How many of us floss daily?

How many of us are brushing our pet’s teeth?

We have good intentions. We buy the floss for ourselves but don’t use it regularly. We may even add the doggie dental care kit to our Amazon order, but we have a hard enough time taking care of our own teeth (ahem, unused floss). In fact, according to Packaged Facts, only 20 percent of dog owners and 11 percent of cat owners brush their pet’s teeth at all!

If you’re on the receiving end of doggie affection, you know why this is important. No one likes bad breath, even if the offender is your best fur friend.

Pet maladies: A malodorous cue?

But bad breath is more than just offensive to us; it can be an indication of a more serious health issue.

According to Banfield Pet Hospital’s State of Pet Health Report 2016, 76 percent of dogs and 68 percent of cats are affected by dental disease, which not only impacts the teeth, gums and mouth, but can potentially affect a pet’s heart, liver and kidneys.

Brushing and professional teeth cleaning are key to oral and dental health, but treats, chews and supplements can also play a significant role. Building a pet’s immune defenses with the right nutrition is critical for oral health.

Perfecting your pet’s pearly whites

The form of the pet diet is important. Hard kibble cleans teeth better than wet foods.

Composition is also critical. Nutrition influences tooth, bone and mucosal integrity, oral bacterial composition, resistance to infection and tooth longevity.

A nutritionally adequate diet will prevent any mineral or vitamin deficiencies, but we can do better. By providing our pets with ingredients that support immunity, prebiotics like Bio-Mos® and probiotic bacteria help support gut health and nutrient absorption. Bio-Mos is designed to feed the gastrointestinal tract, promoting beneficial bacteria and building natural defenses.

Feeding organic trace minerals like Bioplex® and Sel-Plex® ensure our pets absorb the minerals in a way that their bodies can fully utilize. Immunity starts in the gut, but it affects a pet’s entire body, including its oral and dental health.

Place that Amazon order for a doggie or kitty dental care kit, but don’t ignore what’s going into the food bowl. Supporting immunity from the inside out through nutrition is a crucial step in keeping breath fresh and preventing dental disease.

Your pets will appreciate it, and the resulting kisses will be a little more pleasant for you, too!

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To listen to our entire conversation with Mary, click on the player.

Luther:                        Mary Shelman is the former director and is currently an advisor to the agribusiness program at Harvard Business School. She is an internationally recognized thought leader on the future of the global agri-food industry. A native of Kentucky, where she still owns a farm, Shelman received her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky and her master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School. Thank you for joining us.

Mary:                          Thank you.

Luther:                        Do millennials really see the supermarket as a daycare center for the elderly?

Mary:                          You know, that’s a great introduction, isn’t it? It really gets people’s attention.

                                    If you stop the millennial walking down the street — and for those who might not know, a millennial is someone born between 1980 and 2000 —that’s not the answer they give to you, but the idea came from my good friend, Aidan Connolly of Alltech. He was running a training program in Lexington with a group of young people from all over the world in their early twenties, and he took them out on this visit to a number of supermarkets here in town. They went to Kroger, and Whole Foods, and I’m sure some others. And he came back and was doing a debrief with them. He said, “Well, what did you think?” “Oh, yeah, those were great. Those were really, really nice.” And then he asked, “Would you shop there?” “Oh, no, we’d never go there.” “Well, why not?” “Well, that’s not the way we would expect to get our food. We’re going to order it online. Somebody is going to bring it to our house, you know.”

                                    So, that led him to the question, “Well, then, there’s no future for supermarkets, right?” And they said, “No, no, we didn’t say that at all.” “Well, what is it then?” “Well, supermarkets are really important because, you know, old people need some place to go, and to get some exercise, and to have some interactions, and be able to get out of the house and move around.”

                                    Aidan just paused and said, “Oh, wow, it’s like a daycare for the elderly.” And that’s where that idea came from. This thing that we’ve been used to all of our lives might not be relevant for this next generation of consumers.

Luther:                        Speaking of consumers, those aged 18–34 are the largest buyers of organics, and they’re the most likely to consider themselves knowledgeable about their food. Is this the newly engaged and empowered food consumer you’re referring to?

Mary:                          Well, they do consider themselves very food aware. They are very interested in cooking and sharing what they eat.

                                    It’s also an incredibly large demographic group. It’s the largest demographic group now in the United States. There are 83 million millennials. There are only 77 million of us baby boomers.

                                    So, when you think about this millennial group, now they’re having families, they’re moving into some portion of their earning power. It’s a very compelling-sized group for the food industry to look at.

                                    However, that’s not the only thing that’s behind this engaged and empowered consumer. I think, overall, the whole country, and perhaps the whole world, is in the midst of this food movement. People want to know more. They care more about their food. They want to know where it comes from. They want to know where it’s produced. And the availability now of information and where they can get that from and how quickly they can get it has really changed their behaviors. I was just looking up the numbers before I came down here to do this with you. There are almost 4 billion internet users in the world now. There are almost 2 billion Facebook users in the world. So, information travels radically (fast).

                                    I was teaching in a program yesterday, and we were having this conversation about this one group that was having a lot of influence, and it sounds like a very rich population, but someone from Honduras was there. He spoke up and said, “No, no, no. In our country (which has very different socio-demographics in terms of economics), people get information very quickly now.” He talked about this idea of engaged eating. So, this consciousness is not just here in this young person group, but that is a group that’s very important because of their purchasing power.

Luther:                        So, we’re talking about millennials and how they’re rejecting the typical grocery store. Can you give us maybe just a summary of why they’re rejecting the grocery store?

Mary:                          I think it’s very simple. It just doesn’t meet their needs, or it doesn’t meet their expectations. I mean, how do they get their food? They order it online. They have it show up to their house. It’s the same way they get their music. It’s the same way you get your taxi now to go to the airport. You call Uber.

                                    They have grown up in a different world, and they don’t understand why they should have to go and wait in line to pay for something, to wade through a store that has aisles and aisles of things that they don’t need.

Luther:                        I think many people view millennials as this enigma, right? “They’re demanding; they’re lazy” are a number of terms. I wonder if that’s your view or more the fact, as you said, the way they grew up is different than the way that you and I grew up. It’s really a generational difference, and the fact is that change is happening faster; it’s just that that change has happened faster than it has in the past.

Mary:                          I think that’s very true. What they have grown up with has been different. Maybe not the way they’ve grown up, but what they’ve grown up with.

                                    The Apple iPhone was introduced in 2007. So, think about how fast that’s changed our behaviors. They’ve just had access to this, a part of this digital economy there.

                                    My son, who is 25, so clearly in this group, is much more vocal in his beliefs, and his friends are as well. But I think what’s interesting is that there are some very good aspects about them. You use the term “kind of lazy,” and I don’t think that’s true at all. I think they just have a different idea about what’s important compared to maybe what you and I grew up with.

                                    Many of them seem to be much more interested in health than other generations. They’re very conscious of their diet and that link between diet and health. They’re much more likely to exercise. So, they’re making food choices based on what they perceive as being healthy, fresh, clean, “free from” these different ingredients. We’d like to go to farmer’s markets where we can see things and engage with farmers.

