Dairymaster chief on tech: ‘If you could wave a magic wand, what would you do?‘’

According to Dr Edmond Harty, “we are living in the future”. He was speaking at the Nuffield contemporary scholars conference in Cavan on Wednesday.

This is not things that we will see in five or 10 years’ time, it is happening now

“Loads of people talk about technology, but it’s all fictional stuff,” said Harty. “They talk about what’s going to happen. To me, there is stuff happening in agriculture that is a mile ahead of other industries, despite the fact that we might think it’s not. This is not things that we will see in five or 10 years’ time, it is happening now.”

Harty believes that investing in new technologies has to fundamentally improve what you are doing.

“If you had a magic wand, what would you do?” he asked. “What does that change about how you are thinking now?”

Data

A lot of data is collected on farms and is fed back into a number of databases, but the challenge is how we can use that information to optimise efficiency. Harty focuses his business on making improvements for the dairy farmer through data that is fed back into the business from farms. He said he has to add value to the product for the dairy farmer and give him/her back information that he can act on.

“For years, we have been using milk yield as an example to improve genetics,” said Harty. “We can also look at how quickly a cow returns to cycle after calving and share that data. I think that is very compatible with what the farmer wants.”

Tasting insects

Biotechnology now allows us to synthesise milk and other proteins artificially, having the potential to cut out the farmer and manufacturers in the food chain. But Harty’s opinion is that will only happen if the product becomes acceptable to the consumer.

“A year ago, one of the fastest-growing sources of protein was insects,” said Harty, who tried an insect canapé as part of an experiment. “I said sure I’ll try it because I’ll try everything once. I said, mmmm, very crunchy. But really what the problem was what was going on in my head.”

The technological entrepreneur said that synthesised farm produce will not be introduced overnight, because, like insects, it will take a long time for consumers’ mindset to adjust to that.

Read more

Full coverage: Nuffield contemporary scholars conference

Here are the five technologies that will rock Irish agriculture