Andre Rigo, Director of Sales, Cainthus

Andre Rigo graduated in Veterinary Medicine at State University of Londrina- Brazil in 2005. He is passionate about technology and livestock and after graduated started his career working with IVF embryo technology.

In 2008, he became partner of an Ag tech company, driving the business and operations in Brasil as Director of Operations. He had an active role on business strategy, sales and people management and leadership, including leading projects in Russia and the USA.

In 2015, the Brazilian start-up was sold to a FTSE 250 company and Andre received an invite to move to the USA leading the expansion of the business in that country as General manager.

Currently, he is Director of Sales at Cainthus and is in charge of business expansion in the USA.

Stuart Russell BVSc DBR MRCVS

Stuart joined the team at Nantwich Farm Vets after graduating from The University of Liverpool in 2007 & has practiced as a dairy veterinarian ever since, working with some of the UK’s largest herds in both a primary and consulting capacity. He completed a Diploma in Bovine Reproduction in 2012 which sparked a keen interest in dairy data and statistics, mostly because he felt his knowledge in this area was painfully inadequate at the time.

Having also developed a strong interest in dairy economics & detailed nutritional knowledge in the UK and overseas, Stuart’s unusual skillset is particularly-well suited to helping larger herds which have already solved the easy problems.

Although he continues to work as a veterinarian for certain existing clients, Stuart is a director of Define:Ag Limited, providing consultancy & high-level data science skills for the dairy industry and beyond.

Sally Wilson, Evolution Farm Vets

Sally is a practising dairy vet with a particular interest in helping farms to run efficiently. She works closely with the farm team on how to get the best out of both themselves and their cows but also relishes the odd challenging calving! She is the founder and a director or Evolution Farm Vets; a Board Member of BCVA; an external examiner on the DBR: mother of two and an amateur but slightly obsessed crossfitter.

In the US, it is not unusual for a dairy herd to have 10 – 12,000 cows in one location. For these herds, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used to gather data on, for instance, lying, standing and feeding times.  These can help show very quickly the impact on yield of management, staff or feeding changes.  In this session, Andre Rigo, a vet working on AI in large herds in the US, takes us on a tour of a super-herd set up in California, explaining how the latest AI applications help improve farm management, and how the same principles can be applied to typical UK herds. Stuart Russell, UK Dairy vet and data scientist with Define:Ag, assesses what is available and being used right now in the UK, and together with Sally Wilson from Evolution Farm Vets, they discuss the future of AI in herd health management and measurement of such things as welfare and productivity. Might this help the current frustrations of self-reporting when it comes to submitting lameness and mobility data to the large milk buyers?   And, crucially, what role does the vet have to play?