                                    I think they see food as adventure as well. I grew up in Elizabethtown here in Kentucky and in, basically, a very traditional family. My dad liked beef. So, we’d have beef four or five nights a week and then maybe have a couple of other things. But, you think about the diets now and the diversity that shows up, so one night it’s Chinese, the next night it’s Thai, the next night is sushi. I think these millennials would eat sushi five, six, seven, eight times a week if they could. You know, it’s Italian, it’s Ethiopian, it’s Moroccan. So, that’s just a fundamental change in what they consider as part of their eating habits. They’ve been described as “food thrill seekers.” Maybe you’re at a stage that you can’t travel because of family economics, but you can get some thrill out of your food, and you can share this thrill with your friends.

                                    Seventy percent of this age group takes pictures of their food before they eat it, and many of them put that on Facebook. They share it on Instagram. So, food has become part of their identity, well beyond just fuel for the body and something that’s linked to health. It’s actually part of who they are. And because of that, they want the food they eat to have the values that they have themselves.

                                    They want to be individuals. Think about the craft food movement, the craft beer movement, which was one of the first harbingers of this, how successful that’s been because, hey, if I can have on my iPhone exactly the music that I like, why can’t I have exactly the same kind of curation of food that I like?

                                    The other thing is, they want to buy products that share these values. They believe in the purpose of these companies. So, something like 37 percent of millennials buy products for a cause, so something like Rainforest Alliance. Even if they have to pay more money for that, that’s important to them.

                                    Forty-two percent of this group say that they don’t trust “big food” companies. They feel like those companies, even kind of “big farming” as well, have violated their trust, that they haven’t made good responsible choices, and they push products onto consumers that really have ended up not being good for them. Too much sugar, too much fat, too many unnatural ingredients in there.

Luther:                        So, hitting on that point, it sounds like there are some big implications for the food industry, as you said, that perhaps some of the power is moving to the consumer, where before it was in the producer’s hands.

Mary:                          Right. I’m not sure it’s ever been — So, a producer in the sense of a manufacturer, a big food company.  It’s never been in the farmer’s hands.

Luther:                        I think that’s important to clarify.

Mary:                          Exactly. The big food companies: the Nestlés, the Krafts, the General Mills.                                  

                                    This is creating tremendous uncertainty for them, these changes in the consumers. The models they have used in the past — putting it on product shelves, getting distribution in every store, advertising on mass media, big promotions at the supermarket — they just don’t work anymore in order to drive sales. Those old models are broken, and they’re really struggling to find out what the new models are and what the new products are that satisfy this group.

                                    Just to give you some idea of how serious this is, in the last 10 years, big brands have lost share in 42 out of 54 product categories. Between 2005 and 2015, the top 25 firms have lost $18 billion in market share.

                                    It’s extremely difficult now for these firms to find growth. And so, what they typically do, the first thing they say is, “Oh, you know, our products don’t meet consumer expectations anymore, so let’s reformulate. Let’s take out the sugar. Let’s take out the salt. Let’s make them healthier.” Well, that’s great, but it doesn’t increase sales. It might stop a decline, but it’s not increasing sales.

                                    They say, “Well, let’s introduce our own version of organic, or GMO-free, or gluten-free.” But it’s not getting back to sales growth because when you look underneath, it gets back into this distrust of these companies. And so, that’s forcing them to look at who is being able to grow.

                                    The opportunities that these changes have created are actually for the younger and the smaller companies. These big companies are needing to look to them and say, “Well, I can’t do this myself, I’m going to go out and buy somebody.” So, General Mills bought Annie’s, the maker of all-natural mac and cheese. Perdue bought Niman Ranch. Campbell’s bought Bolthouse Farms just in order to get there.

                                    But think about the disruption that’s being created. Go back in your mind to the yogurt category in 2008. You had products like Trix yogurt and Dannon yogurt, and they were basically all of it. It’s either targeted at women on a diet or kids. The products, honestly, they were disgusting. I just thought they were either too sweet, or they had all these artificial sweeteners and artificial things.

                                    We’ve got this Turkish immigrant who comes in. Hamdi Ulukaya bought this old yogurt plant in upstate New York and introduced this product to the market after spending like two years working on packaging and product quality, but introduced Chobani and basically said, “Hey, we want this product. It’s going to be a great product. It’s going to be great-tasting. It’s going to be this Greek yogurt style. And I don’t want to have it as a special product. I want to make it very accessible to the masses.” So, he was on the protein trend. He was on natural even though it wasn’t organic. It wasn’t non-GMO, but it was natural ingredients. He was riding the social side of it, using social media. He didn’t have any money to advertise. And five years later, that company, Chobani, had $1 billion dollars in sales. In 2012, it was a sponsor of the U.S. Olympic team at the London Olympics. Now, Greek yogurt has gone from nothing to 36 percent of the yogurt category. Walk in the store, it’s almost all Greek yogurt. That category has doubled in size because you’ve got this better product quality there.

Luther:                        Well, I think that fits really well into another news item I saw that Whole Foods has had six straight declining quarters of revenue. In response, they created what they’re calling a 2.0 version: 365 by Whole Foods. They’re actually targeting it at younger, budget-conscious consumers. They claim that it provides easier use, a better grocery experience through a blend of design, technology and experience. Do you think there’s going to be some success out of that? 

Mary:                          I haven’t been in a 365. I’m really anxious to. But, just from what I’ve read about it and what I have read of other people assessing it, I don’t think they have the answer yet. I think they’re just reshaping.

                                    I think getting the size down is good. They can put it in more urban settings.

                                    We have young people now, they want to live back in urban areas again, where they can walk. A lot of them don’t even want cars anymore. So, it’s important that it’s some place that they can get to and shop easily and then get back again.

                                    The format that I think is much more interesting to watch is what Amazon is experimenting with out in Seattle. They started it just after the first of this year, a store called Amazon Go. Basically, it’s a store without lines. The worst thing about going to the grocery store is waiting in line to check out. The way that Amazon Go works is, you walk in, and you scan your phone over a reader. Then, you walk around and you put whatever you want into your basket, and you walk out of the store and go home. They send you a receipt afterward showing everything that you purchased. And there’s also a lot more prepared foods there, which is another aspect of what I think everybody is looking for now. It’s like we need help with thinking about what to eat. So, that’s a more evolved concept of 365.

                                    I think that it’s really hard if you’re an established player in an industry to disrupt yourself. When Whole Foods came in, they came in from outside the industry, brought in something new. What they brought in were all these natural, specialty and organic products. Those have all rolled out into Kroger. You can buy almost the same product quality there, but Kroger wasn’t the one to introduce that to start with. So, I think the format’s like that.

Luther:                        So, what about ClickList? Do you think that’s enough to appease the millennial?

Mary:                          I think it’s definitely a piece of it, online shopping, being able to pick it up. I think that’s helpful, but I think that evolves.

                                    With ClickList, I still have to go to the store to get it. If I click AmazonFresh, it shows up at my house.

Luther:                        I probably should have specified. Kroger ClickList allows you to shop online and then go and pick the groceries up. They’re ready for you.

Mary:                          That’s right. So, you order online and then you make the trip there, and they put it in your car. That’s been successful.

                                    Again, that next evolution of it that’s playing out is where it comes to your house. In this case, it could be Kroger making that delivery, even though I think they’ve chosen not to, but in the Northeast, it’s Stop & Shop, and Peapod is part of a division of Stop & Shop that makes the delivery.

