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Cameras: another option for pork producers’ technology tool kits

Cameras are all around us. Phones, iPads, computers, Ring doorbells, all have become a part of our everyday lives and it’s difficult to imagine life without them. One Iowa State University faculty member is looking at how cameras in hog barns can help producers recognize sickness and behavior changes.

Joshua Peschel, associate professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering, is conducting research on cyber-agricultural systems that could assist farmers. He said consistent, reliable, accurate, and cost-effective health and behavior understanding of pigs is one of the biggest challenges faced by the swine industry today.

“My research emerges from the critical need for new and innovative tools that expand precision livestock farming for production-scale swine operations,” he said. “My students and I create new technologies, data sets, and computational models for sensing and sensemaking. In other words, we come up with new data sets, using only video, to better manage pigs.”

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2026 T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science - Dan Weary

Video: 2026 T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science - Dan Weary

T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science: "Using science to assess and improve the welfare of dairy cattle"

Dan Weary is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dan did his BSc and MSc at McGill and Doctorate at Oxford before co-founding UBC’s Animal Welfare Program where he now co-directs this active research group. His research focuses on understanding the perspectives of animals and applying these insights to develop methods of assessing animal welfare and improving the lives of animals. His work has helped drive changes in practices (including the adoption of higher milk rations for calves and pain management for disbudding) and housing methods (including the adoption of social housing for pre-weaned calves). He also studies cow comfort and lameness, social interactions among cows, and interactions between cows, human handlers and technologies like automated millking systems that are increasingly used on farms. His presentation will outline key questions in cattle welfare, highlight recent UBC research addressing them, and showcase innovative methods for improving the lives of cattle and their caretakers.