Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) was awarded a $649,741 project grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) competitive grants program.
The grant will support Virginia Tech's development of an acoustic data-driven tool to assess animal welfare and mitigate methane emissions in dairy cattle farming. Specific objectives include testing acoustic data to evaluate calf stress post-weaning and determine genetic and nutritional impacts on eructation patterns. The university will also improve efficiency for managing millions of daily data points per cow through a Python library and web application. This aligns with AFRI priorities of advancing animal health and production, as well as bioenergy, natural resources and the environment. The project period is from September 1, 2023 through August 31, 2028.
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