-hours per year.

• Labour: large farms require a large amount of manpower in farm hands and contract labour.

• Infrastructure: fences, generators, yards, water tanks, feed lots, storage, etc. 

• Equipment: trucks, helicopters, light planes and array of other equipment that all needs to be maintained. The more it is used the more maintenance and replacement costs are incurred. 

• Fuel: a large amount of fuel generally at inflated city prices is consumed.

• Central Management In-efficiencies: many larger operations have multiple properties located throughout a state or multiple states of Australia. Due to the remoteness, internal and external geographical spread and lack of data communications, they are not able to take advantage of accurately pre-determining and randomly culling individual animals from a heard, when optimal kill weights are achieved. This has an effect on addressing optimum financial returns, accurate day to day asset valuations and increased costs in capital raising whether by finance or shareholders, etc.

• Animal Husbandry: the health of the herd must be maintained and conform to the human consumption standards and market demands.  This involves inspections, veterinarian assistance, feed additives, treatments, etc. General these can only be performed when a heard is yarded. There is a cost associated with yarding a heard and as such yarding is not a regular event.

With the recent advances in communications and solar technologies the costs of theses technologies have significantly decreased.

 It now appears commercially viable that a farm management platform can be developed, using new technologies coupled with the programmable logic devises (PLDs) already in existence for many years, to remotely ‘open and shut gates’ from a central location, whether it be at the homestead or any other central location within Australia, or most parts of the world.

The System.

A few years ago Telstra ran a television commercial showing a farmer sitting in his lounge room and demonstrating to his friends how he can remotely open and close a gate, while watching the sheep go through the gate, from many kilometers away using a motorised gate, a remote digital camera and satellite communications.

This system was purely created for the TV commercial. It was never intended as a commercial service however Telstra did received a large number of calls from farmers wanting to know the cost of the system and where they could buy it from.

The platform being proposed would provide far more functionality and business benefits that what was shown on the commercial.

Cattle (or any heard animal) would be microchiped and water or feed is used as the means of motivating an animal.

The water hole or trough is fenced off with a single or multiple races and a number of gates. When a cow crosses the combined scales and microchip reader, it identifies the cow and weighs the cow. All data is recorded against the cow’s account and then dependant upon the cows current statistics, the most appropriate gate is selected and opened. 

The gate selected may be a holding yard as the cow has reached it’s optimum kill weight. The system continually via satellite or a number of other technologies, displays the cows, their weights and how many cows are now in the holding yard. A truck is then dispatched when it makes commercial sense to collect the cows.

If the cow was not at the optimum kill weight a gate may have opened that sets it free or directs it into another holding pen, where special feed or soluble treatments are provided until optimum weight is achieved.

If a cow cannot be identified then possibly another gate opens as it is either a calf or cow that has not yet been microchiped. It can then be held in a yard until sufficient numbers are present to warrant a farm-hand veterinarian making the journey. Each time a cow is dipped, treated or inspected, the cow’s data base is updated on site.

The system thereby could:
 

• Data link their current farm management software for their many properties (real time or overnight updates) and there by centralise their farm management software to gain a financial and management status of all animals on all  properties as a whole. 

• Reduce to one location the support of the software. 

• Provide physical farm management services such as the automatic or manual remote opening and closing stock gates, watering troughs and feed dispensers from hundreds of kilometres away.

• The in-field automatic weighing and separation of individuals from the heard once optimum kill weights have been achieved. 

• Provision of special feed or soluble treatments to individuals requiring weight boosts or other treatments, calf counts and separation of calves for treatments and so forth.

• Remote monitoring of water and feed levels.

• If required the water holes or yard can be remotely viewed by web cameras or other video conferencing systems.

• The system can also provide telephone or e-mail services from the remote site

• Interface with agribusiness financial packages.

Service Delivery

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The platform can be developed in two ways simultaneously.

1. Owned and operated by the farm. The farm purchases the system and operates the system. Telecommunications will be provided by the carriage service providers where required.

2. Application Service Provider (ASP) model.  The ASP is a business located at one site (probably a capital city) and via satellite or other technology supplies the service to the farm on a shared basis with other farms (it can be hundreds and can be worldwide from the same location). 

