SmartRDI was the Agricultural Digital Solution (ADS) provider for Farmtopia SIP7, a real-time welfare monitoring platform combining IoT ear tags, Raspberry Pi edge processing, cloud integration, and a farmer-facing mobile app. Over two pilot cycles across two Romanian dairy farms, the solution was built to improve animal welfare and farm profitability. The project concluded in August 2026, taking the solution from TRL 5 to TRL 7 in real farm conditions.
+12%
Daily meat per animal (avg. across both farms)
+5.9%
Daily milk per animal (+9.4% at Farm Marian)
9 / 10
Average farmer satisfaction
TRL 5 → 7
Maturity reached over two pilot cycles
The Problem
Small and medium dairy farms operate on tight margins with limited resources. During summer hot seasons, heat stress in cows reduces milk production and quality, but without real-time monitoring, farmers can only react after the damage is done.
The European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes mandates appropriate housing and care. Meeting this standard at scale requires affordable, automated monitoring, not manual observation.
The Solution
The complete Agricultural Digital Solution (ADS) spans smart ear tags reading individual body temperature, an edge control box (Raspberry Pi) computing the Thermal Humidity Index in real time, a Firebase cloud backend, and an Android mobile app that gives farmers colour-coded stress alerts and 24-hour predictive timelines.
The ADS integrates with Farmtopia's core Data Exchange and Data Integration services, giving farmers control over which data is shared and with whom, under full GDPR consent management.
Deployment Timeline
Pilot cycle 1
Aug 2024 – Jul 2025
Deployment at Farm A&C, Seini. Co-developed with farmers, baseline established, with key learnings on UI accessibility and thermal threshold calibration. First Open Day held 18 June 2025 with 22 participants. Average farmer satisfaction: 9 / 10.
Pilot cycle 2
Aug 2025 – Jul 2026
Deployment extended to Farm Marian, Alba, with Farmtopia core services integrated and heat stress mitigation achieved. Predictive risk services added and the seasonal billing model refined with the farmers. Second Open Day held 29 June 2026 with 30 participants and national media coverage. Average farmer satisfaction: 9.5 / 10.
System Architecture
Hardware Layer
BLE-enabled ear tags measure individual animal body temperature continuously. Long-life battery, IP-rated for farm environments. Sized for small farm economics.
Edge Layer
Raspberry Pi-based gateway processes raw sensor data locally. Computes Thermal Humidity Index (THI) in real time without cloud dependency. Controls automated sprinkler systems directly when thresholds are breached.
Cloud Layer
Synchronises edge data to the cloud, hosts the Farmtopia Data Sources Directory, and manages consent grant/revoke flows. Per-capita analytics computed server-side to normalise data across herd size changes.
Application Layer
Real-time colour-coded THI stress alerts, 24-hour predictive timelines, individual animal temperature readings, sprinkler control, and consent management, all in one screen. Designed with dynamic font scaling for accessibility.
Data Sovereignty
Farmers explicitly grant and revoke access to their farm's data feeds. No data leaves the system without consent. Federated architecture maps data providers to consumers without centralised exposure of identities.
Key Metrics
| Metric | Target | Achieved |
|---|---|---|
| Daily milk per animal | +10% vs. farm baseline | +5.9% average, +9.4% at Farm Marian |
| Daily meat per animal | +5% vs. farm baseline | +12.0% average |
| Farmer satisfaction | Positive feedback | 9 / 10 average (9.5 / 10 in the second cycle) |
| Cost-effectiveness | Retained profit above 75% of system cost | Met at both farms, with year-one payback |
| System availability | 90% | 95% |
| Ear tag battery life | 3 months | 2 years |
| Setup time | 1 hour | 1 hour |
Pilot Highlights
The headline outcome across both cycles: with automated sprinkler actuation driven by THI alerts from the ADS, hot-season production held up against cold-period baselines instead of dropping off. Farmers attributed the improvement directly to the system's real-time alerts.
Two Open Days brought farmers, advisors, DIH representatives and researchers on site to see the system running in real conditions: 22 participants at Farm A&C in 2025 and 30 at Farm Marian in 2026. The second drew national coverage from Euronews România, AgroTV and G4Food.
Farmer-Driven Innovation
After the pilot
Both pilot farmers confirmed they will keep using the system beyond the project and act as reference sites for new customers. The next step is TRL 8: first commercial installations beyond the pilot farms and CE marking of the commercial hardware.
The system is built for small and medium farms, with a one-hour setup, local edge processing that keeps working when connectivity drops, and a price point far below industrial precision-livestock systems.
Technology Stack
EU Funding
Farmtopia is co-funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe (Grant Agreement No. 101083541). SmartRDI was the Agricultural Digital Solution (ADS) provider within Sustainable Innovation Pilot 7, led by ANAMOB. Pilot farms are in Maramureș and Alba counties, Romania, running the Bălțata Românească breed (50–60 head per farm).
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.