The UAB hosts the first ClearFarm meeting

11/11/2019

The entities participating in the ClearFarm project met at the UAB, on 11 and 12 November, to celebrate the project's kickoff meeting, an initiative funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 programme, which aims to design a sensor-based platform capable of informing on the welfare of farm animals.

The meeting included the official inauguration with speeches by Xavier Manteca, researcher at the Department of Animal and Food Science, UAB, and project coordinator, and Valeria Mariano from the European Commission. During these two days, attendants debated on which strategies to apply to make the project a success and the tasks needed to be developed in the coming months.

Animal welfare has become a fundamental aspect of animal husbandry, but conducting continuous evaluations has proven to be a true challenge. The objective of ClearFarm is to foster innovation and make full use of the new technological possibilities to foster better animal welfare in every step of the production process and thus contribute to a sustainable production of pigs and cattle, the two largest animal production systems in Europe.

ClearFarm uses existing market sensors to control a wide range of variables related to the behaviour of animals, their physical and mental health, and environmental and productive impacts. These data will be gathered by a connected platform which through an algorithm will provide easy-to-understand information on the welfare of the animals, adapted to each target audience. It will thus help producers optimise the production process and consumers have more information on the origins of these animal products.