Livestock Wearables and Electronics

With a decrease in the amount of land available for farm use and an ever-growing concern about resource usage, farmers need to be smart about their livestock management practices if they want to reduce waste and cut overall costs. The Internet of Things (IoT) is making it possible for livestock producers to foster health and gain efficiencies through remote monitoring and data-driven decision making.



TRANSCRIPT

Good morning, everyone. I’d like to welcome everybody to iSelect’s industry overview webinar series. Here at iSelect, we are privileged to live at the forefront of innovation. Seeing emerging problems, solutions, and macro trends at their genesis, well before they make their way into the wider culture and market.

We’ve invited you to this because you are technologists, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, industry experts, early adopter customers or sophisticated investors that are part of the iSelect network. We value your thoughts, questions, comments, and insights into this topic, and would greatly appreciate it if you actively engaged during the presentation.

Feel free to ask questions as I’m as I’m speaking and feel free to interrupt. Thank you in advance, for your attendance and active participation.

One such macro trend that we’re seeing is wearable and electronics on the farm, specifically IoT for livestock animals.

With a decrease in the amount of land available for farming use and an ever growing concern about resource usage, farmers need to be smart about their crop and livestock management if they want to reduce waste and cut overall costs.

The Internet of Things or IoT is making it possible for livestock producers to foster health, and gain efficiencies through remote monitoring and data driven decision making.

A few process comments before we get started. We are not soliciting investment or giving investment advice in any way whatsoever.

This presentation is general industry research based on publicly available information.

And with that, I’m pleased to bring you this presentation on livestock technology.

Before we dive in, a brief overview of what we’re going to cover. We’re going to define what we mean by livestock wearables and we’re gonna talk a little bit about why this is important.

We’re gonna talk about what’s driving this innovation, some global livestock statistics. The growth trajectory of a few buckets that are relevant to this marketplace.

We’re gonna talk about the problems facing the current systems, some opportunities that solve these problems, who the legacy players are, what some examples of emerging companies are, who’s investing, who are some experts that either we know or that we are actively reaching out to. What do the financings look like to date, which companies have already exited, and should we invest?

So as a brief overview of the technology, the Internet of things, I think when Xi Bao, the former premier of China, had a pretty interesting quote when you said Internet plus Internet of things equals wisdom of the earth. And I think here at Axlec, we think that IoT is increasingly relevant for farmers, both at the plant level. And specific to today at the livestock level.

So the figure on the right, I think represents a few of the buckets where wearable and internal electronics for animals are really growing.

The dark blue is where we see relatively mature aspects of this marketplace.

We have ID and tracking.

Tracking animals on the farm is relatively easy and not all that novel, facilitation of safety and security, also in the same boat.

Where it gets interesting, where things are maturing, our behavior monitoring, behavior control, medical, diagnosis, and and finally medical treatment.

So a bit of macro perspective.

As we’ve mentioned before in some other webinars, in related topics, the population is growing. UN estimates that by twenty fifth, the global population will be around nine point three billion.

As we’ve elucidated before, innovations in plant agriculture are growing and occurring very quickly.

We’ve talked about plant breeding techniques, pest management, GMO, crop varieties, the connected farm, etcetera etcetera.

But what we’ve talked about less is these innovations as they pertain to livestock.

I think we also need to focus on increasing animal production, animal efficiencies.

And it’s been a bit in the shadow of all the technologies occurring around around plant technology.

And The reason we need to do that is because livestock is one of the fastest growing agricultural sectors in developing countries. I think that growth drivers there are population growth, urbanization, higher incomes, with those higher incomes with the urbanization.

We see change in diets, specifically increased demand for meat. I read a statistic yesterday that the increase in beef demand in China is going to basically increase by two fold in the next ten years.

So in cities, a billion people enter enter the global consuming class by twenty twenty five. So as I mentioned, demand for me will continue to grow.

So a few livestock statistics and why it matters.

There are currently over twenty billion chickens worldwide.

Over one point four billion cows and over one billion pigs globally. Over twenty five percent of the world’s land is used for grazing livestock They consume thirty percent of the world’s crops, and they use an insane amount of water to produce one kilo of beef they don’t produce an insane amount of water, they consume an insane amount of water.

