Pet dogs are the new must-have accessory at the smarter office.

Pet dogs are the new must-have accessory at the smarter office. Companies are using animal magnetism to reduce stress in the workplace and hang on to staff. Joy is an eight-month-old golden retriever and she goes to the office with her owner, Carol DuPuis. These days, especially at tech companies, you’re as likely to find a dog in the office as you are a pot plant or watercooler. For startups particularly, allowing dogs is an easy, cheap way of attracting and retaining millennials, on top of the free snacks, pinball machines and gym membership. The Google code of conduct states “affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture”. At Amazon, around 2,000 employees have registered their pets at its headquarters in Seattle so they can take them in – reception desks are stocked with biscuits, some water fountains are set at dog height, and there’s an off-leash park – also open to the public – where staff can exercise their pets. continue

Five ways agriculture could benefit from artificial intelligence.

Five ways agriculture could benefit from artificial intelligence. Agriculture is the industry that accompanied the evolution of humanity from pre-historic times to modern days and fulfilled faithfully one of its most basic needs: food supply. 

Today this still remains its core mission, but it’s integrated in a more complex than ever mechanism driven by multiple sociological, economic and environmental forces 

 Digital and technological advancements are taking over the industry, enhancing food production while adding value to the entire farm-to-fork supply chain and helping it make use of natural resources more efficiently. 

   How artificial intelligence is changing agriculture.

 Data generated by sensors or agricultural drones collected at farms, on the field or during transportation offer a wealth of information about soil, seeds, livestock, crops, costs, farm equipment or the use of water and fertilizer. 

 Internet of Things technologies and advanced analytics help farmers analyze real time data like weather, temperature, moisture, prices or GPS signals and provide insights on how to optimize and increase yield, improve farm planning, make smarter decisions about the level of resources needed, when and where to distribute them in order to prevent waste. 

 Efficiency and productivity will increase over the years as precision agriculture grows bigger and farms become smarter and more connected. The growing number of connected devices represents a big opportunity for food and agribusiness players and it also adds more complexity for farmers and organizations. 

 The explosion of unstructured data, like social media posts, imagery or video content drives the need to know more, to receive real time recommendations on close at hand devices, like smartphones or tablets,with all this information there is bound to be an overload thus prompting the need to sort out data intelligently.

 1) Artificial intelligence will help IoT achieve its maximum potential. While digital transformation is disrupting the agricultural world and more data comes to feed the systems. Solutions that apply machine learning abilities to sensor or drone data,thus transforming management systems in real artificial intelligence systems. 

 Cognitive IoT technologies allow many types of correlations of large amount of structured and unstructured data from multiple sources, such as historic weather data, social media posts, research notes, soil information, market place information, images, etc., to extract knowledge and provide organizations with richer insights and recommendations to take action and improve yields.

 2) Chat-bots for farmers Chat-bots are conversational virtual assistants who automate interactions with end users. Artificial intelligence powered chat- bots, using machine learning techniques, understand natural language and interact with users in a personalized way. While it’s still early days and chat-bots are used mostly by retail, travel, media or insurance players, agriculture could also leverage this emerging technology by assisting farmers with answers to their questions, giving advice and recommendations on specific farm problems. 

   

Ways artificial intelligence has potential to improve agriculture.

 Although at the beginning, these ways of using cognitive technologies predict exciting times ahead for agriculture on its road towards efficiency, sustainability and meeting the world’s food needs. 

We’re looking forward to seeing how farmers, agribusinesses and other decision makers on the value chain will harness the power of IoT and artificial intelligence to shape the industry’s future. more

Banking innovation in agriculture.

Technology has superimposed its presence in major areas of the economy forging growth and development within these sectors. 

The banking sector is a big player in this innovation drive with technology as all other sectors engage their services in terms of payments,transfer and business funding. Banks are making their services,fast and easily accessible to customers as many have platforms that enable mobile banking ,where you can open an account,transfer,make payments for amenities and even buy air time. 

The use of bank cards also makes services faster,the use of self service portals is also a plus to the array of services. The connectivity of these platforms to various industries to provide seamless transaction is where banking innovation comes to play. In agriculture,banking innovation help facilitate easy buying and selling of products by farmers. 

The use of e-wallet makes transaction seamless and super-fast . The banking innovation in agriculture is in partnership with telecommunication giants,with a mixed-match platform to serve farmers through SMS, video, apps e.t.c. 

 The banking innovation is taking root fast and various banks are thinking on how to leverage the age of digital disruption in order to create personalized banking platforms, form effective fintech partnerships and diversify the banks’ digital offerings to improve customer satisfaction , increase retention rates and how to remain competitive in a crowded marketplace. In this digital age how is your bank innovating? 

China partners with Uganda on agribusiness investment.

