AI Fights Dairy Disease: Building Agriculture

Computer science and animal science bolster production and prevent economic losses

Researchers at Penn State University, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Delaware recently won a $1 million National Science Foundation grant to study how devices using artificial intelligence (AI) can monitor dairy calves for bovine respiratory disease. 

Their experiments, fusing computer science and animal science, could bolster the production of milk. Bovine respiratory disease, a type of pneumonia, is the leading cause of death for dairy calves after they become accustomed to food other than their mothers’ milk, resulting in economic losses of more than $1 billion a year for the U.S. cattle industry. To detect the disease in dairy calves before they show obvious symptoms and reduce those costly losses, the researchers intend to create a system that uses modern sensing technologies and advanced AI. 

Penn State has more than 85,000 students; the University of Kentucky has about 35,000; and the University of Delaware has about 24,000. All three were designated as land-grant universities in the 19th century and have been building America ever since. 

This is higher education building breakthroughs in modern agriculture.