Awarded a Silver Award in the Agricultural Innovation of the Year at the British Farming awards 2019, Breeder is a new online livestock tool designed to help beef farmers and processors. By gathering animal information directly from farms and making it available in the cloud (using blockchain technology), beef supplies will be more easily predicted nationwide.
How does Breedr work?
Breedr connects to a farm’s own management system and collects data per animal to create a picture of how quickly each is growing and when it might be ready for sale. When aggregated across entire herds this make it easier for both farmer and processor to manage their cash-flow.
Using Breedr farmers can trade online with national buyers without needing to go to auction. Equally processing buyers can purchase livestock from farmers in advance of their predicted weight and delivery time, confident in the knowledge that the supply chain is able to deliver beef when it is needed, with full traceability.
From a breeding perspective farmers can also compare unique data on animal growth and genetics to look at best breeding lines. This means Breedr really can help reveal the best and worst performing sires for weight and speed of growth, thus maximising farming profits in the mid to long term. Initial trials of Breedr in Northern Ireland saw one farmer increase his profit per animal by £120.
With over £2 million of investment raised at the outset and additional investment since then, Breedr is being being rolled out from an initial 20 farms to 300 farms by the end of 2019.
