Solutions being developed at the Vistamilk SFI Research Centre are helping the Irish agri-food sector to meet increasing demands for improved efficiency and reduced emissions. According to centre director Dr Donagh Berry, Vistamilk represents a unique collaboration between research and industry in the agri-food and information communications technology (ICT) space. The centre is co-funded by the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine and the Department of Further and Higher Education Research, Innovation and Science.
“We kicked off in 2018 for our initial six-year term and have now been refunded to 2030,” says Berry. “Our vision is to be an agent of responsible growth in the dairy tech and agri-tech sectors. Our focus is on basic research for the longer term and applied research for the immediate term.”
One area of focus for the centre’s applied research activity is short-term carbon footprint reduction. Berry points out that by 2030 a lot of the tools in use now to reduce emissions will be exhausted and their continued application will not achieve any further gains. “What are we going to do after 2030?” he asks. “Our basic research is looking into that.”
The digitalisation of dairying is an area for applied research activity. “Can we use digital technologies to help dairy farms become more efficient and sustainable? We are looking at sensing systems and advanced data analytics. The people who think farming doesn’t use advanced technology have never seen a modern tractor which can operate autonomously or been in a robotic milking parlour. Farmers have so much data from these things. We want to help them turn that into information to support better decisions.”
The centre takes a systems approach to its research efforts. “You can’t look at things in isolation,” says Berry. “Everything has to be looked at in the round. We take a soil to society view. If you have a perturbation like climate change we look at the upstream and downstream effects of the change.”
The involvement of different institutions and companies in the centre gives it the capability to take that approach. “Teagasc is the lead organisation in the centre, and we have expertise in agri-food but we don’t have the critical mass in sensing systems and data analytics capabilities to address the various problem statements being looked at by Vistamilk. That’s what I call the centre effect. We are bringing together expertise and capability from different universities and research bodies to solve today’s problems and those of the future.”
But it’s not as simple as taking a technology from one area and deploying to another. “Take image sensors, for example. Cow sheds are dirty places so they won’t function properly in them. We have to find different ways to look at what’s going on there. That’s the applied side where we are dealing with fairly simple things.”
Feed additives to reduce methane emissions from cattle are altogether more complex. “Ninety-five per cent of the methane comes out the cow’s mouth,” he points out. “We are exploring the potential of additives and breeding to reduce the carbon footprint of dairy cows. Additives might reduce the methane but does it affect cheese making or does it make the cow sick. And methane is made up of carbon and hydrogen. If the methanogens in the cow’s digestive tract aren’t working what happens to the hydrogen in the cow’s digestive system?”
There is an additive that reduces methane output by 46 per cent for three hours. “But Irish cows live out in the open and are only brought in twice a day,” says Berry. “You can’t feed them all the time the way they do in America or Europe. We have research technology that will release the active ingredient into the rumen over a long period of time. But that needs to be biodegradable. The solution must be capable of entering the food system. That’s where the centre effect comes in. That’s something for 2030 to 2050.”
Half of the gains on methane emissions made over the years have been through genetics, he adds. “We have achieved an impact of 1 per cent a year through breeding. That may sound small but between 2030 and 2050 it would add up to a 20 per cent improvement. That’s very significant.”
Looking to the future he believes this work on emissions will have a fundamental impact on Irish food production at a time when consumers are increasingly demanding healthier and greener products. “Today we can see the calorie content of foods on menus and packaging in shops. In the not-too-distant future we will see the carbon footprint as well and that will inform consumer buying decisions.”