CAN you imagine seeing sheep and cattle wearing a Fitbit? New technology developed by La Trobe University’s Centre for Technology Infusion is set to revolutionise the livestock industry in Australia and beyond. Director of La Trobe’s Centre for Technology Infusion, Dr Aniruddha (Ani) Desai said the new technology has the potential to transform farmers’ understanding of their livestock. “The next generation of low cost and low weight sensors and the data they provide can bring the human factor back into farming,” Dr Desai said. “In the past, farmers got to know the habits of their individual animals,” he said.  However, with large-scale farming, that is now impossible and current systems such as video monitoring are highly inaccurate.” Science leader for this program, Dr Markandeya (Mark) Jois said study has been carried out over the past three years on three farms in Victoria; a dairy farm in Tatura, a sheep farm in Greta and a beef farm in Winchelsea. “Our work has shown the potential of such technology to address important industry problems in Australia such as high lamb mortality rate in sheep,” he said.