The rise in the demand for animal products due to demographic and dietary changes has exacerbated difficulties in addressing societal concerns related to the environment, human health, and animal welfare. As a response to this challenge, Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) technologies are being developed to monitor animal health and welfare parameters in a continuous and automated way, offering the opportunity to improve productivity and detect health issues at an early stage. However, ethical concerns have been raised regarding their potential to facilitate the management of production systems that are potentially harmful to animal welfare, or to impact the human-animal relationship and farmers' duty of care. Using the Five Domains Model (FDM) as a framework, the aim is to explore the potential of PLF to help address animal welfare and to discuss potential welfare benefits and risks of using such technology. A variety of technologies are identified and classified according to their type [sensors, bolus, image or sound based, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)], their development stage, the species they apply to, and their potential impact on welfare. While PLF technologies have promising potential to reduce the occurrence of diseases and injuries in livestock farming systems, their current ability to help promote positive welfare states remains limited, as technologies with such potential generally remain at earlier development stages. This is likely due to the lack of evidence related to the validity of positive welfare indicators as well as challenges in technology adoption and development. Finally, the extent to which welfare can be improved will also strongly depend on whether management practices will be adapted to minimize negative consequences and maximize benefits to welfare.

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In order to better understand physical and biological clogging in drip-irrigation, a study was conducted on the impacts of hydrodynamic conditions on clay particle deposition and biofilm development in drippers using an optical method. A transparent milli-fluidic system composed of labyrinth channels was used to identify areas most susceptible to particle clogging using two different types of clay suspensions: sodium bentonite and kaolin. The impact of salt addition ([NaCl] =200 mg.L-1) on the clay deposition was also analyzed. Biofilm development was studied using the same methodology using a nutritive solution (chemical oxygen demand, COD = 200 mg.L-1). In addition, fluid dynamics simulations were performed along the labyrinth channel to understand the effect of flow behaviour on the fouling. Computational Fluid Dynamics results show two types of flow topology: high velocity in the main flow (around 1m.s-1) and low velocity in the vortex zones (less than 0.2 m.s-1) found in the channel corners. Using an optical method, kaolin deposition and biofilm growth in the dripper were observed to occur mainly in the inlet channel and initial vortex zones, which are characterized by lower mean velocity and turbulent kinetic energy values. This part of the dripper can be considered as a bottleneck that amplifies the fouling phenomena and which should be optimized. With the addition of NaCl, kaolin particles tend to form bigger flocs. Therefore, more significant particle deposition is observed, but this is not the case of bentonite for which no fouling is observed along the dripper.

In this commentary, we explore the risks and challenges associated with Precision Livestock Farming technologies based on an online workshop with over 70 international animal welfare experts, policy-makers, NGO, students, farmers and industry staff.

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