NutriBIZ - nutritional management system for sheep production as a tool to optimize the use of forage resources utilization

Abstract

The sheep production in Brazil stands out due to the need for investments in the structuring of the productive chain, in the planning and generation of new technologies with simple access to the rural producer. This assertion is based on statistical data published in the literature that demonstrate that Brazil is unable to supply its domestic demand for lamb meat, necessitating importation, a fact that diverges from the climatic and territorial conditions of the country, conducive to food production and breeding Of animals with competitive prices in the international market. In this sense, the objective of this project is to gather a database on forage species, nutritive value, management of the productive system (e.g. pasture management, supplementation, forage conservation, soil analysis, use of inorganic inputs, climatic data) Field research and literature review concerning forage species used in sheep farming in the different regions of the country, as well as the productive response of forage plants to the climatic conditions and management used in each production system. The database must be consistent and function as a conceptual model used in Software Engineering to describe the objects (entities) involved in a business domain, with their characteristics (attributes) and how they relate to each other (relationships), known As MER - Model Entity Relationship. For that, interviews with rural producers will be carried out in the different regions of the country and a thorough literature review will be carried out to collect data on the nutritional value of the species. This review will initially be based on data on beef cattle breeding and after the first tests a specific database for sheep, which until then was non-existent, will be created. This database should feed into the development of software in the first phase, which, for a second phase, consisting of assembly of technological software packages coupled with high precision equipment such as Drones, will be able to capture images of pastures and plantations, That informed and highly complex information such as estimation of nutritional value, pasture productivity and plantations become simple tools of use for rural producers' decision making. This information should reach the producer through a mobile application in a simple and practical way, so that the rural producer produces sheep on the basis of precision nutrition, avoiding waste and impacting on better planning and commitment in the delivery of sheep to suppliers, Which is currently identified as one of the major obstacles to the rise of the sheep production chain in Brazil. (AU)