How precision livestock farming technology is enabling continuous welfare monitoring and what it means for animals, farmers and regulators.
Animal welfare technology represents one of the most promising developments in farm welfare improvement — the capacity to monitor hundreds or thousands of animals continuously, detect welfare-relevant changes in real time and alert stockpersons to individuals requiring intervention represents a qualitative change in what farm welfare management can achieve. Technology cannot replace good animal husbandry or substitute for adequate stockperson numbers — it amplifies the capacity of skilled, motivated people to detect and respond to welfare problems earlier. The most important welfare technology question is not what sensors can detect but whether the welfare signals detected are actually acted upon. Technology that generates data that no one reads or responds to delivers no welfare benefit.