                                    Or is it Amazon? I mean, everybody’s very comfortable now with Amazon. So, do you trust Amazon more to bring you fresh produce than you trust Stop & Shop?

                                    If you look overseas, if you look to the U.K., there’s a supermarket company called Ocado that you buy from online. It shows up at your house. It’s the largest online grocery company. They have no stores at all. So, it’s basically the supermarket without the store. And because of that, they can manage their inventory better because the products make one stop.

                                    Think about fresh foods. They come into the Ocado warehouse. Or you think about fresh foods coming to Kroger. Often they come into the Kroger distribution center. They get split again, and they go out to the different Kroger stores. You go in as a consumer and maybe it’s been sitting there for a few days, but you buy it and take it home. It spends another few days in your refrigerator and then maybe the quality is not so great. With Ocado, it comes into their distribution center. You order it. It immediately comes to your house. So, it’s bypassing that trip to the supermarket plus sitting on that supermarket shelf. So, Ocado says we actually have a higher purchase of fresh products even though here we typically think, “Oh, I’ll never buy a fresh product from an online experience because I can’t see it myself.”

Luther:                        So, continuing the theme of convenience, the millennial doesn’t look at food the same way we do where you go to a grocery store, you buy the parts, you go home and then you have these variable parts that you can assemble via a recipe into X, Y or Z. Are the millennials actually also potentially looking at just skipping that part and going straight to, “I just want a meal sent to me and I’ll choose what meal I want and it’s already assembled, or maybe all the ingredients are there and I just put it all together at that point?”

Mary:                          I think there are a couple of different cuts at that that are very interesting right now.

                                    First, we see the rise of these meal kits that you can order online, and it shows up at your door. And, in many cases, it shows up at your doorstep, and what you’re getting in that box is exactly the amount of ingredients that it takes to prepare the meals. So, if you have a recipe that calls for two stalks of celery, you don’t have to buy the bunch of celery and then have the other six stalks rot in your refrigerator until you throw it away because you have no idea what to do with it.

                                    One in four households in the U.S. have tried meal kits now. There’s like 150 companies operating in this space. Unilever just made a $9 million investment into one of these companies earlier this month. So, they’re getting some serious traction. The retention rate is very high once you try because it turns out the product qualities are good.

                                    You think, “Well, wait a minute, this seems all very expensive to have this come to your house,” but the cost of that meal that they’re sending you is $10–$12. It’s not really that much. Maybe if you have a family of six or eight or 10, that’s too high, but certainly there’s a lot of one- and two-person households out there. So, you get the convenience that it shows up at your house.

                                    You get the fact that you’ve really cut down on food waste, both on the ingredient side, but also you don’t have all these leftovers that then you have to throw away.

                                    The other thing it cuts down on is choice. We always think choice is good. But if you’re pressed for time or if you don’t know how to cook and you’re looking maybe to learn, then you want a recipe already there rather than having to look to a cookbook, right? Everybody says, “Oh, we’re offering all these recipe solutions.” Well, I don’t want to have to look through those recipes and decide. Here, it just shows up, and you’re getting your cooking lesson on top of it. So, I think there’s a lot of interest in that space.

                                    Blue Apron, the biggest player, is now delivering 1 million meals a month. It’s a big number, right? At $10 a meal, it’s about a $1 billion-dollar business. Valuation is probably $2 billion. And they work directly with the farmers. So, an interesting piece of their model is how they decide what recipes to offer. Some of it is based on what consumers want, but some of it is based on what’s available. They can find out from their farmers what’s in season right now and what the prices are at different times of the year. They basically come up with what they’re going to offer based on being able to meet their price points.

Luther:                        Very interesting. So, to bring this back home to supermarkets, how do they meet the expectations? How do they have authenticity, and transparency, and traceability from the producers, holding manufacturers accountable, and at the same time maintaining the convenience at a price point and profitability through all of this?

Mary:                          It’s a huge challenge, isn’t it, especially if you already have a big business model and a big footprint that operates in a certain way. It’s just like death by a thousand cuts.

                                    Think about the impact of, you know, certain categories moving online. So now people buy their diapers online. So now your supermarket is too big because you don’t need to have as big of a diaper stock anymore. Well, you have supermarkets that are too big, but yet you can’t lop off a supermarket because it still means that the supermarkets that you have left are still too big. So, how do you repurpose that space? I think it’s a real challenge.

                                    But, some of the things that I think that really need to be done are — one of them is a mindset shift. We see some of this going on. I think for a number of years, supermarkets really considered themselves as, basically, “Our role is to rent real estate to manufacturers of food products. We just display it. You work on your products and bring it in, and we’ll display it. If it happens to sell, that’s great. And if it doesn’t, we’ll kick you off the shelf. And by the way, you’re going pay us for the right to be on that shelf because we’re taking a risk putting you there because we’ve had to take something else off.” That mind shift has to shift back to, “As a supermarket, my role should be as a gatekeeper to this set of products that my customers really want. And not only am I giving them the products that fit their needs, but I’m also working in that store to create experiences for them,” because this young group now — and many of us, right? — we have too much stuff. So now we’d rather invest in experiences than we would products. So, how do you make food an experience? How do we make sure in that supermarket it is going to have to tell a story of the food product? That’s the important piece of it.

                                    In Milan, a couple of years ago, there was the World Food Expo, and there was a supermarket of the future there. And, basically, you walked around the store and you had augmented reality where every time you looked at a category, you could see visually the product information and where it came from, who grew it, whatever. I don’t think shoppers want to see that every time. To me, I’m not sure that’s the supermarket of the future. I do think people will want the experiences, the authenticity, the stories, the engagement, but at the same time, this convenience piece is really important. So, supermarkets are going to have to be omnichannel. So, you’ve got a store that has some elements of this, but it also has to come to the house. And analytics. Data analytics. You know, being able to really dig in and understand what sells, what doesn’t sell, what price points.

Luther:                        Mary Shelman is former director and is currently an adviser to the agribusiness program at Harvard Business School. Thank you for joining us.

Mary:                          Thank you.

Mary Shelman spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

WHAT: Join Dr. Roger Scaletti, Alltech mineral management program technical support and sales for North America, for a live webinar covering trace minerals, their role in livestock health and performance, and how they can be used to optimize herd health, udder health and reproduction. Scaletti will also discuss how to choose the right mineral and how form can play a substantial role in mineral retention.

Scaletti received his bachelor’s degree in animal science from Pennsylvania State University in 1995 and his Ph.D. in animal science from the University of Kentucky in 2003. He has traveled around the world to discuss mineral nutrition and mastitis.

WHEN: Thursday, Aug. 3, 2017

2:00 p.m. ET

WHERE: Reserve a spot now via this link. If you are unable to attend the live webinar, you can register via the link to receive the recording.

OTHER: Scaletti’s presentation will be followed by a live question-and-answer session.

This is the story of a brave woman, a misunderstood horse and how each brought courage and happiness to the other.

Brave woman

Lisa Murray, executive assistant to Dr. Mark Lyons, global vice president and head of Greater China at Alltech, comes from a long line of horsemen. She grew up in Cincinnati because that’s where her parents could find work. But the family's hearts were in their Eastern Kentucky hometown of Berea, where her uncle John Murray had a farm.

