“The idea from which we started was that of animal welfare, we wanted to improve the living conditions of farmed animals”: speaking Ambra Milani, one of the 3 founders of Cynomysa Genoese startup that deals precisely with this and which started from this to also obtain an increase in productivity and greater respect for the environment.
“We are born in 2017 from the union of my and my skills Fabiana Surace (they studied environmental sciences, ed.) with those of computer science Enrico Carta, who is currently our CEO”, Milani told us again. The 3 noticed that the market lacked a solution that would allow them to measure the parameters that influence animal welfare and so they developed a device that did just that: “An animal that is better, not only lives better but also produces better” and produces best quality food.
Hi-tech agriculture Basil at home and vegetables to learn: how OSA works, the experimental garden of Genoa by Emanuele Capone 23 September 2023
Sensors to evaluate air and water
The Cynomys device (which is the scientific name of the prairie dog) is a small box little bigger than a laptop: “We made the first installation in a friend’s stable in 2017, the first tests with potential customers in 2018 and we arrived on the market in 2020”, they explained to us from the startup, which today employs 5 people but which is looking for staffafter a capital injection by a major investor.
What it does is measure air or water quality (or both) present in the breeding area, through sensors that collect information on parameters such as temperature, hardness, humidity, presence of oxygen, ammonia, methane, CO2 and more: “We configure it according to the needs of the individual customer , depending on what he wants to measure and on which he wants to have information – Milani told us – It is assembled in Ronco Scrivia (where Cynomys has its operational headquarters, ed.) and shipped worldwide. Whoever receives it installs it in about twenty minutes and can then immediately start using it, the data collected can be consulted from an online interface accessible from a computer or smartphone, not from an app because at the moment it does not seem to be among the requests of the users clients”.
Data collection and processing are important both immediately and in the future future: “They are stored in the cloud and we also use them to make forecasts and analyze trends, as well as to recommend solutions and corrective measures to any problems, also offering a consultancy service”.
The Cynomys device is ISO 90/01 certified, which seems like a detail but is not a detail: “These devices are in a difficult environment (the stables, ed.), with the sensors subjected to strong stress due to dust and polluting gases and the certification allows us to guarantee the customer the reliability of the data collected”. More: “Once a year we collect them for check-ups, maintenance and possible recalibration”, so as to be sure that they always operate at their maximum potential.
“Half of the customers are abroad”
Also for this reason, that is, to give the startup the opportunity to work on it continuously, these devices are not bought but rented: “The rental period we recommend is at least 3 years – Milani explained to us – And the cost is around 2 thousand euros per year”.
Cost that tends to it does not fall on the farmers, because farmers are not Cynomys’ customers: “We turn to those who work with them, those who supply them with feed, machinery, structures and indeed our sensors”. We are talking about companies even as large as American ADMlike Trouw Nutrition, like Dutch Lely and also Italian Fumagalli cured meats. Overall, over 220 devices have been shipped to 17 countries in the last couple of years.
Which are a lot, for a startup that is in such a specialized niche and above all for a startup that was born a little outside the usual environments: “In Milan everything is easier, but being in Genoa hasn’t hindered us – we Milani said with a smile – Both because we immediately turned a lot to the foreign market and because the Liguria Region supported us a lotmaking spaces available and giving us visibility at fairs and events”.
As for the future, those at Cynomys want to focus above all on 3 things: “Improve the user interface, add new parameters to measure and insist even more on data analysis”, possibly also with the use of artificial intelligence. Because now we can no longer ignore AInot even when it comes to animal welfare.
@capoema