The Internet of Sheep

With Cities taking much of the focus on the Internet Of Things (IOT), Prof Gordon Blair from Lancaster University has won EPSRC funding to lead a study on how IOT can be deployed in the countryside to help tackle rural problems such as drought, flooding, crop disease and animal movements. Clearly, the countryside faces its own challenges and opportunities in terms of economic development, efficiency and global competiveness, but the critical role it plays in providing food for urban populations very much remains.

This new study could well identify innovative ways that the rural market can reduce costs and improve yields using connected sensors such as digital collars for livestock and rainfall and river flow monitors.

The deployment of rural connected devices may also help stem the tide of rural populations migrating to urban centres for employment and education. A Rural IOT could therefore help to keep populations in place (as well as the animals!).