“When I was 13, they thought I was old enough to handle myself and not be in the way, so I was allowed to go stay with him,” said Lisa. “And he was the man in my life that I looked up to — my dad’s oldest brother out of a family of 12.”

Lisa’s formative years were devoted to riding in field trials and competing in the show horse industry.

She could not have known in those days that she was on a path to a friendship that would endure through the brightest and the darkest moments of her life.

The stars began aligning in 2001 when friends in Michigan had bred a foal, hoping for a winner in breed show performance classes, only to be informed by their trainer that the horse just didn’t have what it takes. Upon hearing this, Dr. Harv and Brenda Carlon thought of Lisa and her daughter.

“Brenda approached me and said, ‘Hey, would you like him for Jeren? Maybe he could be a good 4-H project,’” Lisa recalled.

Weeks later, the double-registered Tennessee Walking and Spotted Saddle Horse Repeat the Beat, aka “Pete,” was on his way south to Lisa, who then lived in the Franklin/Murfreesboro area of Tennessee.

It was a difficult transition for Pete. Lisa had trail riding in mind. He had trouble fitting in.

“He was kind of goofy,” she said. “He had only been in a show barn. He had never had any real-world experience out on a trail. So, his nickname was ‘Unpredictable Pete.’”

A misunderstood horse

It turned out, however, that instead of being a goofy hothead, Pete simply had been misunderstood, and there seemed to be no way to tell the humans in his life.

The breakthrough came as he was turning 4, Lisa recalled. Friends visiting from Germany had taken Pete on a trail ride while she stayed behind to tend to chores. When they returned, they excitedly reported, “Wow! Pete can jump!”

Pete was the first Tennessee Walking Horse ever invited to give a demonstration at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, pictured here with rider, Victoria Gomez.

Lisa was sure they must be talking about her gray Arabian, a former jumper. She thought to herself, “Pete doesn’t know how to jump. He’s a Tennessee Walking Horse. Gaited horses don’t typically jump.”

“I walked outside with them, and they had my whole field set up with jumps,” she said. “They said, ‘He jumps so nice!’”

Until the visitors from Germany pointed it out, no one would have even tried to jump him, she said.

By her own admission, Lisa knew nothing about jumpers. But after consulting other women who knew the ropes, she started taking Pete out to events all around the middle Tennessee region.

“Initially, people would just stand and stare because when you see Pete next to a regular horse, first of all, he’s kind of small — he’s only 15 hands — but he’s this lit-up color that they’re not used to seeing,” she explained.

Pete’s coat resembles that of a blue heeler dog: a roan body with a tail and mane of black and silver and some spots on his belly. He’s officially registered as a Black Roan Sabino.

“But when you see him jump, that is the happiest horse on the planet,” Lisa said. “He’s very ‘ears forward,’ and everybody comments that he has this ‘tail flip’ as he lands from a jump. It’s obvious that he’s so happy.”

Still, she wondered: “Why is this horse doing this? Why does he like it? How is he doing it?”

Then she recognized that Pete’s body confirmation is such that he is actually built to jump. So, she started calling around to barns, asking for help, and nobody wanted to talk to her because Pete is a Tennessee Walking Horse, a breed that has been under a cloud of controversy over the practice by some in the industry of soring and the use of chains and pads to produce a distinctive show-ring gait.

Pete had not been subjected to the practices, but as a registered Tennessee Walking Horse, he had been tarred with the same brush. And perhaps, as Lisa would later discover, deep down in his DNA was a sensitivity for those who have been abused.

Lisa did eventually find a willing trainer. And, in 2004, the Carlons, thrilled to learn of his new career as a jumper, gifted Pete to her.

She built a team to compete with Pete. It became a collaboration among a group of young riders, and eventually Pete won competition after competition.

But not at first.

Lost in the translation

Anyone who shares space with an animal — a dog or cat, for example — knows that over time you find a way to communicate: a “lexicon.” Lisa and Pete developed theirs.

“He has great respect for me,” she explained. “There are things that he’ll do for me that he won’t do for anyone else. We’re in synch.”

This became crystal clear one day when Pete was taken to his first horse show and entered in the novice jumper class.

“And he wouldn’t jump anything. He stopped at every jump and just stood there,” Lisa recalled with horror.

The rider said, “I’m so sorry, I don’t understand. I’m talking to him, and every jump, he’s just: nope.”

Lisa, wracking her brain for an explanation, asked, “What are you saying to him when you’re approaching the jump?”

The rider said, “I’m just saying, ‘Easy, Pete, easy.’”

It turned out that when trail riding, as Lisa and Pete approach a creek crossing or any obstacle, she always says to him, “Easy, Pete.”

“He knows that every time he hears the word ‘easy,’ it means stop, assess the situation and then walk over it,” she said.

The trainer returned Pete to the ring.

“He went double-clear (no time or jumping penalties),” said Lisa. “He was brilliant.”

Pete, and his rider Ashley Jones, under the training of Dauntless Performance Horses and Chelsea Kolman, in Ocala, Florida, Spring 2017. Photo credit: Darlene Wohlart.

Winner, icon and all around nice guy

Pete’s been a winner. But now, as he retires at 18, he’s also an icon.

In July, he became the official 2017 Breyer Horse model, a limited edition of his plastic likeness selling out at BreyerFest 2017, now in its 28th year at the Kentucky Horse Park.

Pete and some of his former riders were on hand for the event, which drew an estimated crowd of 20,000, many children among them. And Pete likes kids.

“He stood at that gate with his ears completely up, and when a child would come, he would lower himself to the level of the child,” said Lisa.

Lisa attributes Pete’s fitness and good looks at age 18 to his customized diet of Alltech-owned McCauley's. feed and the company’s vitamin and mineral supplement, Trinergy®.

“Pete needs a specific diet, and they answered all of my questions and came up with a fantastic plan for me,” she said.

You’ve got a friend

To fully understand the very special bond between Lisa and Pete, you have to dig a little deeper.

Lisa’s first marriage to a horse trainer in 1985 was at the tender age of 19. They had a daughter, Jeren. The marriage, like many that begin at such an early age, ended in divorce in 1994.

In the following years, Lisa devoted her energies to her daughter’s riding career, and, in 2003, Jeren, riding her own horse Ali Ali, won her first world championship. She went on to repeat the feat in 2004 and 2005.

Jeren Guthrie McCluskey with three-time world champion Ali Ali. Photo Credit: Jack Greene

Many years passed before Lisa would again feel comfortable about the commitment of marriage. The day came in 2007 when she married the Nashville-based Dutch sport horse trainer Arnold Warmels.

In 2010, the decision was made to relocate Warmels’ training center, Fryslân Valley Sport Horses, to Lexington.

They had been attracted to the Horse Capital of the World at a time when the city was buzzing with energy. For the first time in its history, the FEI World Equestrian Games, eight world championships in equestrian sport, were being hosted by the United States. And the events were to be held at the Kentucky Horse Park.

It was through the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games™ 2010 that Lisa became acquainted with the title sponsor, Alltech, and learned that the company was in search of an executive assistant to president and founder Dr. Pearse Lyons’ son, Mark.

She was hired. Her first day on the job was Jan. 3, 2011.

And within the year, Lisa’s life was suddenly and horrifically upended when abuse no one knew she had been enduring at home escalated into violence.

