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A professor at the University of Missouri has developed a smartphone app that designed to?help farmers reduce their losses during the hot summer months.?
Don Spiers, a professor in the University of Missouri?s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, has developed a smartphone app that could help farmers reduce their losses during the hot summer months.
Spiers and his team developed the ThermalAid app, which helps animal farmers monitor their beef and dairy cattle. The app can aid them in identifying which animals are in danger because of the heat and how to best intervene.
?Cows are just like the rest of us,? Spiers says in a news release from the University of Missouri. ?They slow down in hot and humid weather.?
Spiers says heat causes cows to eat less, so they gain less weight and produce less milk. He says heat costs the dairy industry $900 million nationally each summer and the beef industry $400 million.
?And that?s data from 2003 when the industry was smaller and summers less intense,? he says in the release.
The app uses GPS to determine the temperature and humidity in the farmer?s area. They input factors like whether the animal is a beef or dairy cow and its health status. Using this information, the app gives the farmer the animal?s Temperature Humidity Index, which shows how the animal is handling the heat.
The app is available for 99 cents in the iTunes app store. Spiers and his team are working to develop a more advanced version of the app and expand it to work on other livestock, like sheep or poultry.
Jessica is the Wichita Business Journal's summer 2013 intern. She's covering the food beat and other stories.
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