Reap Interactive has been named as 'Start-Up Innovator of the Year' in Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation Arena Awards at the National Ploughing Championships.
The business won the €10,000 prize for its innovation BovinePlus.
BovinePlus aims to revolutionise farming by tracking each animal individually, utilising AI and image analysis to provide real-time data on weight, health, and water intake, optimising profitability by pinpointing issues such as underperforming animals and enhancing feed efficiency.
This offers farmers insights which can boost profitability and efficiencies, and support sustainable livestock management.
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"BovinePlus is a performance monitoring station. The animal comes in to take a drink from the water trough, and we capture their weight, the quantity of water they are drinking and we read their tags, so we look at every animal individually," said Kieran Supple, Reap Interactive.
The products and services of Irish agri-tech companies are helping to bring greater efficiencies to farming.
Daniel Hijazi is an entrepreneur behind Micron Agritech.
"We have developed a test that anyone can do on site with their mobile phones to get results for parasites within minutes for their animals," he said. "So instead of having to send samples to labs and waiting days for results to come back, the tests can be done right there and then and results are automatically generated through artificial intelligence."
It was only launched last year but the business is already expanding. "In our first year, we tested over 180,000 animals. We recently launched in the UK, and now we are eyeing up Europe, we're launching in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg."
"We created Herd Sync which digitises your farm records, simplying your farm management in order to amplify your profits," said Kate, one of three teenagers behind the app.
"It's basically like a database for farmers. Farmers misplace their animals events book, it would get destroyed from wear and tear, and even their notes get lost, so we created a data base to store their information."
The app is currently being tested by 20 farmers.
Cotter Agritech is focused on the sheep sector and Its technology aims to reduce drug inputs.
"We have a piece of software that advises farmers in real time whether the sheep needs a dewormer drench or not," explained Nick Cotter.
"We've now built on this technology by adding an automatic dosing gun, that makes sure when we drench that animal we only give them exactly how much they need. The smart gun takes all the thinking out of it," he explains.
"It will calibrate the dose based on the animals weight, so if it's one millilitre per kilo and we get a 40 kilo animal in, it'll give it 40 mils. It's reducing the use of medicines, making sure we don't underdose or overdose," he added.
"The gun itself will reduce the use of medicines by 30%," he said.
"It's really timely, especially with the veterinary medicines regulations that are being brought in. We really need to reduce the use of these medicines because they are not working anymore because we are overusing them and resistance is happening. With these technologies, it's a gamechanger, it's a way of reducing the use of these medicines on farms."
The Enterprise Ireland ‘Innovation Arena Champion Award’, for established companies with a focus on scaling and innovation, was won by Samco Manufacturing Ltd for their innovation, a new application system and mulch film designed around establishing earlier planting and growth of potatoes, and this will ultimately enable earlier harvesting and entry to the market where growers will have a greater price premium.
The new ‘Green Impact Award’, for a company whose innovation is focused on sustaining the development of food and farming for future generations to come, went to went to EASYFIX.
The company is now focused on reducing ammonia and methane emissions in slurry storage systems, using unique technology that stimulates bacterial growth which reduces ammonia and methane emissions in storage. Their new technology system works by delivering a low electrical current that stimulates the growth of bacteria in storage which reduces emissions.
The Irish agritech sector employs more than 4,700 people here, and Enterprise Ireland supports approximately 130 companies who are working in a number of areas, including developing smart farming solutions, farm equipment, livestock handling and housing, crop cultivation and protection, and animal health and nutrition.
These Irish-owned companies generated sales of almost €1.6 billion in 2023, with exports accounting for €1 billion.