It’s a story that she wants told in the hope that it will inspire other battered women to persevere and help drive changes and improvements in domestic violence law and support programming.

What happened to Lisa on the night of Sept. 21, 2011, is summarized in the book “Violence Against Women in Kentucky: A History of U.S. and State Legislative Reform” by Carol E. Jordan, executive director of the University of Kentucky Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women.

When Lisa Murray first met him (Warmels), he was like no man she had ever known. He was European and spoke five languages. He was attentive and thoughtful — always doing little things to impress her. His family was accomplished, creative and professional, and when she was with them she felt like she was part of something important.

What she didn’t know about him seemed mysterious and attractive.

Three years after they met, they married, and subtle signs began to emerge — so subtle that she recognizes them only in hindsight: his strange behavior when they were with a group of people, his criticisms and rude statements, his tendency to put her down in front of others, his withdrawal of intimacy. Most disturbing was his lack of empathy. When she was thrown from a horse and hospitalized, he showed no concern. When his friend died in an automobile accident, he seemed not to care.

Over time, his verbal abuse grew. He screamed at Lisa, accused her of stealing his belongings and ruining his life. He broke glass objects and threw things at her.

One night, in September of 2011, his verbal and emotional assaults peaked, and Lisa had finally had enough. She turned around and, with all the confidence she could muster, told him never to say those things to her again.

She turned to walk away and never heard him coming. He grabbed her, threw her down, beat her with his fists, and repeatedly slammed her head against the wooden floor until she lost consciousness. When she awoke, still lying on the floor, she knew she had to flee. She mustered her strength and ran to a nearby gas station, where she collapsed. Police were called, and she was taken to the hospital, confused, frightened and injured.

These days, Lisa feels like she can breathe freely again. But even in the silence she revels in, the fear is there. As she says, “I’m always looking over my shoulder.”

Jordan had gotten to know Lisa and regards her as an extraordinary model for other women who have experienced domestic violence. She emphasizes that the Lisa Murray who was knocked unconscious on that awful September night and the Lisa Murray who is the consummate professional are the same person.

As a testament to the strength of Lisa’s character, she immediately filed for divorce and took her abuser to criminal court, an excruciating ordeal during which she was forced to move three times and totaled her car.

Warmels was convicted and subsequently spent a year in prison in Kentucky, followed by five months in a federal prison.

Since his release, Warmels no longer resides in Kentucky but remains in the U.S.

Lisa has reunited with her daughter, Jeren, who now has two children of her own. They love horses.

Lisa and Pete with grandchildren Madison and Alexis.

After discovering a lack of resources for battered women in Kentucky, Lisa has gone public with her case, appearing on the radio and becoming a member of the Kentucky Survivors Council.

“It's a platform that I've stood strong about,” she said. “I prefer to see myself as a survivor and not a victim.”

She gives enormous credit to Greenhouse17, an intimate partner abuse victims advocacy organization, for helping her through those terrible times.

She is grateful to colleagues at Alltech, including the Lyons family and many of the company’s top executives, for their patience and unwavering support as she navigated troubled waters.

And always there for her has been Pete and his barn companion, Jiltsjke, a big Friesian mare.

“Those two horses are what saw me through that very traumatic, difficult time in my life,” she said. “Every day I could go out to the barn and it was just this smile. He’s silly and goofy. Anybody who’s around him will say, ‘Oh my gosh, you should see what he just did.’ He interacts with people.”

Jiltsjke has since been sold, but Lisa says that Pete “is the one horse that I’ve had in my life that was never for sale. I’ve been offered a lot for Pete, but I will never let him go.”

The brave woman and the misunderstood horse

Pete found happiness by prevailing over a stereotype to reveal his truth: “I’m not a walker, I’m a jumper!”

Repeat the Beat, or Pete as Lisa calls him. Photo Credit: Heidi Rockhold

Lisa Murray has found her own truth in the discovery that as bad as things can get, “there is nothing I can’t do. Nothing I can’t achieve.”

“I have a lot of strong, independent women friends, and those horses bring so much to us,” she said. “There were several times when I could’ve shipped Pete off for awhile and said ‘Hey, take care of him, I’m going through something.’ But if I were to sell Pete, I’d be selling my soul. I’m not going to compromise that.”

The buzz of the beehive is growing silent. A mysterious grim reaper has been killing off large percentages of the insect population responsible for the majority of the food we consume.

Colony Collapse Disorder is the term scientists have coined for the little-understood cause of an approximately 30 percent annual reduction in the number of bees on our planet. The trigger of such “beecide” may be multifactoral, possibly involving pathogens, parasites, pesticides and environment stressors such as climate change and habitat loss.

The potential impact of this perplexing problem could sting much more than the bees’ own memorable pokes. Seventy-five percent of all cultivated crops are unable to produce without pollination!

Morehead State University in Kentucky is already beginning to feel that sting. The university is home to Browning Orchard, a 250-acre farm that produces 23 varieties of apples. The apples are processed by several local cider mills, are used by the University of Kentucky for hard cider research and also serve as the centerpiece of the university’s much-loved Apple Festival held each autumn.

“We use bees to pollinate our trees. For the past three years, we have lost some of the bees — not all of them, but some of them,” said Amy Poston Lentz, then-horticulture supervisor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences at Morehead State University and team advisor to the 2016 Alltech Innovation Competition undergraduate winners.

Each time they experienced bee losses, a new hive needed to be started, driving up their production costs at the orchard.

So they decided to craft a plan B.

The Pollinizer: A drone alternative to real bees

An undergraduate team of Morehead students, representing a collaboration between the school’s agriculture and business programs, designed “The Pollinizer,” a drone attachment capable of mimicking the pollination activities of a real bee.

Not only does The Pollinizer present an alternative should worst fears be realized and more of the bee population is decimated, but the team noted that their drone attachment can increase and improve yield by working in conjunction with the bees.

After winning first place in the undergraduate category of the 2016 Alltech Innovation Competition in Kentucky, the student team — Jordan Bach, Tessa Combs, Adam Lyon and Dalton Shepherd — is still considering their next steps but plan to pursue a patent. The team is being advised by Janet Ratliff, assistant professor of management/entrepreneurship, director of the Center for Economic Education and advisor for the student organization Students in Free Enterprise at Morehead State University.

Most importantly to them, they say, is the impact this project could have on their school’s orchard as well as the surrounding community. Morehead State University is located in eastern Kentucky, a region that has been hit hard economically by the decline of coal. Lentz noted that reclaimed mountain tops in the area are now becoming apple orchards and small farms.

Have a question or comment?

“Winter is coming.” While our winters don’t last as long as those in Westeros of the “Game of Thrones,” preparation is key in readying ourselves for the coming spring.

Once harvest is complete, it is the perfect time to take stock of the previous growing season and look ahead to what the next year will bring. In particular, we have four winter planning suggestions for growers to maximize the potential of their operation in the coming seasons.

Soil testing:

Post-harvest is an important time to get your soil testing done. The testing will create a baseline for spring and help you plan for nutrient applications. It can also allow for more economical alternatives to nutrient applications that are usually administered in the spring. For example, phosphorus and potassium tend to be more economical during the offseason.

