畜産におけるＩＯＴの可能性

九州大学ブランドビーフＱＢｅｅｆの生産システムを例として

抄録

There are many serious problems in the beef production of Japan. The focus of this paper will be basically in four parts: 1) current problems of beef production in Japan, 2) Analysis of the metabolic programming effect in Wagyu: to create a fatty constitution in calf to produce good quality beef from grass foraging, and 3) to design a new beef production system utilizing grass resources on mountainous area. I accomplished Kyushu University Brand “Q Beef” cattle four years ago. To fatten Q Beef cattle by grazing on the mountainous area, 4) we created an ICT system to monitor the feeding of grazing cattle by smartphone, comprising the following elements: (1) actuators, including an audio player, feeder, and stanchion(an equipment for locking cattle neck during feeding ); (2) wireless nodes with Wi-Fi connectivity to control the actuators; (3) Internet protocol (IP)-addressed cameras with Wi-Fi connectivity; (4) a wireless access point enabling the wireless nodes and IP cameras to connect to a wired network using Wi-Fi; and (5) a Web server that communicates with the wireless nodes and delivers a control Graphical User Interface (GUI) for use by farmers. Farmers can call cattle towards an IP camera and feed them by using a smartphone without being physically present on the farm. Next, we constructed a received signal strength (RSS)-based location system for grazing cattle. This included monitoring the location of cattle on pastures in mountainous areas. To fatten Q Beef cattle on the mountainous area, we created two systems controllable via a smartphone, one system to call cattle and the other to monitor their locations. We introduce other devices which support farmers. These systems could be very useful to farmers in controlling and monitoring cattle grazing.