Indian startup tackles low productivity at dairy farms

The company helps farmers understand the ovulation cycle of cows with their device, mooOn, which is also known as ‘Fitbit for cows’. Currently, farmers rely on visual signs of cattle and miss the ovulation cycle if it happens during night time.

The wearable device for cows measures the animal’s activity, which helps farmers optimise breeding patterns and provide preventive health care. It also sends alerts to local vets registered with the company, so the cattle can be inseminated on time.

Two components

According to the company, mooON solution has two components namely, mooON device & mooOn app. MooON device is a pedometer for cattle which detects heat and various disorders based on their activities and their resting behaviour, while mooON app is a herd management application which gives recommendations to optimise herd performance. The solutions improve the productivity of cattle and maximizes the herd performance.

Stellapps co-founder and chief executive Ranjith Mukundan said that if the ovulation cycle, which happens every 21 days, is missed, it affects the milk yield by 10 litres per day and if we calculate it for 21 days, it comes to around 210 litres, which is huge for a farmer.

According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report, this year India is projected to consume 69.8 million tons of liquid milk, 3.2 times more than the U.S. and over twice as much as the European Union.

The company said that, currently over 50,000 mooON devices are in use and have recorded an increase of 38% rise in productivity and a fivefold increase in profitability for farmers.

The device straps onto the leg to keep tabs on the cows activity. Currently they charge $1 per cow every month for the device and support services.

Locations in India and Europe

The company, founded in 2011, also provides IoT devices and has deployed it on 20,000 locations across India, where it is monitoring over 6 million litres of milk daily.

The company is looking to monitor 30 million liters of milk by expand its reach to 150,000 locations, including farms, collection centers and chilling facilities, in the next three years.

After serving the Indian market; the company is also looking to expand its reach in Bangladesh. It is in final round of talks with Sri Lanka state-run dairy company Milco for order worth USD $5 million.

It had also opened an office in northern France’s Normandy region from the support of French government program, where it can earn USD $ 35 a month for cloud services, text alerts and other services that fetch only around USD $4 in India, Mukundan said.

The company digitises and optimises milk production, milk procurement & cold chain management through smartmoo platform (Full Stack IoT solution) which helps dairy farmers and cooperatives maximize profits while minimizing effort.

Explaining how it works, the company said that the IoT platform acquires data via sensors that are embedded in milking systems, animal wearables, milk chilling equipment and milk procurement peripherals. The data acquired is transmitted to the big data cloud service delivery platform where the smartmoo applications analyse and crunch the received data before forwarding the analytics & data science outcome to various stakeholders over low-end and smart mobile devices.

In India, cow output is just 1,200 litres per year, compared to 12,000 litres in the US and Europe, Mukundan stressed.