To produce one kilo of beef, you need about fifteen thousand liters Compared to corn or wheat, you only need about fifteen hundred liters.

So they use a lot of raw resources, and they also spread disease, sixty percent of the infectious diseases we face originate in animals.

As you can see also in this infographic here, their growth over the past forty years or so has been pretty large as well.

Second have increased by three eleven percent fixed by eighty four percent CAS by thirty one percent So what are we seeing as far as market size and scope?

As far as the global livestock monitoring, market goes.

It’s projected to grow eighteen percent CAGR over the next six years, reaching about nine fifty million dollars by twenty twenty two.

Global wearable tech.

This is broadly speaking, it includes human wearable tech, but This trend is not going anywhere anytime soon. It’s projected to grow about ten percent over the next seven years.

And finally, global IoT for livestock management, this is projected to grow about twelve percent over the next three, four years.

And the things that are driving this, I would say, are low sensor costs And then also farmers, growers, meat producers are realizing the significant efficiencies to be gained by by adopting this sort of technology on their form. And ultimately, it it it helps their bottom line.

So some problems needing solutions that I think IoT can help solve.

One of the big ones is illness detecting when animals are sick.

Related to this are stress and acute problems. Are any animals in danger or threatened.

Reading is also big detecting when animals are in heat and when animals will give birth.

Dystopia as it relates to cows is is one of the big problems facing dairy farmers and and cattle farmers in general.

Dystocia is difficult births.

And so when producers have a have a good understanding of when a cow is going to be in birth, They can prevent difficult birds and and thereby save lives on the farm. Location is also big.

As I mentioned, this is not necessarily a new phenomenon on the farm, but where specific animals are at any given time.

And how we can control where animals go and where they feed.

Rumination is also a growing area of importance. When how and where are animals eating.

Finally, time to market and recommendations with all of these endogenous data points Now what? When do we bring the carcass to market?

What should we feed any given animal? How should we feed it? How often recommendations based on these data points will be increasingly relevant.

So solutions and trends, connected sensors and livestock wearables allow farmers to monitor heart rate blood pressure respiratory rate, temperature, digestion, and other vitals.

So these biometrics that can be obtained from IOT wearables allow farmers to to solve the problems I just mentioned.

Data streamed cloud directly from wearables allows farmers to identify and address issues like illness and feeding problems before they significantly impact herd cells.

Again, as I mentioned, a great example is dystocia or difficult births.

When growers know when when animals are given birth, that can afford potential problems. Farmers can also use these solutions to monitor livestock reproductive cycles.

For dairy cows in particular, the the breeding window is only a few hours per month.

So the more precise farmers can get in terms of when cows are in heat, the more successful they’ll be.

And finally, IOT sensors can track animals’ location.

So if if you if you get an alert on your phone from any one of these technologies saying that a pig or a chicken or a cow is sick.

You can know where they are to to help it out as soon as possible.

So who are some legacy players in this market?

Oracle, IBM and Cisco all have platforms that have been designed to be integrated with IoT platforms specifically on the farm.

You may have seen IBM’s recent commercials, they’re they’re really touting the the farm to fork, blockchain element of of of their offerings. And IoT data gathering is going to be increasingly important, and those big players are certainly paying attention.

Mid sized Fujitsu is developing what they call g y u h o, which is a a SaaS based platform, QO.

It’s basically a SaaS based connected cow platform with a view to pinpointing the moment of Estrace.

The goal there, I think some data points they have so far, suggests that they can get a couple since gain per liter on a liter of milk as it pertains to dairy markets using this technology.

Tremble is more of an ERP for livestock, but they’re moving into the early days of IoT.

All Flex is a big animal health company that acquired a company called SER for two fifty million dollars a couple of years ago.

SCR is a dairy farm management tool.

Tellet is a London based global provider of wireless machine machine technology.

They’re getting into IoT on the farm as well. Both for crops and for livestock.

Finally, AFI Mill is an Israeli based herd management solution, principally for dairies.

Founded way back in nineteen seventy seven. So this isn’t a problem that is that new.

A lot of these companies have been working on optimizing farms and livestock operations for decades. But as the technology continues to get cheaper and more prevalent, these companies will continue to be important players.

