6.4. Discussion: PLF for automatic detection of animal health in cows

This chapter is the result of the joint session hosted by the EAAP (European Federation of Animal Science) and EU-PLF (Precision Livestock Farming) held in Copenhagen 2014. Following the full-length peer-reviewed papers, presented in Chapters 6.1 – 6.3, this chapter brings together ‘questions and answers' debates during this session’s discussions. Unique of this ‘cross-disciplinary’ approach is that animal nutritionists, animal geneticists, animal behaviourists, health and welfare scientists, zoologists, and biologists (i.e. animal-focused scientists), that usually participate in the EAAP meetings, as well as industries, farmers, and PLF engineers raised up further research ideas, contradicting opinions as well as unsolved issues. They concluded that (1) PLF is a management tool that allows farmers to make better decisions based on animal data; (2) it has the potential to support animal feed suppliers, human-food retailers, environment carers, policy makers, and other players along the livestock chain; and (3) that the current challenge for PLF is the integration of the sensors in the majority of the farms and not only to the pioneering farms. This discussion chapter would be interesting to those who are interested in further research (the recorded discussions), companies (ready-to-market applications are described in the papers), extension service and knowledge transfer units, farmers, farm animal protectors activists (sensors for caring farm animals), and all those who ‘touch’ the PLF various fields.