Agriculture is an international industry and Courtney Wallace, a bachelor of agriculture technology student (BAgTech) at Lakeland College, saw that firsthand this summer.
She and her mentor, Dr. Yuri Montanholi, research scientist and instructor at Lakeland, went to the European Federation of Animal Science 2022 conference in Porto, Portugal. Wallace presented findings of a research project she was involved with through her practicum at OneCup AI to the livestock experts in attendance.
“It was an amazing experience,” Wallace says. “I got to go through the whole process of how an actual research project would be laid out and conducted, and then present the findings at the end.”
Through the project, Wallace and other employers at OneCup AI are investigating the use of artificial intelligence in individually identifying dairy heifers and calves.
“Identifying the animals is the basis for everything you need to know,” Wallace explains. “Being able to identify them leads to being able to track her feed intake, reproductive behaviors, and other phenotypes of relevance for the dairy industry. It just gives you the knowledge that this is a specific animal, and this is what’s happening with them.”
The study used four imaging processing models to identify the animals to gauge success levels. They tracked the heifers by their heads, both with and without tags, and by their whole bodies, also with and without tags. They also investigated how many images of each heifer would be necessary for proper identification.
“In the results, the lowest accuracy was 89 per cent and the highest was 98 per cent,” Wallace says. “Sometimes even I have a hard time identifying different animals. The AI system being accurate 98 per cent of the time compared to my 50/50 guess was very impressive.”
OneCup AI is based in Vancouver and has cameras and data sites in various places, including many cameras on Lakeland’s Vermilion campus spotting dairy and beef cattle 24/7.
The conference, the culture, the food
At the conference, Wallace was immersed in agricultural research, spending her time in in-depth conversations with research scientists and learning about their studies.
“The presentations were all amazing. The conference, the culture, the food, it was all great,” she says. “I never thought I would have industry connections to people in Belgium, and now I do.”
Wallace is grateful to OneCup AI, Lakeland and her mentor Montanholi for allowing her this opportunity.
“Mentorship with Yuri has been so important throughout this whole process. I don’t have a scientific background and I’ve never written a paper. I’ve collected data but never followed the whole process through,” Wallace says. “Yuri would meet with me on an almost daily basis to review the presentation. Without him, this practicum placement, this presentation, this project, and my future career probably would not be shaping in such interesting way. I’ve learned a lot from him, definitely.”
Presenting at the conference, working with Montanholi, completing her practicum and part-time position at OneCup AI, and her hands-on experience in the BAgTech program have had a profound impact on Wallace and the way she sees the role of science and technology in agriculture applied to precision livestock farming.
“It’s changed the way I view not only the agriculture industry, but also the requirements we expect from students to be able to handle research projects and technologies,” Wallace explains. “It’s so important that we can bring those research projects and technologies to producers. We can give them more effective tools to make the industry more sustainable.”
Original source can be found here
Alerts Sign-up