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Edmonton50 company Wandering Shepherd partners with Kansas State University to support livestock operations, animal welfare, and global food supply security
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimate that the direct avoidable losses in livestock operations covering health and disease, feed inefficiency, and labor inefficiency, cost approximately $4 billion every year in United States, with a global loss of approximately $50 billion per year.
Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) is a technology-driven approach to managing animals using IoT sensors, automation, AI, and data analytics to continuously monitor health, welfare, production, and environmental conditions. This approach allows operators to monitor and manage individual animals in real-time, moving from proactive herd management to individual animal care. These solutions improve productivity, animal welfare, and sustainability while reducing labor and environmental impact.
Key benefits of PLF include improved animal welfare and health through early detection of illness or injuries before symptoms appear and reducing the need for antibiotics; increased efficiency and profitability and reduced labor costs through automation of routine tasks, such as monitoring, and allowing focus on animals requiring individual attention; and improved environmental sustainability through tracking of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reducing waste through precise, targeted management.
“We are excited about the opportunity to work with Wandering Shepherd and their new sensor technology to improve animal monitoring and overall health. We believe this technology has the potential to help drive data driven decisions that will impact the global food supply into the future and have a positive impact on modern livestock operations,” says Bret Lanz, Commercialization Director of Technology Development Institute at Kansas State University.
“Wandering Shepherd is a Canada-made precision livestock solution tackling one of agriculture’s biggest hidden costs - undetected illness, mortality and inefficiency in grazing herds. Worldwide, billions of ruminant animals (beef, dairy and small ruminants) move across remote landscapes where conventional monitoring is sparse or unreliable. When illness, heat stress or calving problems go unnoticed, producers lose animals, yield and productivity,” says Neil Helfrich, Chief Executive Officer of Wandering Shepherd. “We combine rugged, long-life bolus hardware with satellite IoT connectivity enabling coverage where cellular is unavailable, and proprietary analytics tuned for rumen physiology. Other unique features that we offer, include long battery life, high-fidelity internal temperature sensing, and open integration with farm management systems, making our solution globally deployable from Alberta ranches to pastoral systems abroad. Our tech improves animal welfare, reduces unnecessary antibiotic use through earlier targeted treatment, strengthens food security by reducing production losses, supports equitable access as smaller and remote producers gain tools formerly limited to intensive operations, and contributes to climate-smart farming by reducing waste and improving resource efficiency,” he adds.
About Kansas State University
Kansas State University (K-State) is a research institution, particularly renowned for agriculture, food science, and biosecurity. It hosts over 90 research centers, and is centrally located in a major animal health corridor.
About Wandering Shepherd
Edmonton based Wandering Shepherd has developed an innovative in-animal monitoring system that uses a smart rumen bolus to continuously track livestock health, behavior, and location via satellite IoT networks. Their platform solves a global challenge in livestock management of undetected illness, loss, and inefficiency. The system’s low-cost, long-life bolus and global satellite coverage make it scalable for herds anywhere in the world, from remote ranches to large-scale dairy and beef operations
About Scale Up Canada
Scale Up Canada is a not-for-profit dedicated to connecting Canadian innovators with industry experts and strategic investors. Our mission is to drive the global commercialization of Canadian-made innovations, ensure investor readiness for high-potential startups, and build capacity for community organizations working with Canadian founders. This project was partially funded through Scale Up Canada’s Expert Advisory + Grants program.