The Technology Demonstrated

As can be seen from the schematic, we use IoT to develop a sensor node which sits on the animals' water trough, and reports the water level and water temperature via the cloud to the farmer's handheld device. This allows the farmer to increase their efficiency in managing the animal water troughs across the entire farm. This greatly reduces wasted time and resources.

Animals are very picky when it comes to their water. If the temperature is wrong, they are not encouraged to drink the water. If this happens, they can quickly get dehydrated and can develop disease such as Impaction Colic. To rectify this can cost the farmer in excess of $10,000 which is not desirable. This can also affect the quality of animal products, such as milk production, where the dairy cows drink copious amounts of water, and where milk is 87% water.

The Municipal Climate Change Action Centre was founded in 2009 as a collaborative initiative of Alberta Municipalities, Rural Municipalities of Alberta and the Government of Alberta. They suggest the formula for GHG emissions is Activity(A) x Emissions Factor(EF) = GHG Emissions. Using the reference below, and the full tank of a Kubota ATV, we get: 32.5545 L x 2307.12 g/L (CO2 + CH4 + N2O) = 75,107.1380 g GHG Emissions. This is for 1 day! With our innovation, we can reduce this to as little as 17,466.7902 g GHG Emissions, for 2 miles of travel, so a reduction of GHG Emissions of 57,640.3478 g/day! This amounts to our innovation reducing GHG Emissions by 77%/day.

Ref: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/output-based-pricing-system/federal-greenhouse-gas-offset-system/emission-factors-reference-values.html#toc101

The estimated fuel economy of an ATV is 7 mpg, with a fuel tank capacity of 8.6 gallons. That means it can travel 60.2 miles. If the travel distance to a trough is 1 mile, it can service at most 30 troughs (2 miles round trip). At the current cost of fuel in BC of $1.68 per liter, then the cost of 60 miles is CAN $57.792/day (or CAN $1618.176/month or CAN $19,418.112 per year, for one ATV). Neve can provide a savings of, if the farmer only needs to check one trough 1 mile away (2 mile round-trip), 97% (it only costs $1.9264/day). Neve's innovation can drop the fuel costs to the farmer to $647.2704/year.

Neve Technologies' innovation, even as a minimum viable product, greatly influences water conservation in the fields. For example, horses require 8-10 gallons of water every day. Current practices require dumping water from the trough and refilling with clean, potable water. That can be as much as 4 gallons of water wasted. Our technology works to keep water at the right temperature and so promote the animal to drink the water, reducing waste. This is especially important today, since the amount of potable water is only 1% worldwide, of all water on the planet. We need to consider this and take action now to promote water conservation. Please view the above video on this topic.