China partners with Uganda on agribusiness investment. Chinese technicians ,50 kilometers north of the capital Kampala continue to set up the first agricultural industrial park in the East African country of Uganda. In different parts of the country, Chinese experts advise local farmers on how best to make agriculture a lucrative business. In the capital, Chinese enterprises at a one day China-Uganda business forum are networking to devise ways of setting up more businesses in the country. Among the key discussions in the meeting attended by top Ugandan government officials and Chinese enterprises is the agriculture sector, the mainstay of the economy. Agriculture is Uganda's main economic activity with over 70 percent of the country's population deriving its livelihood from the sector. In different parts of the country, Chinese experts advise local farmers on how best to make agriculture a lucrative business. Uganda is projecting based on the experiences back home, that the Chinese enterprises could set up businesses to boost growth in the sector as some Chinese business people have set up shop. The locals are farming Chinese hybrid rice and fox-tail millet both on a small and large scale basis. According to experts, the yield of Chinese hybrid rice is three times more than the local breed from one hectare of land. Similarly, the yield of fox-tail millet is two times more than the local breed, finger millet in the same acreage. continue

How to mitigate dust and ammonia in cage-free houses.

Cage-free housing is the new trend of raising poultry according to animal welfare experts,the birds need to be free to roam and stretch for your production to be considered humane. The problem however with this humane method is the amount of dust generated resulting in poor air quality in the house which posses a health challenge to flock and workers. Dr. Hongwei Xin, director of the Egg Industry Center, spoke about the results of research surrounding devices and methods designed to mitigate airborne pollution inside cage-free layer houses and emissions coming from them. The egg industry shift from conventional cages and enriched cages to cage-free operations,means more bird activity inside the house leading to increased airborne pollutants like dust and ammonia. Birds are moving around in litter areas – scratching, foraging and dustbathing – as well as flapping around the house stirring up dust. The hen’s freedom to move, and evacuate waste, wherever she pleases is another challenge. This means the manure belts in houses are no longer as effective as they once were in collecting and drying waste to simplify disposal and reduce ammonia emissions. Reducing ammonia through feeding and management, according to research the following were deduced with implementation yielding positive results. 1) Reducing dietary protein: By reducing dietary proteins by about one percent and maintaining nutritional balance in the feed, farmers can reduce ammonia emissions by about 10 percent. Dietary fibers reduce the pH value of manure, meaning less ammonia is mobilized from the manure. 2) Adding dietary fibers: Adding fiber, like wheat middling and soy hull, can reduce emissions from layer manure between 40 and 45 percent. 3) Adding supplements: DDGS, or distiller’s dried grains with solubles, and EcoCal, a proprietary feed additive designed to control ammonia emissions, can work as well. A study with a 10 percent DDGS feed mixture dropped ammonia emissions by 14 percent and a 7 percent EcoCal mixture reduced ammonia by 39 percent. Beyond feeding, drying manure on the belts is important to reduce the level of ammonia in the air. This can be done with air circulating over the belts, but that comes at the cost using the exhaust air to dry manure may be a cheaper way to provide the needed airflow. 4) litter moisture must be kept in check as well to keep ammonia levels down. This is a potential double-edged sword, however, because drier litter creates more dust.The wet litter gives off ammonia and cakes, creating numerous health issues for the birds. Ideally, the litter moisture content should be below 20 or 30 percent to keep ammonia levels in check. A scraper can be used to keep litter from getting too deep – and becoming an invitation for floor eggs. Consistent airflow in the house is essential to keeping litter dry.

Mycotoxin threats rising worldwide.

The threat of mycotoxins are rising worldwide according to a survey recently conducted by Biomin. Corn, soy and finished feed saw a rise in mycotoxin contamination levels in the first quarter of 2017, with deoxynivalenol (DON) the most prevalent mycotoxin, according to Biomin’s Mycotoxin Survey. Mycotoxin contamination levels have risen in Europe and throughout the western hemisphere, with elevated risk levels also in Asia. Then DON,then the fumonisins (FUM) are the most prevalent mycotoxin worldwide, the survey showed, with DON detected in 80 percent of samples and FUM in 71 percent. The survey also found that 76 percent of feed and raw commodity samples contained two or more mycotoxins. Multiple mycotoxin contamination of feed presents additional problems, as certain combinations of mycotoxins are known to have synergistic effects that aggravate the negative consequences for animals. The main fusarium mycotoxins are frequently related to subclinical symptoms which are not so obvious but usually have a greater economic impact for the industry. The Symptoms of DON contamination in animals include reduced feed intake and feed refusal. According to Biomin, research has shown the combination of DON and FUM in animal feed severely impair vaccine response and gut health.

Dogs help to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) .

Dogs can help to treat PTSD. Service dogs are amazing animals that help individuals suffering from visual, hearing or other losses to live more independently. However, less mention is made about those that are trained to help with mental disorders. Canine-loving nurse Elaine Smith began using therapy dogs in the 1970s, after she found that introducing them to individuals suffering from a physical illness or mental disorder reduced patients’ blood pressure, and they reported feeling happier and calmer for the experience. Recently, professionals working with war veterans returning from combat duty have similarly found that matching them with a therapy dog or, better yet, reuniting them with their combat dog if they had one – is remarkably effective in alleviating the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a psychological condition that may arise from exposure to serious injury and/or from witnessing a traumatic event. more