So a few companies we’ve seen in our research at the seed stage, early stage and later stage.

I want to just talk about a few quantified ag is a company using ear tags for measuring cow biometrics and sending to the cloud.

We’re about to invest in a company called herDOG, which is doing something similar.

Quantified ag, I I think is a less compelling offering because it requires WiFi.

HerDOG does not, which I think is one of its big competitive advantages.

Vince is an interesting company as well.

This is a virtual fencing and animal biometrics company.

So using a wearable for the cow they can direct the cow, where to go on on a piece of land.

So to create a a a virtual fence and and cut down on labor maintenance hardware maintenance maintenance and hardware implementation on the farm.

Basically using an audio signal to tell the cows where and where not to go.

On the form.

Agboost is a cloud based platform, which processes and streamlines data for selective breeding.

Health and market value in nutrition management.

As I mentioned consolidating these data points and combining them into a recommendation for nutrition or for some market based metric, I think we’ll be increasingly important in Agboost is attempting to do that.

So as early stage companies go, Connect Terra is a wearable device for livestock.

Again, requires Internet connection.

They’re principally focused on dairy cows as well.

Masteraline detects somatic cell count of milk to increase food safety at the production level.

Stell apps is a IOT, big data, cloud mobility and data analytics platform to improve supply chain parameters, including milk production, procurement, cold chain, and then finally insurance insurance and farmer payments.

So they’re trying to connect the whole supply chain using IoT on the on the dairy farm.

SwineTech is a wearable device for a mother pig. This is an interesting one. It’s a device that a mother pig wears and detects the squeals of her of her piglets.

When when the piglets has certain audio range, it shocks them other pick to basically get up and stop suffocating the picks. I believe we’ve had a couple of conversations with them, and we’re interested in continuing that dialogue.

As far as the later stage companies go, an interesting one is advanced animal diagnostics This is a rapid animal, specifically cattle diagnostic tool for immediate feedback and diagnostics at the farm level.

Smart Bough is a Austrian real time cow localization.

They were invested in a minority stake by Zotis, which is the leading animal and pet vaccination and medical company in the world.

TASIS is a predictive imaging company.

So using cameras, it it and machine learning, it identifies CASs and based on on their their movements offers to the producer when when they’re sick, other biometrics that get clues as to if they’re in heat or about to get birth.

But this is all not so much wearables as it is camera based machine learning.

And they were invested in by with a minority stake by by cargo.

Who’s increasingly playing in in the livestock market as well.

Finally exited that the big one in this industry is SCR, as I mentioned, they sold to AllFlex for two hundred and fifty million dollars a few years ago. On the investment side, a lot of the companies we’ve seen are at the Accelerator and seed stage.

Many different accelerators are getting in on this startup boot camp, Iowa startup accelerator, Ag Venture Alliance, mass challenge, I think more interesting is the standard VC mix involved in this this industry.

Sevenscher, which is a leading French microbiome investor, recently announced a partnership with out of sale of an industry leader in the animal feed sector.

They just raised a thirty million dollars fund focusing on animal health, feed and nutrition.

So I think that will be an interesting potential partnership for Iceleste. We’ve had a few conversations with him on the microbiome side. But would be interested to get their perspective on the animal outside.

Anyact Ventures and TABard Venture Capital are San Diego and Boston based, respectively.

They are they’ve invested in in The virtual fencing company that I mentioned earlier.

Again, potential other partners drive select Coastal Ventures has invested in in Blue River and granular, so not so much on the animal side, but they’ve they’ve proven that they’re not adverse to investing in farm technologies.

Another similar company or another similar venture firm Quiner ferguson, they’ve invested in Farmers business network and Farmers Edge, again, showing that they’re not afraid of ag tech investments.

And Theresa Horowitz is another they’ve invested in TL Bio Labs, which is a cattle genomics platform.

So relevant experts, we should reach out to or have some contact with already. Academia, the University of Iowa, Iowa is the biggest port of producing state in the country.

They have a renowned agronomy and and farm studies program there, Colorado State University and Fresno State.

These are two universities that heard Doug, one of our portfolio companies.

Partnered with Colorado State, another leading pharmtech academic institution.