“Historically, the least expensive time to buy phosphorus and potassium is late in the year,” said Chuck McKenna, Alltech Crop Science sales manager. “As soon as facilities start filling up with those ingredients, the price goes up.”

McKenna also noted that applying these nutrients in late autumn and winter frees up the grower to potentially only apply nitrogen, if needed, in the spring.

Cover cropping:

The use of cover crops in autumn and winter allows for increased aeration and water-holding capability in the soil. A growing crop will also help support microbes in the soil and allow them to break down organic matter well into the winter and spring. Depending on the blend of cover the grower chooses, it can also target compaction and weed control issues.

Weed control:

An effective weed control program will allow you to plant earlier, as the soils will tend to warm up faster if they are not affected by a weed problem. If there is a problem with breakthrough weeds or weeds that haven’t been seen before, this is a good time to plan for how to manage these challenges.

Review the information from your yield monitor:

Are you finding that there are trouble spots that you are not able to see? Is there an issue with sudden death syndrome that was not noticeable while the crop was growing? Are there areas that are more susceptible to weeds, therefore decreasing yield? Have insects caused a problem with your yields? A bird’s-eye view from the yield monitor, paired with the field record, will give you a broader image of what is going on in the field.

In order to make the most of the time between harvest and planting, gather all the information from the previous year and create a map for the upcoming year, including financial aspects such as ROI and whether or not you plan to use more acres for a particular crop. Sit down with your agronomist and talk about your issues and your plan now, because winter is coming but spring is just around the corner.

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Through the incorporation of new technology, efficiency in crop production has soared; however, so has the demand for more sustainable management practices. Today, there is more scrutiny than ever before from consumers regarding conventional herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, and regulations are tightening.

“Complete replacement of synthetic chemistries is impractical for producers,” said Dr. Steven Borst, Alltech Crop Science compliance manager. “Unfortunately, however, we are running out of silver bullets.”

Borst believes the future of integrated pest management (IPM) programs will include the best tactics from a variety of approaches, including nutritional and natural technologies.

“Used in conjunction with the best conventional approaches, producers can reduce inputs while maintaining crop quality and improving sustainability measures,” he said.

Nutritionals: Giving crops the building blocks to defend themselves

A balanced plant nutritional program is a key component of an effective IPM program.

“If a plant is not healthy from a nutritional standpoint, it will not be able to defend itself against a potential pathogen attack,” said Borst.

Healthy plants can have a better chance of resisting disease pressures, and bioavailable micronutrients can naturally support plants’ inherent defenses.

“If you can trick a plant into thinking it’s going to be attacked, then the plant can develop its own metabolic pathways to fight the disease,” he explained.

However, plants are not naturally proactive.

“They are reactive organisms,” explained Brian Springer, CCA, Alltech Crop Science technical services manager. “They respond to their environments. Something has to trigger a reaction in a plant to be defensive, unlike an immune system that can react on its own. By using biologicals, such as nutritionals and activators, we can elicit a response in the plant.”

The dynamics between plants and their environment, including the complex microbial world in which they live, is being further researched by Alltech Crop Science and others. This week in an article titled “Scientists Hope to Cultivate an Immune System for Crops,” The New York Times reported that it is a dense ecological web to untangle.

Untangling the ecological web calls for a new approach

Efficient crop management is moving to a prescriptive/proactive management of inputs, rather than a reactive approach.

“We’ve been taught to scout fields, find what’s wrong and then fix it,” said Springer. “We’re moving to a new perspective where we can not only act on plant health, but also improve soil health instead of acting on disease.”

Better nutrient management, especially nitrogen, is a key component of this movement and is important to sustainability.

“The definition of soil health is different for every farmer, since every cropping system is different,” added Springer. “It’s important to find out what amounts of nutrients are going to be available during the growing season.”

This includes organic nitrogen in the soil that can be fed through amino acids. To this end, he mentioned that the University of Illinois is now including an analysis of amino acids as part of their soil sampling. The goal is to help reduce the amount of fertilizer applied to fields and hopefully improve the environment by minimizing application of excess nitrogen. An additional benefit of incorporating biologicals is that the nitrogen in the soil is not as volatile and won’t leach like nitrates.

Biofungicides are another tool in the natural crop protection arena. To read more about the use of this microbial technology in conjunction with conventional fungicides, click here.

A total systems approach

Alltech experts agree that a total systems approach will serve crop farmers best in the future.

“We continue to research how and when to use biologicals — whether it’s natural activators, foliar micronutrients, natural inoculants or biofungicides — with conventional methods in cropping systems to help producers with environmental stewardship,” said Borst.

“As any market progresses, we see increasing management of smaller and smaller pieces of the total system,” concluded Springer. “This is the next layer down that we are fine-tuning.”

Dr. Steven Borst was a presenter at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks, including Steven's, from ONE are available by clicking the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with Emmet, click on the player.

Tom:                           Emmet Savage is co-founder of Moocall, one of the 10 finalists in The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program and one of two out of Ireland. He has founded numerous companies in the construction, demolition and fashion sectors. Moocall, however, is quite different from all those. And, under Savage’s leadership, the Moocall team has expanded into 38 countries in 28 months. Thanks for being with us, Emmet.

Emmet:                       Thank you. Nice to be here, Tom.

Tom:                           So, what inspired this technology?

Emmet:                       It all came about when a guy who used to work with me on the demolition side came to me with an idea. He was a farmer’s son, and they lost a heifer and a calf, which was really a huge loss to the family both emotionally and financially. So, he had an idea that there was really something specific in the movement of the cow’s tail when she’s close to giving birth. He had done some really early stage testing on it, and then he brought it to me. I was able to put some seed capital behind it, and we proved the concept really quick. So, it was that original loss that spurred the thought process around how we could solve this problem, and Moocall was born.

Tom:                           Is this “tail switching” something that’s commonly known in the cattle industry?

Emmet:                       It would definitely be commonly known by the farmers that a tail moves in a specific way. No one had actually gone into scientifically looking at what those specific movements were. But, when we started to research the tail movements, we realized very quickly a contraction makes the tail move a specific way. So, our device measures contractions and can then accurately give a farmer an hour’s notice as to when the calf is going to be born.

Tom:                           Your website says, “Enjoy healthier cows and calves, more sleep and increased profits.” What is Moocall, and how does it deliver healthier cows, more profit and, above all, more sleep?

Emmet:                       Sure. Obviously, healthier calves are a direct result of the farmer being there when the birthing process is happening. In a lot of cases in calving, there are problems with getting the calf out, or there could be a leg back. There are all sorts of problems. At that point, if the farmer is there, he can then make a decision to intervene himself or to call the vet. So, in doing that, we’re increasing profits on farms, delivering healthier calves and helping the farmer.

                                       And sleepless nights are something a lot of farmers will understand. They set alarm clocks every few hours to check on their herd. Most times when you’re walking down to check on the herd, there’s nothing happening. So, it’s a wasted trip, and sleep deprivation happens. With Moocall, you have it on the cow’s tail. You go to sleep soundly with the knowledge that Moocall will wake you when you need to be awakened and not unnecessarily.

Tom:                           Could you describe exactly what the device looks like? It slips onto the tail, correct?

