The European Commission (EC) has highlighted the Galician company Innogando as an example of how innovation and European funds can contribute to modernising livestock farming, improving the competitiveness of farms and promoting generational renewal in rural areas.
The company, founded in 2020 in Abadín (Lugo), has developed RUMI, a smart collar that allows farmers to use a mobile application to know the location and behaviour of their animals.
The technology makes it possible to identify whether animals are grazing, resting or ruminating, as well as detecting periods of heat, facilitating monitoring and decision-making on the farm.
According to data released by the European Commission, since 2021 Innogando has secured more than €1.54 million in public funding linked to European programmes for innovation, digitalisation, rural development, artificial intelligence, sustainability and job creation projects.
More than 25,000 active devices
The company currently has more than 25,000 active devices in Spain and Portugal and continues to work on its expansion into new international markets.
The EC highlights that this type of technology can improve farm productivity and reduce the time professionals have to devote to certain monitoring tasks, while also helping to improve their quality of life.
Among the examples highlighted by the Commission is Simón Gandeiro, an agricultural engineer and livestock farmer from Val do Dubra (A Coruña), who introduced Innogando’s smart collars thanks to aid financed with European funds.
Compared with previously spending working days travelling around the farm to check the condition and location of the animals, he can now use his mobile phone to see where each animal is and monitor its behaviour in real time.
Technology to make livestock farming more attractive
The European Commission points to Innogando’s founders, Daniel Ferreiro and Elio López, together with livestock farmer Simón Gandeiro, as an example of how innovation developed within rural areas themselves can help strengthen the competitiveness of the livestock sector.
The application of digital tools such as RUMI can also help make livestock farming more attractive to new generations, facilitating generational renewal and offering new opportunities to develop professional projects in rural areas.
This approach forms part of the European “Right to Stay” strategy, aimed at creating the necessary conditions for people to remain in their territories through employment opportunities, innovation and sustainable development.
Source: Information prepared from data released by the European Commission as part of the “The European budget. Stronger together” campaign.