Fresno State is right in the the heart of dairy country.

And they are helping her dog currently with with the trials on dairy farms now.

As far as industry experts, Srije Capimini is a manager Managing director of Cargill’s digital insights department.

As I mentioned, Cargill is increasingly playing in the livestock.

Industry. They’ve made a few investments on the aquaculture side, on the dairy side, and they’re looking actively for investments on the pork and officer side as well.

Barry Carpenter, the guy in the Black and White photo is the current president and CEO of North American Meets Institute.

Which is a which is an industry lobbying group that could potentially offer us some some insights into the the trends in the industry at large.

Bill Levin is a CEO of the National Port Court. Again, it could be a potential source of insights for for the way the pork industry is moving. On the investor side, Keith Herrington is a Kansas City based life sciences investor.

He served on our selection committee for HER Doug, knows about animal health and wearables proceed with Rob Schulz is the principal of Sarah Ventures the lead investor on this current round for her dog.

Finally, a few other relatively random examples a guy named Jesse Hough, who also served on the herd dog selection committee. He’s a computational biologist for Pinson Hill.

And he also is getting his PhD in animal genomics with a with a focus on on beef cows.

Other industry examples that we should reach out to, the Maysheaw family farms, they are just across the river in Illinois, one of the largest pork producers in the world given our geographic proximity, I think it stands the reason we should be working with them in some capacity. They are working with a company called Matopto, which is the St.

Louis based company focusing on optimizing the the the pig microbiome.

That we’ve had a few conversations with.

Ellen Evans is in North Carolina based poultry farmer. They’re kind of at the Vanguard of sustainability as pertaining to poultry farming and and technology in in raising poultry.

Another example of institutions we should be actively reaching out to.

So on the recent financings side of things, it’s not a incredibly story industry.

It’s relatively new at least as far as venture backed companies go.

There haven’t been too many exits. The financings have all been relatively early.

As you can see here, this is kind of a snapshot of the publicly available data.

On early stage financings. You can see that the average is not outside of our our sweet spot.

Raising about, you know, two to three million dollars with pre money valuations that are certainly within our our appetite.

As I mentioned earlier, precedent exits are not super common in this space.

On the precision crop side, we’ve had a few flu river technology sold to John Deere for three zero five million dollars granular sold to DuPont, which is granular as a farm management software. Late last year for three hundred million dollars But the big one in the IoT wearables industry has been FCR for two fifty million dollars that sold to AllFlex.

Other examples in this list I think are tangential.

To this industry, they’re IOT devices, not as they pertain to livestock and farming, but but data acquisition IOT plays that have that have exited, you know, in the last few years for for large stumps. The point being that I think IoT as a whole has shown itself to be a viable industry for solid exits. But it it has yet to to to reach the the livestock arena thus far with with the exception of just one.

N s e r. So thoughts and general thesis, should we invest Well, we we we already have to some degree.

HerDOG, as I mentioned, is is coming on the platform, is on the platform.

Currently, they’re raising three million dollars in in a seed round.

Institute for agricultural predictive analytics as a company.

We we spoke to you a few weeks ago. Spin out of FC Stone.

They are using machine learning and cameras to offer health recommendations and ultimately recommendations on on time to market.

SwineTech, as I mentioned, this is the one that alerts, mother pigs, to step off their kids is one we’ve we’ve spoken to in the past few weeks.

Exit is another one we’ve spoken to. This is a technology that allows poultry producers to to know the sex of the egg.

Prior to to production or at least weeks faster than than the industry standard to allow the poultry farmers to to to save money on you know, the the sex of the egg.

So opportunity spaces to consider. Companies tackling, breeding, and nutritional recommendations.

As I mentioned, these data points are are valuable in and of themselves, but would ultimately be be much more valuable if allowed to to to make recommendation either on breeding.

Nutritional recommendations, etcetera.

Williams tracking is also an interesting area. This allows this allows farmers to select  traits to optimize different trades that settle out for for higher efficiencies on the farm.

And again, valuation and forecasting.

Allowing producers to know when they should, you know, put put an animal on the market is ultimately very solid for their bottom line.

So swine and broilers is another area that we should consider. We’ve we’ve seen a few different cattle plays, herd dog being one of them.

