Ricky Thaper (www.rickythaper.com)
The Indian poultry market according to industry estimates was valued at USD 30.46 Billion in 2024. Due to rising demand for protein rich food, the sector is expected to witness a growth of 7% – 8% in the next decade. The value of the poultry industry is projected to rise to USD 66.37 Billion by 2034. Despite significant growth, the sector faces critical challenges such a volatility in feed supplies and prices, lack of availability of skilled manpower, threat of spread of diseases and rising cost of production. As the demand for poultry products continues to rise, poultry farmers in India are seeking ways to optimize their operations while addressing pressing challenges such as food security, environmental impact, and biosecurity. From precision farming and genetic advancements to automation and data analytics, these cutting-edge technologies are being increasingly used in the poultry industry.
Like most sectors of the economy, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are having a profound impact. In the poultry industry in India, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation is gradually transforming and improving efficiency, productivity, and animal welfare. Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered systems are being used for real-time monitoring of poultry houses, optimizing feed formulations, improving disease detection and streamlining logistics and supply chain management. Currently there are challenges in poultry operations in commercial layers, broilers and breeding farms. The key challenges are adverse climatic conditions, shortage and availability of skilled workers, emerging viral and bacterial diseases. Due to the age of the poultry sheds, prevalence of the diseases not eradicated while cleaning. Shortage of quality feed ingredients, use of medicines and ensuring availability of quality drinking water are also impacting the poultry industry. The quality of chicken meat is being impacted while lack of marketing facilities as well as price information is also adversely impacting the poultry sector.
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based technologies to collect the data automatically and accurately in real-time helps in-depth analysis which could allow poultry farmers to immediately act upon optimizing the production. For instance, predicting or projecting body weight for a given broiler line under local conditions. Under unsupervised learning, data collected would be categorized and trends detected without specific programing using resources from the cloud, huge amounts of data could be analysed to give advance notice of a particular outcome to the farmers. Data collected by using Artificial Intelligence(AI) tools would be the greatest resourceful tool in the hands of poultry farmers to harvest the maximum benefit of what they invested.
According to a report titled “Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Poultry Industry” by Livestock Farm Complex, Veterinary College and Research Institute, Salem, Tamil Nadu, a huge amount of data can be generated in the poultry industry by providing data analysis which can play a huge role in farm management practices. Big data stored and processed in cloud spaces can be utilized remotely by Artificial Intelligence(AI) to govern the machines or robotics to regulate parameters like humidity, temperature, light, etc., in the poultry farms. For instance, Robots with various biosensors connected to the internet, can be programmed to collect real-time data on parameters like temperature, humidity, ammonia levels inside the farm, subsequently this information can be processed and necessary measures could be initiated. The report stated that Artificial Intelligence(AI) helps to constantly monitor farm activities round the clock in real-time which would be an impossible task for humans to perform. Currently, in a large-scale poultry farm, several farm appliances and sensors are available to control the environmental temperature, humidity, and light, but the drawback with them is that they should be either manually operated or human supervision is a must to operate with. With the power of Artificial Intelligence(AI), various sensors connected with the internet, the farm appliances can be operated from elsewhere giving accurate maintenance of the farmhouse environment at ease.
Computer supervised machinery and robotics could reduce sufficiently human interaction with broiler birds, reducing the source or spread of infection. Usage of Artificial Intelligence(AI) could reduce the error rate to negligible and work round the clock which can improve the efficiency of farming leading to maximizing farmer’s remuneration. Recent advancements in machine technologies have significantly revolutionized daily activities in the poultry production system. Aimed at reducing the need of labour, while ensuring round the clock monitoring, and facilitating remote reporting of growth of poultry birds, these Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are gradually being introduced. Some of the examples of application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation include the implementation of specialized robots equipped with imaging sensors and machine learning capabilities, adeptly navigates through poultry house floors, collecting eggs on the floors and monitoring factors such as temperatures, gases and light levels in the poultry units. An innovative autonomous robot utilizes artificial intelligence and sensor technology to evaluate the surrounding environment, identify equipment malfunctions, monitor the health of poultry and perform tasks such as removing deceased birds and analyzing moisture levels in the litter. For instance, the robot stimulates bird activity, contributing to improving both feed conversion and average daily weight gain Robot also continuously scratches the litter reducing the humidity, eliminating caking and wet spots, reducing the incidence of aspergillosis, pododermatitis, foot burn and breast burn contributing to animal welfare. It can also monitor and map ammonia, temperature and humidity levels throughout the farm to keep in check. A robot by a company was designed to sanitize large poultry farms.
For disease management amongst the poultry birds, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be trained for detecting early heat stress in birds by using thermal imaging cameras or infra-red cameras. Likewise, diseased birds from the flock can be identified based on their movement, posture, and behaviour by image analysis collected from diseased birds and compared with the healthy ones. These tools would enhance disease control amongst the poultry birds. Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has also stressed on strengthening integrated disease surveillance and early warning systems for reports on bird flu incidents. Computer vision-based chicken monitoring systems have been developed to study bird feeding behaviour, stress behaviour, tracking bird movement, bird distribution within the farm, real-time monitoring, early detection of sick birds, identifying lameness and activity, predicting bird live weight based on 3D computer vision.
The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a range of applications in the meat processing plant and egg packing industry. These tools have potential to address some key issues in processing plants, lack of real-time processing data and the limiting speed of human interventions. The use of artificial vision offers real-time yield, monitoring of high-value chicken parts, also combined with smart automation to optimize efficiencies. For processing plants, Artificial Intelligence (AI) allows higher processing speeds and accurate packing of premium value products, translating into more profits and lesser post-harvest contamination. While still, the majority of the farms are collecting data manually and then getting the data processed in computers. By 2050, it has been estimated that a poultry farm would be able to generate 4.1 million data points through various sensors and other related devices connected through the internet of things. Going forward Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted farming in various stages of poultry production from farm to consumers would help the Indian poultry sector immensely. There are tools to mitigate or to enhance a specific outcome of a farm produce with increased efficiency to tap farm maximum production potential. In the last few years, many companies have already focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) related research and prototypes in collaboration with leading universities across the globe. Further use of newer Artificial Intelligence (AI) related technologies will augment poultry production providing affordable animal protein along with ensuring sustainable farm practices. Broiler chicken industry has become India’s most organised and vertically integrated agri-business. The broiler integrators have turned poultry farming from traditionally to a commercial enterprise even for the smallholders. Currently over 80% of poultry meat production comes from the organised sector. For ensuring and sustaining the growth for the sector, Industry has to work closely with poultry farmers to ensure that Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are used to optimum level for bringing in efficiency in the entire value chain.