A NSW Southern Tablelands sheep and beef producer and her methane and pregnancy testing breathalyser have won Beef Australia's $10,000 Pitch in the Paddock.
Dr Bronwyn Darlington's Agscent Breath diagnostic tool for cows is also being developed to diagnose typical livestock diseases.
Using NASA-developed "digital nose" technology the Agscent kit can identify pregnancy within 18 days of insemination after a 10 second breath test.
The device's preg testing results are 92.5 per cent accurate.
"It's a hell of a lot easier than using ultrasound," Dr Darlington told a big "Pitch" audience, paraphrasing the manager of the 30,000-cow US ranch company, North West Beef, after a recent demonstration.
Dr Darlington is also a part time lecturer in consumer behavior and technology's use in business at the University of Sydney.
She was one of eight finalists to present their technology ideas to a panel of five judges as part of the EvokeAg competition.
The competition, initiated in 2018 aims to be a platform to showcase groundbreaking ideas and inventions which can help lift ag sector productivity and improve life in the wider community.
This year's pitch also featured the smart people behind inventions and startup businesses such as drone mustering, a meat protein powder and simple portable stock yard visual barriers to improve sheep and cattle flow in pens and races.
Dr Darlington, a behavioural economist and psychologist, who admitted she was an avid reader and follower of artificial intelligence and robotic technology, is part of a family breeding and grazing operation over four properties in the Yass and Bungendore districts.
Her decision to investigate using breath to detect specific cattle health traits was helped when she realised NASA's space program had developed electronic nose technology which could provide provide a fast, easy and relatively inexpensive way to analyse gas or breath samples from animals.
This year's pitch finalists were Dr Phillip Zada, with livestock facial recognition platform, Stoktake; grazier Luke Chaplain with his drone mustering system, SkyKelpie; Rob Kelly and his Agora Livestock digital stockbook for cattle buyers; Marie Ellul, from ART Lab Solutions, which can detect a foetal heart rate at 30 days of livestock pregnancy; Bovotica chief executive officer Andrew Leech and his probiotic drench to turn cattle methane into fatty acids for weight gain; Beau Skerrett and his portable plastic panel to improve stock movements in yards, and Joanne Barber's Magic Meat Powder which converts low value meat into a nutrient-dense food supplement.
Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
