When you mix a farmer with a PhD in animal science and an interest in technology, you get an ag tech start-up founder.
Maxime Leduc, founder of Mon Système Fourrager, wanted a tool for himself that integrated everything from soil and plants to animals and feed. He recognized that he wasn’t the only one; all producers want a multi-tool.
Any new tech must have all the required features for the operation, otherwise the producer won’t use it.
Except, there wasn’t anything like what he was seeking on the market. So instead, he built it himself.
Mon Système Fourrager is one of 14 ag tech start-ups participating in Cohort 5 of Cultivator by Conexus’s Ag Tech Accelerator program.
Cultivator, a business incubator set up in 2019 by major Saskatchewan credit union Conexus, will host an event at Ag in Motion near Langham, Sask., on July 21-23 to showcase the products of this cohort.
Forage figures
Between his experiences as a sheep and cattle producer and working as a forage specialist at McGill University’s campus dairy, he recognized the challenges faced on the forage side and the need to improve productivity.
“Forage is 20 to 40 per cent of the cost of production,” said Leduc.
“Most of the producers, they don’t know their cost of production. It’s why it (this program) is there. And it’s why also nobody is doing this in forage because it’s difficult to attract the producer.”
The forage aspect of livestock production was the original motivation in creating the program. The main features were to monitor forage inventory and enable integration of forage analysis. It also allows producers to compute methane emissions from feed, and improve profitability.
However, the frequency of use was low.
Herd management feature
A good tool should be used everyday or at least every week, says Leduc.
So, to increase the use, he added an animal management side, which has approximately 200 users.
This aspect is focused on full integration of herd management for any livestock, based on data collection from the farmer. It’s a place for producers to track births, new animals, weights, medical treatments, movements and sales. A single place for all the information makes sharing it with advisers simple. It also makes traceability easy.
Some of the ways of tracking that data have been a challenge, although not on the technical side but with users.
“We need to integrate ourselves in the way the producer collects data,” he said.
“Because right now a lot of producers are still taking notes, but they don’t want to fill a form.”
One idea is to have producers take photos of their handwritten notes and then integrate them into the platform.
“At the end, our goal is either by SMS, by phone, or by WhatsApp, anything you want, the producer can enter the data,” Leduc said.
“Like, ‘I did 50 bales in field number one’, then analyze data, and ask advanced questions.”
Once the data is collected, inventoried and accessible, producers can use the built-in artificial intelligence to ask questions. The AI chat feature is still in demonstration and not fully commercial, but Leduc is working on it.
A built-in AI chat, based on an individual operation’s data, is more specific. Currently, there are many AI systems, but producers don’t want to sit at a desk and sift through all manner of information they spit out.
This will help “eliminate the grey zone” in decision making, as well as keep research and economics of the farm clear and concise, says Leduc.
Asking the right questions
However, part of the importance of data collection comes down to the questions producers want answered.
Producers have many questions, some of which can be answered through an online search or a quick message to an agronomist, but others need specific details from the farm itself.
Mon Système Fourrager can help provide the answers if the user tracks and inputs data consistently.
“We need to start with a question, what they want to solve,” Leduc said.
“Because just putting data for putting data without purpose, it’s a waste of time.”
If a producer wants to improve forage productivity, they have to input the relevant information so the program can provide an accurate answer.
Some of that would include how many cuts of the field, the weather, how many bales and feed analysis.
However, if the question is more about herd management and pastures, inputting this data won’t matter as much to answering the end question.
The system’s ultimate objective is to provide producers with actionable solutions, as well as record keeping, for forage and animals and everything in between.
Leduc has no plans to abandon the forage side of the company — even though it has less users — because forage is important.
“It’s not a fun tool,” he said. “But it’s necessary.”
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