We have yet to make a bet or even get close to a bet in swine or poultry. So companies that we I think we should consider ag boost, as I mentioned, is trying to to optimize valuation and forecasting.

Vence is the virtual fencing play that they raise the seed round in think twenty fifteen. So we’re at relatively early stage.

And then finally, feed logic.

This is a feed stocking software that tracks the feed capacity and efficiency of livestock, particularly as it pertains to to poultry.

So these are a few of our thoughts on the market.

I think the idea of chopping on more bugs and eating lab grown meat is obviously, obviously, holds a certain appeal. But at the end of the day, I think optimizing livestock and optimizing the technology that we already have to make livestock rearing and growing more efficient.

Although, West Sexy is is, I think, just as good of a bet from a venture standpoint.

So I’d be happy to entertain any questions anyone has right now and or comments or, you know, your perspectives. What’s sort of like out of the areas in which technology is looking to optimize animal production, animal health, what’s, like, if we’re if we’re looking at livestock specifically, what’s, like, the most pervasive issue that can be addressed by the sort of wearable technology.

It’s that’s currently present in in livestock.

I think her dog is getting at that. I think it’s illness and I think it’s reproductive.

Right now, cows are cows are pretty hard to assess whether they’re sick or not.

And it it can be as simple as getting an accurate biometric read you know, comparing, you know, comparing temperatures of the earlobe to, you know, baseline temperatures of of control groups.

And I think, you know, as as far as reproductive issues go, as I mentioned, The window for reproducing is sometimes six hours on dairy farm.

And that’s still a huge problem on on dairy farms and and and beef farms for that matter.

The miss rates on you know, artificial insemination are up to sixty percent. So getting that nailed down exactly when you know, female cows are are ready for insemination would would save a bunch of money and would and would you know, in the AI cost.

Right.

Right.

Less so custom.

I mean, have you seen some new examples, a new business model? Maybe you take that as an actual effect. So it’s also that you can get cattle pregnant more easily. And the the market for AI product is now thirty percent Because what – wouldn’t you say that the take rate was?

I think it’s forty percent now?

Forty percent So forty percent of the AIs take.

So let’s say you So we’re talking about twenty, thirty percent kind of change if you can increase the of demand.

For AI. Does that then change the artificial insemination business enough that their business model changes?

Do they just change price? Or do they – that’s a good question.

That’s just one example.

Have you seen any other You know, often it’s lined down thigh or also, and now you’ve got all female eggs is are there other major parts of the industry that just go out of business?

Or are there other new business models. We’ve seen any of that yet.

In my research, I didn’t uncover too many alternative business models I think that’s an interesting point.

Most of I mean, most of the the research is just on getting the biometrics down.

Accurately.

And and from there, you know, offering an ROI to the producer, But again, I think that’s a solid point. I think time won’t tell who’s displaced by these business models.

Just you have any signal that IoT helps accelerate the shift in this industry. So for example, the chicken guys that you mentioned that are doing – that are all in an organic premium price or I thought that they were good price and are they using I IoT?

They’re later in organic what sort of the secret sauce to their success?

Does it have component of IoT?

To be honest, I’m not sure. I I haven’t spoken with them yet.

I think I think I do know that they’re they’re very sustainability focused.

But as far as the adoption of of their technology, I can’t answer that.

We spoke with a pharmtech a few weeks back who has an introduction there. He said he knows him well. So hopefully, a conversation with them is imminent.

So in terms of where things like sensors are coming in, It’s savings in labor.

It’s savings in I guess it’s productivity.

Which may be labor.

Is it calling out a sick cows that that the disease doesn’t propagate and we’ve gotten an acreage of that kind of stuff.

I think it’s all the above.

Productivity is the obvious one. The company like Vince, one of their claims is that they save on labor costs.

Because herding cows to the to the pasture that they want them in is labor intensive, and it’s, you know, fence intensive, so if you can do that remotely.

So do they electroshock them or something? Or what do they — It’s a noise.

So if they’re going in the wrong direction, they get a they get a yeah.

Go left and kind of talk. Exactly.

It’s a long move.

So where should we be looking?

Where are the early doctors where are the people that are coming up with the innovations? Where should we be looking?

