A lot has changed since we first visited with Nofence two years ago, and while the company’s ambitions haven’t changed, it has gone from a frisky startup with a big idea to a company that is scaling its solution. The result? Nofence is having a big impact on agriculture both from a sustainability perspective, as well as from an operations and cost perspective.
The Nofence patented grazing technology allows farmers to build geographical ‘fences’ via a smartphone application that connects with a collar worn by the animal. The geographical fence ensures that the animals are not only free to roam in a dedicated area, but that they are easily moved from one pasture to the next without having to physically move or build fences or other barriers. This not only saves time, money, and manpower, it is also in line with the growing regenerative agriculture movement, which among other things, helps reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity.
When Nofence first launched their livestock geo-fencing solution it was primarily focused on small livestock, such as goats. Now, they have not just enhanced their product for smaller agricultural animals, they have also launched one for larger animals, such as cattle.
“We decided to develop two different products because the animals are very different in size,” explains Oscar Hovde Berntsen, CTO at Nofence. “With the cattle product, we have been able to increase the solar panel area on the collar the animal wears, as well as the battery size. This has been a great success with customers because the increase means the farmer does not need to change batteries at all during the season.