Solar-powered GPS collars may be the G.O.A.T. for farmers

New GPS collars on livestock are changing farming and helping the environment in more ways than you might expect.

Transcript

00:00 I think it's really gonna revolutionize

00:01 the way that livestock are managed

00:03 once this technology becomes widespread and mainstream.

00:06 - New technology is changing the way farmers

00:08 at one Northern Virginia farm manage their livestock.

00:11 - We've been doing rotational grazing with them

00:13 since the beginning, but the GPS collars

00:16 are a new way of doing that, basically.

00:18 - Solar-powered GPS collars help Molly Crois

00:21 and her husband, Sam, keep track of their goats

00:23 and move them around in an environmentally sustainable way.

00:26 - Moving animals around throughout the grazing season

00:30 to allow regrowth of the plant matter

00:33 before you bring them back on there to eat it again.

00:35 And that promotes soil health

00:37 and promotes having good, diverse pastures,

00:40 which then reduce runoff in times of rainfall.

00:43 - Runoff that can contaminate nearby water sources,

00:45 such as the Chesapeake Bay,

00:47 where George's Mill Farm is located.

00:49 - The problem with that is that they tend to trample

00:51 the stream bank and erode away the bank,

00:55 killing the vegetation along the bank

00:56 and all of that leads to more soil runoff

00:58 and nutrient runoff into the waterway,

01:00 which then eventually ends up in the bay.

01:02 And so you end up with a lot of nutrient pollution from that.

01:04 - The collars help keep the farm clean, too.

01:07 - The poop that the animals are producing

01:08 out into the pastures naturally,

01:10 rather than having animals in confinement

01:12 where they're in a little area, like a feedlot,

01:15 where all the poop has to then be disposed of

01:16 or it washes away every time it rains.

01:19 - The new tech has Crois feeling hopeful

01:21 about the future of farming.

01:22 - Learning more about how we can use the system

01:25 better work with the goats behavior and their grazing

01:27 and better manage the land,

01:28 which is better for the land and better for the animals.

01:30 - For AccuWeather, I'm meteorologist Tony Laubach.

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