I think in a few different different places.

As I mentioned, it’s still a relatively early industry from a financing perspective.

The number of companies I saw and accelerators at in this industry was was you know, higher than much higher than than I normally see.

So I think I think getting in on the ground floor of a lot of these companies that are still early is is gonna be important. I think, you know, I think as you have alluded to, really figuring out what these what what some bigger producers are are wanting and what they’re currently doing.

But when Evan’s being a good example, the May Shop is being a good example.

You know, you can do it top up or or or top down or or bottom up.

Exactly. I mean, and it’s huge.

I mean, when you really dig at her dog, it a small change is a big to increase pregnancy, and everybody wants a lot of milk.

All of a sudden, the volumes make it a real number.

And before the moment before, none of us knew that getting CAS’s pregnant is epic.

Thing.

Right?

Or that we need to get cows pregnant to get milk.

Like, a lot of people wouldn’t even know that.

So in that – so we’ve got a world population that wants more protein.

And we have traditional protein coming from beef chickens and pigs.

And nontraditional protein coming from soy and and genetically grown.

A laboratory.

Is there a risk that soy burgers just displace the need for cattle or is the market growing so big that it there’s room for both or And ten years from now, fifteen years from now, when people say now that you shouldn’t be killing cattle and actually we’re getting signal that we would see a drop.

Wow.

I think I think, you know, given our time, Verizon, that’s not that’s not a huge problem. I have a hard time believing that, you know, sub saharan African countries are gonna be adopting live grown meat anytime soon or or be responsive to the idea that they they need to stop producing you know, be stuff producing meat on their own.

I I mean, I think I think the the environmental effects of Meet have been well established.

The social cost, the environmental cost, but that’s not going to stop people in the developing world for meeting me. I think I think the slowdown for down the week, the next ten years is gonna be purely domestic.

I would guess. And and and US, you mean. Yeah.

Or or Western Europe developed countries. Yeah.

And so is this technology cheap enough to be able to jump? I mean, if we take a pack of sandwiches early at the doctor of 3T cellular.

So does does something like her dog or swine pack as its cost profile?

Appropriate for emerging markets to enhance productivity.

Do we achieve do they get to leak So Pakistan had no phone service, had no wireline service.

And rapidly adopted 3G before the US did at a higher cost because it they had no phone service and they wanted a phone service.

And nobody was going to go for wires out. Same as it said for, like, in peso with Mobile Bay in Africa.

Can you? I didn’t have been — infrastructure.

So is there a signal in here that you know, that emerging markets will say, look, the savings is so huge because of Swentech or or dog or one of these technologies that even though the component cost might be a little bit higher, the overall productivity, and allows us to double your output with outputting on what Where is the problem big enough to justify that Okay. I think it’s having completely dependent on on the company.

For example, the the the the pork technology, the camera technology that that tried to optimize time to market, that they were saving the producer, I think, a dollar fifty per fifty.

Per finger per pound per fifty.

Perfect.

Yeah. Come be per pound. Okay.

So any variance in the marketplace wipe can wipe out profitability.

So I think completely depends on on the technology in question.

I think, you know, the massive big macro trends like port Cruisers now are under pressure from this trade war going on with China. You know, as it relates to the company we saw a couple of weeks ago that only has one point five zero dollars savings.

That variance will be wiped out by by the tariff efforts.

So I don’t know if that’s really answering your question, but it seems like seems like it’s completely dependent on technology and and and what they what any given technology claims they can that can do to to to ROI.

Guys, Craig asked a number of questions.

You opened up the mic form.

I will do that right.

Now Craig, you’re unmuted.

I’m happy to read off some of the questions you asked previously.

If if they don’t come immediately to mind, but I just wanted to open the floor to you here. Carry asked that, did you come across summer technologies and pasture map?

Any discussion around Tembero or other mobile apps? I did come across pasture maps.

They’re I forget what they do, to be honest. And it’s for at Tambero and Bob Control, Let’s see here.

Timbero and Bob Control, their financing data was not available.

Probably should have focused more time on them, but but did not.

Another one. Another just an a comment from Craig. There’s an emerging technology on impregnating cattle with fertilized embryos.

They still need to know when the cattle is in heat.

