Svarta Räven AB is a Swedish start-up specialising in innovation in the agriculture sector. The company’s business idea is to develop an intelligent monitoring system for day-to-day supervision of animals on pastureland. The aim is to improve and simplify monitoring for the owner and improve the health of grazing animals. Digital technology makes it easier to ensure that the animals are healthy from day to day, have good access to grazing and are still in the field.
Svarta Räven was in need of digital resources to develop and test a prototype of the proposed monitoring system. It also needed research expertise on the behaviour and health of grazing animals. The first stage was to be able to select the different parameters to be measured and integrated into the digital solution, and to gain a better understanding of how a sensor-based monitoring system would be able to measure and follow up on these parameters. In the second stage, the customer needed help to validate the technology used to measure the behaviour of grazing animals, combined with manual observations.
Through SmartAgri, Agroväst, RISE, Skövde Science Park and SLU worked together to help the company to move forward.
Agroväst and RISE helped the company to refine its idea and draw up an application to the European Innovation Partnership for agriculture (EIP-AGRI). The project was granted almost SEK 8 million to develop and test the GOATI system. To relieve the company of liquidity and project administration concerns, SLU took on the project ownership while Agroväst handled the project administration.
Researchers at SLU helped the company to identify what it needed to measure and how, in order to detect any abnormal behaviour and pick up movement patterns that might suggest a risk to an animal’s health. SLU Götala Nöt- och Lammköttsforskning carried out tests during the 2020, 2021 and 2022 grazing seasons in order to validate the system and ensure that it was measuring and alerting as intended. Syntera and Contourline Technology handled the development of technology, hardware and software. RISE provided environmental monitoring and technical support, while Intakan farm provided a further field test environment.
In parallel with the innovation project, Svarta Räven received coaching from Agroväst and RISE to help plan prior to launching the product onto the market.
" SmartAgri was a vital partner for us with their experience of running projects like ours. – Thanks to their extensive network, we found the right partner and took control of all the administrative procedures."
Erik Öhlund VD Svarta Räven