Emmet:                       It doesn’t actually slip on. What we have is a ratchet system that you’re going to open up. You wrap it around the cow’s tail. You put the strap back through the ratchet. We put it in what we call “hand tight,” which is basically pushing the strap in, and then you give it two or three clicks of a ratchet, which tightens it onto the tail just enough to hold it in place. It’s like a turtle shell, and it’s actually designed on the concept of a turtle shell because there are no hard edges for the sensor to catch when it’s on a cow’s tail. So, it’s a turtle shell-shaped green sensor that has a little ratchet strap for attachment.

Tom:                           And so, it sends data to a smart device — a cellphone, an iPhone or whatever, right?  

Emmet:                       Yeah. It sends to any phone that can receive a text message. That’s good enough to operate our device.

Tom:                           What if the farm is located in a weak area for cell service?

Emmet:                       Yeah. We’ve pretty much got around that as well. We have a roaming agreement with Vodafone, our connectivity supplier. These big telcos have lots of tier partners around the world. So, for example, in America, AT&T and a lot of other cellphone providers work with Vodafone and allow Vodafone’s internet of things (IoT) service to roam on to their services. So, in most cases, our device will roam on to another network provider because of a deal done higher up the chain with Vodafone themselves.

                                    We’re also sending a very small piece of data. It’s not really like a text message. We gather all the data. We send it to a server in the cloud and that then sends the text message. So, when it’s a smaller piece of data, it’s easier to get out. In nearly all cases, our devices will work even with the lowest cellphone signal.

Tom:                           Electronics are not known to be very moisture-friendly. What if it rains?

Emmet:                       We have a fully watertight product. We conformal coat all our electronics inside the device, and then we have an ingress protection rating on the device as well. So, it’s fully waterproof. It can even be washed in a bucket of water. There are no problems with moisture or rain.

Tom:                           Can more than one of these sensors be used at the same time?

Emmet:                       Oh, absolutely. The unit itself is fully transferrable. We recommend one unit for every 30–40 head of cattle depending on your calving pattern. If you’re calving year-round, it might go as high as one to 60 or 70 cattle. But if you’re compact calving or really tight calving, it might go as low as one to 20. So, what we ask our farmers to do is go out, have a look at what one or two sensors will do for them, and then they make the decision themselves how many they need.

Tom:                           And how about accuracy?

Emmet:                       We’re at 95 percent accuracy across all commercial and pedigree breeds. So, it’s only that 5 percent we miss that are the really easy calvers. So, if you can imagine a really old mature cow putting out a really small heifer calf, her contractions don’t hit the levels that would be required to trigger the device. So, in that case, that’s the 5 percent, and nearly always that calf will be born quite easily without stress, anyway.

Tom:                           Do you consider Moocall technology an industry disruptor, and in what way?

Emmet:                       I think it’s a huge disruptor. When we started to research what was available to farmers in calving detection, there was very little. There were very expensive inserted probes that use a base station. These were generally $4,000–$5,000.

                                    Then there were the old-fashion cameras, which are very expensive and only will work if the cow is facing in the right direction. They’ll never pick up an internal problem in the cow. And, obviously, the alarm clocks we mentioned earlier!

                                       Moocall retails at $299. So, that’s very disruptive against an offering that’s more than 15 times more expensive. And we’re accurate, easy to use. People understand what we’re doing very, very quickly. So, hugely disruptive. The internal probe company that had been operating in Ireland had literally moved out within a year of us launching, and we haven’t seen them since. So, we’re obviously disrupting a little bit!

Tom:                           Do you have other devices under development, ready to roll out?

Emmet:                       We sure do. What I’m really, really excited about is, we have a product going to launch in September. It’s an IoT device again, and it will be in the heat detection and breeding management space. This device will quite simply text you when a certain cow enters her standing heat. That is hugely valuable to any farmer. Once he knows she’s in heat, he can then get his artificial insemination guy or a bull. When the cow doesn’t cycle again three weeks later, we know that she’s pregnant and the exact due date of the calf she’s having. So, all that information will be available.

                                      The sensor is going to auto-populate the breeding management system as well, which is key for all the farmers. You will have a smartphone in your hand with all of your breeding information on it. You will have inputted none of the data. It’s all auto-populated by the sensor. We spoke about disruption a minute ago. This is equally as disruptive. The offering at the moment out there for heat detection again is base station-related and is in the region of $10,000–$15,000 for a system for 50 head of cattle. We’re going to come in one-tenth of that. And, it’s fully mobile.

                                       So now the beef guys have a full solution. Today, they’re using tail paint and very primitive ways of measuring heat. We will give them an option to adopt high-accuracy technology at a very affordable price.

Tom:                           It sounds to me as though there is just a wave of technology entering the agricultural realm. Big changes.

Emmet:                       Huge changes. I see a lot of changes in what I call our area of expertise, IoT, the ability to use the cell phone network to transfer data back to the farmer’s phone so he can act on making informed decisions. I see it in the accelerator that I’m involved in, such as magnetic spraying that reduces drift. You magnetize the water. You break up the particles much smaller. They stick to the plants you’re trying to spray and reduce chemicals and reduce drift.

                                       What you see in the accelerator is probably cutting-edge for what is happening, but there’s so much happening. It’s all about data. It’s all about recurring revenue. And it’s all about making the farmers’ lives easy.

Tom:                           And what about your work do you enjoy most?

Emmet:                       I just love the fact that I’m in a startup. Nothing ever goes as planned. There are so many highs and lows. You’ve got financial concerns and you’ve got staffing concerns. All these problems pop up at a minute’s notice. It’s never, you go in and you think, “Today is going to be clear. I’m going to get loads done.” But it’s that unpredictability of a startup that I love and the challenge of getting over these problems that arise on a daily basis. Keeps you on your toes!

Tom:                           Moocall co-founder Emmet Savage. Thank you so much for joining us.

Emmet Savage spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

Big data is ready for the farm. But is the farm ready for big data?

Agriculture is the least digitized major industry in the United States, according to a recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute.  

Farmers sometimes struggle to see the benefits of new technologies. Some have been burned by investments that they feel did not deliver, making them reluctant to commit and invest again, according to Alltech chief innovation officer Aidan Connolly.

In Connolly’s view, however, agriculture, with its inefficiencies, offers greater opportunity for improvement than any other industry.

And there is recent evidence that the sector is now racing to catch up at a supercharged pace, spurring innovation that is virtually transforming farming.

However, as drones, sensors, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, smartphones and high-speed mobile internet gather and analyze data, growers and producers are struggling to manage the resulting deluge of information.

Eighty-four percent of U.S. farmers who responded to a recent Stratus Ag Research (SAR) survey said they have high-tech equipment that captures reams of data from livestock, planting, harvesting or crop protection operations. Yet only 42 percent of them are actually transferring this information to a field data management software program for further analysis. 

Connolly has observed that technological solutions are sometimes over-engineered, capturing a lot of information that the purchaser doesn’t see as beneficial. He suggests that these technology companies would benefit by narrowing the focuses and applications of their innovations.

“Entrepreneurs are throwing out a lot of information and analysis and hoping some of it will stick, most of which doesn’t, and indeed it ends up distracting from the real value that they provide,” he said

Establishing that value creates an enormous frontier of opportunity.

For technological entrepreneurs like KEENAN, the Irish feed mixer manufacturer and Alltech acquisition, those circumstances invited a response: expansion into farm data analysis.

