Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is talking with the Vice President of Producer Relations at Enriched Ag, Billy Cook, about how data and insights can improve forage recovery, reduce supplemental feed with optimized grazing, and more.
Cook explains Enriched Ag as an agricultural tech company focusing on pasture and range management, how it impacts soil health, and ultimately, how the management of pasture and range can affect other ecosystem services that will have value in the future.
“We gather data wherever we can find it, whether that is soil data, weather data, or satellite imagery,” Cook said. “Imagery is really our niche. If we can get imagery, we can make an analysis from the imagery. We started with satellite imagery- high-resolution frequent satellite imagery-with these other data sources. We bring all that data together in such a way that we can provide the insights to make grazing management decisions without having to do all of the work.”
Enriched Ag is not just a grazing plan that will sit on the shelf, Cook said, but instead it is a dynamic grazing management tool which empowers producers to understand all parts of the equation such as available grazing days, recovery days, stocking rate and more. By looking at a single page, Cook said producers can confidently make quick decisions daily.
To collect accurate data for every type of operation, Cook said Enriched Ag utilizes imagery. By giving producers a “dash camera” for the vehicle they use to drive around the ranch, Enriched Ag is able to make a detailed analysis of the property based on the images captured.
“We collect images every ten seconds and GPS location every second if you are moving around that ranch,” Cook said. “We can do it as frequently as you want to. We can then, turn that imagery into information and insights through machine learning and artificial intelligence.”
Through this imagery technology used by Enriched Ag, the possibilities are endless. Cook talked about how this technology can calculate the average body condition score of cattle on the property, to the overall cover of eastern red cedar, opening up new horizons for pasture and range management.
“With the computing horsepower we have now, we just bring all that data,” Cook said. “They can crunch all that data, and things that you might not think have any relevance to a specific question or problem can be considered and brought into that model. It has really opened my eyes.”
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