Beyond precision farming: "Smart farming" is coming

The intensive livestock sector is influenced by a progressive market globalization, increasing environmental restrictions and social demands towards more sustainable production systems. Among the most significant consequences is the progressive reduction of the margins between income and outcomes. Companies call for improvement of productivity and efficiency to ensure their survival. In this context, the great challenge is the introduction of technological innovations that both improve the competitiveness and the sustainability. Precision livestock farming is a new paradigm, based on the measurement of the individual variability of the animals and adapts the feed composition to the animal needs. This paper presents the results of precision feeding farm implementation trough a robotic precision feeder system and assess their consequences at farm level. The results shows a substantial increase of key information both at the group level and at the individual level to making accurate and automated decision support in order to increase efficiency, reduce costs and environmental impact of pig meat production.