“We've been involved with the internet of things (IoT) since about 2011,” said Conan Condon, director of KEENAN’s InTouch. “At that stage, there wasn't much connectivity. There were about 12 million connected devices. Today, there are about 6.4 billion connected devices. So you can see the growth that has happened within six years.” 

Today, more than 2,000 livestock operations, ranging in size from tens to thousands of cows, use the InTouch system, a live review and support service that helps producers apply actionable intelligence to their operations, giving them the benefit of KEENAN’s access to data on more than 1.3 million monitored cows.

Data-gathering technology represents a profound departure from “the way it’s always been done.” John Fargher is a fifth-generation Australian livestock producer and the co-founder of AgriWebb, a late-stage startup producing farm and livestock management software.

“I identified the problem on our own family farm, which is a simple one: farmers and ranchers running their business off pencil and paper,” he said. “We can now track all the inputs and all the outputs across that business and then facilitate data-driven decisions.”

Who sees my farm’s data?

2016 saw investments in data-driven agriculture fall 39 percent from 2015, according to the SAR report.

“It plateaued for one reason: the inability of everybody to share data,” said Condon.

“We're very open to sharing data,” he continued. “Always have been and always will be. Too many people are holding onto what they think is their farm data, and the farmer is not benefitting from the sum of all data.”

Some farmers express concerns about the security of their information. How might companies and government officials exploit and profit from their data? Who gets to access it? Who owns it? Does having data somewhere in the cloud leave it vulnerable to attacks and misuse?

All these questions remain largely unanswered, even as the technology pushes ever forward. Yet Connolly believes it is essential that data clients “are willing to trade this level of privacy in return for gaining greater value from what they are using.”

“Certainly, individual farm data is first in importance, especially to make proper variable-rate decisions and to build data on individual fields,” said SAR survey project manager Krista Maclean. “Better long-term decisions, however, may come from incorporating aggregated data into the decision mix.”

Farmers responding to the SAR survey consider data specific to their farm more useful than aggregated data. But, as application of the technology evolves, observers are seeing room for both.

Aggregated data can predict weather, report the condition of soils and crops, and alert to the presence of pests on a sub-regional basis.

“However, if the data is to be truly actionable and valuable, we need to drill down to the farm level,” said Connolly. “There is no reason to dumb down our offering by trying to make it into something that is not specific to the decisions being taken on an acre-by-acre or even an inch-by-inch basis.”

He suggests machine vision technology as an example. The monitoring and analysis of cattle and pig behaviors, especially in large-scale operations, is challenging, but vital. Pig and cattle behavior can provide information about the barn environment, food and water adequacy, health, welfare and production efficiency. Imaging-based inspection and analysis can offer an automated, non-contact, non-stress and cost-effective option.

“It appears to be capable of generating a benefit of up to $300 per cow,” Connolly said. “It is inconceivable that a producer would not consider using this technology if they are competing with a neighbor who has a $300 benefit over them on a per cow basis.” 

Grape growers and winemakers are also gravitating to high-tech solutions, contracting with firms like the drone-based SkySquirrel of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to keep watch over their grapes using a unique disease detection technology.

“Grapevines infected with disease produce lower quality wines and can cost a winery up to $40,000 per hectare in lost profits,” said Emily Ennett, marketing and business development manager of SkySquirrel. “Our disease detection is 100 times more efficient and significantly more accurate and cost-effective than scouts on the ground.”

SkySquirrel also provides triple-calibrated “Vine Vigour” zone maps for fertilizer applications and to improve the aromatics of wines, drive homogeneity and optimize harvest segmentation.

Big data, from seed to salad

A key driver of farming’s embrace of digital technology is the depth of transparency enabled by data collection and analysis.

Increasingly, Connolly said, consumers — millennials, in particular — are demanding this traceability in their food, such as: where and how it was produced; its environmental footprint; and its benefits with respect to the welfare of animals and farm workers.

“With that in mind, I believe that these technologies allow farmers to connect directly with the end user in a manner that can only be good for both sides, giving the consumers more confidence in the food chain and hopefully allowing producers/farmers to capture more of that value for themselves,” said Connolly.

With the arrival on the farm of big data, the work of the 21st century grower or producer is rapidly being fine-tuned like never before. Out with the guesswork and the questions left open to interpretation, in with unassailable hard facts, an entirely new degree of precision and a sense of reassurance that only a decade ago might have been dismissed as wishful thinking.

"I see a lot of changes in our area of expertise, IoT; the ability to use the cell phone network to transfer data back to the farmer’s phone so he can act on making informed decisions,” said Emmet Savage, co-founder of Moocall, a calving sensor that signals a farmer’s smart device when a cow is going into labor.

“There’s so much happening,” he continued. “It’s all about data. It’s all about recurring revenue. And it’s all about making the farmers’ lives easy.”

The silage we prepare this year will be a key ingredient for next year’s feeding programs. This means that a hiccup in silage preparation can lead to a year of poor forage quality, while a year of exceptional weather and silage management can offer a year of quality feed and optimal herd health. What happens now has long-range consequences, whether good or bad.  

Farmers deal with many factors on a daily basis that are out of their control, with silage being one of them. Understanding what aspects of growing, chopping and ensilaging forages we can control can make all the difference between a year of mitigating forage issues and battling marginal milk production and a year of optimum herd health and prosperity.  

Over my years of experience in silage management, I have developed four practical and proven tips for making great silage.

1. Start with quality

This means you need to make the proper seed selections from the very start! The following factors are important when selecting seeds, so be sure to consult with your seed salesman before you make a decision:

• Yield potential
• Digestibility
• Grain content

2. Proper moisture and maturity

Harvesting your crops at the proper moisture and maturity optimizes the benefit for the animals. For corn silage, the proper moisture should be approximately 65–68 percent.

It is important to remember that chop height is also important. For corn silage, the normal chop length should be 6 inches.

You can increase the quality and digestibility of the corn silage by increasing the chop length to 12–16 inches, but it is important to remember that we lose between 7–15 percent of our yield by chopping at that height.

3. Storage and filling of the harvest

With the popularity of high-horsepower, self-propelled choppers and custom operators, we can get a lot done in a very short amount of time when filling our silage piles, but being able to ensure that we get good packing and preservation of our forages is important. If you are using one of these machines, you may need to increase the quantity of tractors or weight used after placing the silage on the pile. Remember: When a tractor is compressing a pile, it can only efficiently compress up to six inches underneath the tractor tire, so layers need to be added in increments of six inches or less.

A lot of times when I am on the farm, I hear, “When the silage starts coming in really fast, we just let it all come in and spend a few hours at the end packing it down with the tractor,” and that is not something I want to hear. If you aren’t spending the time during the gradual filling of the silage pile and instead wait until the end to pack it down with the tractor, you are significantly decreasing the quality of the silage on the top and wasting time.

4. Be patient!

After harvest and when storing your feed, be patient as to when you are going to feed that silage. I understand there are times when we need to feed before we would like to on our forages, but we would like to try to keep the silage covered for at least four to six weeks before we open the pile or bunker to ensure that fermentation is completed and we have stable feed to provide to our herd. If it works for your operation, I would strongly suggest you allow three to four months prior to opening silage piles or bunkers to ensure you have quality feed for your animals. 

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