Heard
Harvard University | Spring 2022 | Systems and Product Design
A first of its kind rotational grazing management system to help farmers adopt regenerative agriculture practices while also becoming more productive.
Roles & Skills:
Problem definition, user interviews, agricultural systems research
Rapid prototyping, CAD modeling, 3D printing
Hypothesis experimentation and testing
Heard was selected to participate in the 2022 Prototypes for Humanity showcase of 100 of the most original, impactful, and innovative ideas tackling complex global issues.
This project was done in collaboration with Steven Morse, Manav Sahani and Jiabin Wei during an eight-week studio course at Harvard University.
The Problem Space
The cattle industry is one that dominates our world and the United States. It is an industry that is not going away anytime soon, but has huge potential to become more efficient and cleaner for our planet and more profitable for farmers.
Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming focused on conservation and rehabilitation of ecosystems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience to climate change. One aspect of regenerative agriculture is rotational grazing, which is the practice of moving livestock between portions of pasture on a regular basis.
Rotational Grazing
Rotational grazing has several benefits to the environment and to the farmer including increased soil fertility, improved pasture health, higher quality of meat, and economic gains and resiliency.
And yet, despite all of these benefits, there is still an estimated 78% of livestock producers who do not practice rotational grazing.
Barriers to Adoption
After speaking with researchers and experts in the agriculture field as well as with livestock producers themselves, we identified three main barriers to adoption:
The high upfront cost of fences requires capital which many farmers do not have
Rotational grazing requires manual labor and significant time to move and maintain the fences
Rotational grazing requires extensive knowledge and experience to create sub-paddocks and set the rotational schedule for each herd.
Opportunity Space
There are players in this space trying to introduce new rotational grazing methods for farmers and yet even the best alternatives still require farmers to take a 20-30% cut in profits in their first year before they can start making back their investments. And for the farmers with whom we spoke with, the 20-30% cut in profits is simply not feasible.
Design Question
Can we create an accessible system for rotational grazing that is:
low cost and eliminates the profit cuts for farmers even in year one
approachable for farmers without requiring significant behavior change
fits into the existing ecosystem of livestock producers, and
does not require a high amount of labor.
Introducing Heard
Heard is a first of its kind rotational grazing management system that allows farmers to maximize the value of their farm and increase their profits.
Heard creates virtual boundary fences that can be easily adjusted or moved. Using cattle ear tags, Heard can detect when the animal approaches the virtual boundary and will play a warning signal - a tone that starts soft and gradually gets louder as the animal approaches the boundary line. If the animal reaches the boundary line, a much louder and intense alarm will play.
Heard’s app allows the farmer to track and manage each sub-paddock and cow from afar. It will also alert the farmer immediately should a cow happen to escape the boundary.
The ear tag itself is lightweight and integrates seamlessly into the farmer’s current cattle tag system. Heard uses a low power bluetooth node system with one central GPS hub for location tracking which means that the ear tag has enough battery power to last the life of your cow so that farmers do not need to corral and stress of their herds to swap out batteries.
Business Model
Based on Heard’s components, we estimate that we can charge $30 per tag, and with this business model, when we compare Heard to other competitors, we find that with Heard, farmers do not need to take a cut in profits in year one to switch to rotational grazing practices.
Experimentation and Testing
We had the privilege to actually test the concept of Heard with actual cows at the Hampshire College Farm. Our prototype process was complicated by the fact that the cows did not have ear tags, but we were able to design an adjustable strapping system to conduct three experiments.
Our first experiment tested sounds of differing amplitudes and frequencies to calibrate and examine how cattle responded to each sound. Our second experiment was an attempt to temporarily train cattle to respond to and be deterred from boundaries using both audio and visual cues. This second experiment was challenging for several reasons, one largely being that the cows were not excited to wear the straps.
So, our team went back home to re-design the experiment and for our third experiment we used external speakers to test whether sound could be used as a deterrent for cows. This was an extremely successful experiment as shown in the video below.
Overall, our time at the farm raised a lot of promising evidence for this concept and we truly believe that Heard has the potential to make an impact in the livestock industry by making rotational grazing more accessible for farmers at scale.