But it dramatically increases fertilization rates and doesn’t make the genetic dependent upon the mother cow.

Interesting. Interesting.

And then on the alternative protein stuff Craig just mentioned. So anything that’s the one that rather than we’re doing AI in an outstanding cow that is you you get better throughput if you do or if you take the egg and inseminate it and then stick it in, I guess, to get a better take rate.

That’ll take great.

But you also the the the genetics are not dependent upon the mother cow.

So I can change the genetics on an entire herd in three years versus it might take fifteen to twenty years to do it in traditional breeding.

So who is the embryo?

So does that suggest that we get into CRISPR and we want modify herds.

I mean, is that, I guess, for modifying herds for some trait that produces more milk or I mean, what what traits are they fiddling with?

Milk and this instance, largely milk production.

But they can do you can do it for beef too.

So does that suggest that embryo people are going to want to team with the IoT people to be able to deliver their product to market.

So if you’ve got – the AI guys have been around for a long time and they go through their process. But some of these come in and saying, hey, we want to do embryos.

Is that a new enough entrant that there’s a new business model available where they will want to partner with HerDOG.

I I I think there’s certainly opportunity there because that the the cost of the embryo production is higher than the cost of, as you might imagine, than the cost of the AI production.

And the, you know, the other thing you can guarantee with an embryo is you already know that determine the determinate sex. So I’m I’m only a person.

I thought I would think I forgot my biology, seem in the design of the sex.

Right. But I’m impregnating the umbrella.

So when I I I yes. With an impreg with a a fertilized embryo.

I know what the sex of the embryo or the fertilized embryo is.

So then I know Well, I mean, you know, I only I’m gonna send I’m only gonna impregnate dairy cows with female embryos.

Hard to be a guy.

Not if you wanna be a beef cattle.

So and they would deliver the embryo pre impregnated frozen and ready to go?

The US company I ran across is doing it in doing it frozen I don’t know about the we got introduced to it by an Indian company. And I don’t know how they’re doing it. Actually, that’s a partnership with an Israeli company.

But when I talked to Melissa about it, she said that that they still have to determine when the cow is in heat. And then they deliver the embryo within, like, two or three days post to cattle being in heat in order to optimize implantation.

So that suggests that there’s a model that some people that modify a herd want to rotate them through.

And then you said this lets them rotate the herd to better six and three years rather than whatever.

Correct. So it completely changes the aperture from a from a if you think about cattle production in third world countries where they haven’t been focused on genetics.

And, you know, I I shouldn’t say they’re broad. But developing countries people who are trying to in improve the productivity of their their livestock production it completely changes the, you know, the time frame for them to, you know, essentially significantly leap forward their productivity.

So now they can do it in years as opposed to decades.

And would that be faster than us exporting more beef to them?

Or more amount.

Again, it again, it goes back to the idea that eventually they’re gonna In the long term, they’re not gonna want us to export beef or milk to them because they don’t want to be dependent upon a foreign country for — Yeah.

So it’s food supply. — they don’t want to be they don’t want to be dependent on our president’s implementing the trade war.

Correct.

That’s really fascinating.

So is there somebody that’s doing that, is there Is there a master ERP system that somebody’s selling that’s helping people understand how to enhance their productivity and what the degree to which they should be using AI or frozen embryos and and modifying their herd to enhance it or is that you know, if you go to Uganda and they’re trying to upgrade the quality of their herds, is that Is that a uganda agricultural ministry project?

Or is that is that a – Moly is being innovative on this farm and coming up with a new approach.

That an entrepreneur.

I think it’s got a combination of both. See, the the in India, the joint venture with the Israeli business in the Indian dairy business that we’ve looked that we’re just started talking to is they are they have a small head of small herd of cattle dairy cattle that they are impregnating with embryos, and then they’ll sell them six months after they’re born to the the babies to to farmers.

And, you know, that farmer all of a sudden went from having a cow that could only produce ten liters of milk to one that can produce thirty liters of milk.

And do we now – do we have a signal yet as the business model better to have a third party produce that cow or whether to produce it on the farm.

So does it make more sense to for me to upgrade my embryos or for me to just buy?

