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Dairy startup gets NSF program funding, accelerator backing

Dairy startup gets NSF program funding, accelerator backing
By Kathy Hovis
 
A team of students who brainstormed their business idea – a cloud-based monitoring system for dairy cows – during the Digital Agriculture Hackathon in March is moving forward with its startup.
 
Dairy Barn
 
FoodFul, run by a group of recent Cornell graduates, earned a spot in the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, based in New York City, and has secured a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program.
 
FoodFul is piloting its dairy monitoring system, DairyX, at Cornell’s dairy barns and plans to expand with pilot projects at Tompkins County farms this fall, and a launch in early 2020.
 
DairyX uses sensors placed throughout a dairy barn to measure cows’ individual food and water intake, activity level and other behaviors via radio frequency identification tags attached to each cow’s ear. The system collects information on each cow, then sends alerts to farmers by mobile phone or computer.
 
“Farmers have a tough time monitoring the health of each individual cow,” said Joseph Tarnate, MPS ’19, CEO and co-founder. “Any deviation from the herd average could signify a problem.”
 
FoodFul is working at the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator through October, and will use its I-Corps grant this fall to interview dairy farmers in various regions of the U.S. about regional differences in farming practices.
 
Other team members include Xitang Zhao ’18, M.Eng. ’19, FoodFul’s chief technology officer and co-founder; and Han Wang ’22, who joined the team after the spring hackathon.
 

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In this episode of The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, Dr. Jeff Hansen from Elanco shares practical strategies to reduce heat stress in grow-finish pigs. He discusses how rising temperatures affect feed intake, growth, and carcass quality, and explains how nutritional tools, such as Skycis, and environmental adjustments can help maintain performance during high-stress periods.

Listen now on all major platforms! "Technologies that reduce heat or metabolic stress in pigs deliver the greatest value during summer, when growth is challenged and profit potential is highest.

" Meet the guest: Dr. Jeffrey Hansen / jeff-hansen-00b72322 is a Swine Technical Consultant at Elanco Animal Health. He holds a Ph.D. in Swine Nutrition from Kansas State University, along with degrees in Animal Science and Nutrition from Texas A&M University. With a passion for pork fat quality, feed management, and production efficiency, Dr. Hansen brings decades of swine nutrition and technical expertise to the industry.