SPECIAL SESSION #11
Data-driven innovation in extensive and semi-extensive livestock systems: proposed solutions, challenges and opportunities
ORGANIZED BY
Fiammetta Berlinguer
Fiammetta Berlinguer
University of Sassari, Italy
Katiuscia Zedda
Katiuscia Zedda
Abinsula
SPECIAL SESSION DESCRIPTION
The systematic collection of data in livestock farming represents one of the most critical challenges for innovation in the zootechnical sector, particularly within dairy sheep systems. While highly automated contexts, such as dairy cattle farming, already benefit from advanced digital tools, most extensive and semi-extensive systems continue to experience a significant technological gap. These difficulties stem from the very nature of such production systems, which rely on grazing, animal mobility, and manual management, making continuous, standardized, and interoperable data acquisition inherently complex.
Yet, this lack of structured data severely limits the possibility of managing farms as fully “automated enterprises,” capable of optimizing profit margins through near real-time analysis of productive, health-related, and environmental variables. Access to accurate datasets would not only improve day-to-day decision-making but also enable the development of predictive models supporting targeted strategies for nutrition, reproduction, and animal health.
Moreover, the availability of comprehensive and integrated data would open and has already opened, the door to the application of artificial intelligence, allowing the discovery of non-trivial correlations among production, climatic, and sanitary factors, insights that would otherwise remain hidden.
In this context, digitalization is not merely a technical enhancement but a fundamental prerequisite for transforming the sheep farming and other farming sectors into an innovative, competitive, and evidence-driven ecosystem.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
Fiammetta Berlinguer (ORCID: 0000-0002-2500-8063) holds a degree in Veterinary Medicine and a PhD in Animal Physiology. Currently, she is a Full Professor of Veterinary Physiology at the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Sassari. Her academic specialization is centered on animal reproduction, physiology and biotechnology. Her expertise is heavily focused on applications relevant to livestock animal science, particularly involving small ruminants. Key aspects of her work include: reproductive biotechnologies, ovarian function, small ruminants reproduction, management and breeding. In the last years, thanks to the involvement in the project eINS - Ecosystem of Innovation for next generation Sardinia - Spoke 03 APPàre: Smart and safe farming applications to promote data-driven innovation along the food chain ) funded by the Italian Ministry for Research and Education (MUR) under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), she became deeply involved in data driven innovation in small ruminant productive systems.
Katiuscia Zedda (ORCID: 0009-0003-1059-8261) holds a M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering. During the Ph.D. studies and Post-Doc experience she has been visiting researcher at JET (Joint European Torus, Culham, UK). Afterwards she has been employed in Akhela (an Italian Company specialised in embedded software development and cybersecurity) for the definition of the Strategic Research Agenda and for planning and coordination of research projects (Demanes, p/nSafecer, Arrowhead). She is currently programme manager of Embedded Software Development and business developer for China and France in Abinsula. She has been Innovation Manager of the H2020 Project CERBERO (N.732105) and the Exploitation Manager of the ECSEL Project FitOptiVis (N.783162) and she is currently the Coordinator of the Horizon Europe Project MYRTUS (N. 101135183). She is also co-owner of the Italian Start-up Lifely, and Expert Revisor for SME-Instrument phase 1 and phase 2 2018–2019.
