– by C. Morgan-Davies (SRUC)
TechCare and ClearFarm held a joint session at the 74th EAAP annual conference in Lyon (France) in August 2023. The conference was very successful, with over 2200 participants attending the week-long event. Clearfarm and TechCare are both projects funded by H2020 under the same call. Whilst TechCare focus is on small ruminants, ClearFarm is centred around pigs and dairy cows. This joint session was an excellent occasion to showcase both projects, see their advance and discuss similarities and synergies. Our session 39, entitled “TechCare and ClearFarm: pilots on PLF tools for monitoring animal welfare”, was held on the second day of the conference. It was chaired by Claire Morgan-Davies (TechCare coordinator) and Pol Llonch (ClearFarm coordinator). The session was well attended, with more than 80 people joining in. There were 12 presentations, with 5 presentations from TechCare and 6 from ClearFarm, and a joint presentation from both coordinators. All presentations centred around how both projects are integrating welfare indicators with sensors technologies, to improve welfare monitoring. The session stimulated many questions and discussion points from the international audience. There were also a number of posters proposed by both projects, which were well visited. This conference was an excellent opportunity for some of the TechCare members to meet again in person. It also allowed members from both projects to meet and discuss synergies and experiences. All TechCare presentations and posters are available on our website here.