The farmer simply pays for using the service. The ASP is responsibility for the equipment.  Because numerous clients share the system the cost to the individual farmer is considerably less than outright ownership. It also does not require the same capital costs as outright ownership. 
 
 
 

Technology

The platform is to be developed on an ‘open system’ basis and thereby can be used in conjunction with or interfaced with many types of software, agribusiness packages, transport mediums such as satellite, microwave, laser, other radio or RF technologies such as wireless local loop (WLL), blue tooth and computer networks.
 

Control Software

Software that controls the remote PLD devises incorporating a data base where a cows statistics are stored, will need to be developed. There are possibly a number of off-the shelf packages that can be modified to suite rather than the need to write a complete system from scratch. The software can be windows and /or web based.

The software then sends what ever control language the PLDs require to work the motors. PLDs are not complex and have been existence for many years so controlling PLDs should not pose a problem. The preference is however that all control transport be IP (Internet protocol) based as this is a virtual standard used by all new communications software and of the shelf and networking software such as MS Windows, Microsoft NT, Novell V5.0+, etc.

One other large consideration for IP is that it does not suffer from possible latency issues associated with using satellite communications.
 
 

Solar Power

Many types of solar cell and power storage via wet and dry cell battery solutions are now available. An on-site generator that could also be remotely or automatically started if required can also provide power. Solar solutions do not require full sun to operate effectively.
 
 

Wind Generators

Power can also be provide via wind generators. 
 
 
 
 

VSAT Two-way  satellite systems

Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSAT) two-way satellite systems are the mainstay as to why a platform should now be possible.

These systems have dropped in price dramatically over the last few years. More systems manufacturers such as HNS, Gillat are now competing. The new RCS (return channel systems) are based on an open platform which will allow many third party manufacturers to design and manufacture relatively inexpensive devises for all types of applications.

Within Australia there is currently Heartland Communications, Optus and Telstra who currently (or soon will) provide two-way VSAT satellite services. Newskies Systems as well as a number of other carriage service providers (CSPs) will also be two way enabled within the coming twelve-month period. 

It is these satellite two-way systems that are be able to provide the communications links needed to provide platform service within remote or rural areas where telecommunications infrastructure is non-existent or does not provide sufficient bandwidth or reliability.

A VSAT unit requires a pole mounted satellite dish generally 1.2m to 1.8m metres in diameter. In very heavy rain fail areas this may need to be increased to 2.4m . 

The same pole that holds the dish will also mount the solar panels as well as a whether proof enclosure for the VSAT unit, a PC and power storage batteries.
 
 
 
 

At the remote site

 

A remote site may simply require just one devise such as a water monitor device or many devises for multiple gates, feed and water dispensers, scales, phones or e-mail etc. To reduce the costs of needing multiple VSATs, multiple PLD can be serviced via a LAN (local are network) using a single PC server.

LAN connection to multiple devises can be via cable or other radio technologies such as blue tooth or laser.

Stock Infrastructure and equipment.

It would seem likely that all other equipment required to manage cattle (some times wild cattle) are already in existence. Electronic stock scales, microchip readers, gate motors operating on twelve, six or twenty four volts, stock races, gates, portable or permanent fencing or yards, etc. 

Naturally a large amount of design, experimentation, trials and consultation with farmers will be required to complete workable stock management and holding designs.
 
 

BACKING GATES. Precision cattle handling. We offer a choice of backing gates ranging from the dual purpose scraper backing gate to the up and over backing gate that allows you to decide how many animals to bring forward, or to have access to extra feed etc.. By inserting your desired parameters into the control system, you can have all animals of a certain age, weight or other characteristic segregated into a separate holding pen ready for the road train to pick up for market, or for other purposes without having to hold expensive musters sometimes days in advance etc.

AUTO IDENTIFICATION. Our versatile AutoID system is successful because of its reliability, enabling you to control and monitor your cattles' health, yield and feed confidently. Placement by a waterhole gives regular reports on the location of each animal with embedded microchip technology allowing for automatic alert of any missing, stolen or stranded animals not showing up at the waterhole, allowing for search and rescue missions to be targeted on where the animal was last reported.

AUTO WEIGHING. This is a unique tool in performance monitoring of weight, health and feeding. Again, the regular automatic logging and weighing of all animals enables a close monitoring of progress and gives early warning of possible trouble with statistical variances from the norm allowing for prompt remedial action.