When you’re talking about the developed world, most this time these small hold farmers only have one cattle, one cow. So it’s you know, they’re you’re not that you don’t have factory farms like you do in the US or in some other parts of world.

Yeah.

So companies like what’s the name of the egg guys that makes female eggs?

Exit. Exit.

So in their entry into a market, is there what’s they have barriers on market entry.

Like, could they go to Africa and do female only eggs to help underproducing farmers, enhancer producing and avoid all sort of regulatory overhang of the U. S.

So I can certainly do scale and probably and to do it with with with price willing to pay for this service.

What what what exactly was the the technology? And it uses CRISPR. They’re they’re using CRISPR to essentially at one eggs or an early enough stage to essentially change basically male eggs and female eggs.

At a fairly rarely stage. So you don’t get because they because you end up killing all the male eggs anyway. So it’s like if there’s an animal health issue, and there’s also a a productivity issue.

Let’s say, hey, it gets itself identified.

No. No? No.

I thought the interview I I that’s different than who was the other guys we saw just had some sort of sorting technology, didn’t they? They weren’t actually modifying You’re talking about engender for cattle?

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

In gender engender uses, like like, a light they they use light to separate the two as the x and y chromosomes in this chip this microfluid chip and there’s and once they have them separated, they they do they have mail in one side and pick on the other.

They make the determination what you want.

And and I think what I think about the the adoption in in the, you know, sort of that’s like jumping in one of the like, think about, like, some of some of, like, after that in terms of jumping over a hurdle of technology. I think, while all the investment the China is making in that entire economy.

And if you think about it, especially the China, the largest consumer of meat products, that if you part if you were to partner with a group who was Chinese and looking to to produce on that continent, for consumption in both Africa and in China, there’s an early doctor of technology that’s going to want to optimize quickly possible for the evaluation from the And that’s that’s the way that you guys kind of capital to to adopt these technologies early without some of the hurdles of of sort of the developing nation.

Yeah. Are there any surprise early adopters that you’ve seen?

Surprise early adopters.

I don’t think so.

I mean, what would have surprised – what’s an example of surprise early jobs?

Some farmer in Uganda is dramatically changing the adoption rate and skipping over five steps of of evolution.

Did you what did what did Melissa tell you about her pilot, Australia?

It wasn’t going to town in Australia, which is not necessarily a surprise.

I mean, there’s a huge amount of cattle and such in Australia, but it’s not exactly the market, but a US entrepreneur would immediately take the coats of.

Right.

They should.

But I think she said that she was getting a lot of excitement out of that market.

You know, she all might help.

She’s talking to cattle farmers who sell beef at a substantial premium to regular beef?

You should talk to Nime and Ranch.

So that the economics for them go up dramatically?

So is there like a semi Kobe beef. I mean, as we looked at the rubber market, we found that, yes, the commodity is two dollars a pound, but there’s a premium for increased molecular weight. Is there a medium more prime or, you know, milk that’s slightly better.

Yeah.

I mean, it makes sense in Australia that wagyu beef is big there. We were talking about with Melissa Wagyu is now going to be in McDonald’s in in starting in Australia.

Uh-huh.

And so what is Wahoo?

Is that like between Kobe and regular beef?

Or is that what’s – I’m not sure about the designation But, I mean, it it has to do with that how they were raised, I believe, And is there a particular reason why Yibu is showing up in Australia from McDonald’s?

Or is it showing up everywhere in McDonald’s?

As they move away from they doing it moving away from frozen everywhere or they can launch it in places like Australia first?

I believe they’re moving away from frozen. It was just in the U. S.

And I think Wagyu is just going to be in Australia to start.

So you’re starting to see the parsing of consumer – consumers are one more choice.

And it’s a trend. This is sort of a – Australia has a slight preference to a different kind of beef in that market.

And we start whatever reason it’s cheaper there.

Interestime. Correct?

Any other questions on the phone?

Okay.

And we wrap it up.

Great.

Well, thank you everyone for your time.

A reminder, we do these calls, these webinars every Wednesday, every Wednesday morning about varying topics from healthcare to agriculture.

To resource efficiency.

So, hopefully, we’ll see you next week, and thank you for your time this morning. Thank you, Tom.

Good work.

Appreciate it.


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