With the current foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak spreading across most of South Africa, technology solutions provider Internet of Things Integration (IOTI) has developed a virtual fencing solution that can help farmers implement an affordable, on-farm quarantine solution.

The separation of quarantined farms into “infected and uninfected” areas during FMD outbreaks can be achieved faster and more affordably with geofencing underpinned by Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

IOTI CEO Norman Parkin says on-farm separation of sick or suspected sick animals can be achieved in mere minutes using IOTI’s long-range monitoring solution.

IOTI’s solar and battery-powered Bluetooth Global Positioning System (GPS) solution can detect lower animal movement activity and alert farmers accordingly. The solution uses ear tags to monitor animal movement levels and can alert farmers about which animals have been in close proximity.

The data-emitting tags also ensure animals approaching an area’s limits are soon identified.

Parkin affirms that it is more effective and cheaper to move animals at least a kilometre away once farmers are aware of slower animal movements that can indicate FMD infection, rather than constantly checking and repairing farm boundary fencing to prevent contact between neighbouring herds.

He adds that virtual IoT-based “fencing” can be installed faster than FMD can spread. For local farms that span an average of several kilometres across, the IOTI solution can monitor and manage animals, people and assets and distances of up to 3 km using one gateway. More gateways can be installed to monitor over larger distances or for greater accuracy in areas with mixed elevation.

“IOTI’s solution combines data-emitting physical tags, lightweight sensors and gateways in new ways so that any type of animal, person, equipment, material or event can be identified and tracked, with the transmitted data enabling real-time intervention.

“Battery power, backed up with solar capability, provides peace of mind for uninterrupted monitoring,” Parkin explains.

He further tells Engineering News that location data of a tagged animal is logged into a back-end server for later review or for farmers to see in real time. IOTI also offers a smaller solution that does not have GPS-tracking capability but counts animals and determines proximity within herds.

Farmers ultimately save on labour and fuel costs of manually monitoring and counting animals across big pieces of land. The IOTI technology does continuous updates of information at a fraction of the cost, with lower error rates than human intervention.

By understanding where animals are roaming and which animals are likely to be ill owing to less movement, combined with determining which animals were in proximity, animals can be isolated in a targeted manner for further monitoring or treatment.

This solves the problem of farmers often being unaware of where animals roam and which animals were in contact with each other. The information can also be shared between farmers to analyse regional developments if outbreaks occur.

Parkin says the farmers can install tags themselves and use IOTI’s Web interface for analysing information. IOTI is working on an app-based version that is mobile-friendly for farmers to use.

Meanwhile, IOTI is also working on adding temperature measurement to its tag solution. Owing to animals being in the sun all day, temperature monitoring becomes tricky with the current ear-tag solution.

“We are exploring a solution that is essentially a sensor inserted under the skin that transmits temperature data using Bluetooth, which does not have to be installed by veterinarians. By reading the temperatures of animals continuously, farmers can easily identify animals showing signs of FMD infection.”

This solution should be available in the market within six months, Parkin confirms.

For IOTI, technology is not just about counting and tracking animals but offering a whole ecosystem approach that includes tracking of vehicles, opening and closing of poisons, spill point monitoring and water level monitoring.

“We have a range of solutions for farmers. If you have installed a gateway, all the technology talks to the same gateway. The sensors and tags are all Bluetooth-based, long-range and self-charging – or capable of wireless charging.”

Parkin adds that with many farmers often using drones on farms already, IOTI’s gateway can be attached onto drones to reduce the amount of gateways necessary to transmit information between sensors and tags.