Cows in Smart Collars, Virtual Fences Help Make Farming Greener
- Virtual fences could lower farm costs, improve pasture health
- GPS collars give farmers autonomous control over their cattle
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James Parsons had to check each day that his Angus steers hadn’t broken through a fence to forage along the stream running through his New Zealand property. Now an app on his phone tells him instead.
Parsons fitted electronic GPS collars to more than 250 of his cattle in November, enabling him to monitor them remotely and control where they graze — thwarting access to the clover-lined creek, where the livestock can pollute the waterway and erode its delicate banks.