Verifying Lamb Production Claims

The Challenge:

Growing demand from consumers and markets for information about how lamb is produced has put a spotlight on current record keeping systems, which are labour intensive and lack an integrated data-capture system to track the entire lifecycle of animals. As such, claims including low greenhouse gas emissions and antimicrobial free production, along with withholding period verification, needs trusted evidence to meet regulatory requirements and maintain consumer trust. At the same time, producers are using new production systems to increase climate resilience and need information to guide decision-making to maximise returns.

‍The Solution:

This project will build a data-driven ecosystem for lifetime quality assurance and the verification of production claims. The project will be based at the Global Digital Farm and use a supplementation system from biotechnology company ProAgni as a case study for data collection, analysis and sharing. It will collect data on lamb growth, carcass yield and quality, comparing it to an industry standard production pathway to give insight on cost efficiencies, return on investment and methane emissions. The project will also develop a verification system for production claims that is simple to use and easily audited.

Outcomes:

• Data-driven ecosystem to support lifetime quality assurance in lamb production
• A verification system lamb production claims that can be seamlessly integrated into the supply chain.
• Strategies and tools to help sheep producers build drought resilience
• Information about the impact of using supplements on growth rates, feed conversion cost efficiency, and methane emissions of lamb production
• Best-practice guidelines for the confinement feeding of sheep

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For further information contact: projects@foodagility.com