No fence, no problem: How virtual fencing is reshaping the way farmers do ranching

Hi and welcome to another episode of what's at Stake. I'm your host, Andrea Christenson, a partner at Penta, based in Washington DC, but I'm originally from a ranching family in Red Bluff, a small town in Northern California with a lot of cattle and a lot of almonds. That's why I'm so excited to be here today to talk to two really smart people on an emerging technology with benefits for farmers, ranchers and the land they use virtual fencing. First we have John Smout, the head of global market development at NoFence, the world's first commercial virtual fencing system for livestock. John has worked across the UK and Europe in dairy systems and livestock health and brings a fascinating perspective to the potential for virtual fencing.

We're also joined by John Weber, who, for clarity, will refer to as Weber for the podcast. He is a former staffer for the House Ag Committee, where he helped craft the 2018 Farm Bill, and now works as a principal at Monument Advocacy. Together, we'll unpack what virtual fencing is, how it's reshaping the agriculture industry and no fences growing rural in the US. So, John and Weber, thank you for being here today.

Thanks for having us.

All right, let's dive in. So, john, let's start with the basics. What is virtual fencing and how does it work?

Yes, great. So virtual fencing is a practice of grazing cattle, sheep and goats without the potential need for any physical fencing or any infrastructure on the land. So, integrally, the livestock wear a collar and then you put the animals that are wearing a collar into a training pasture and these animals interact with one virtual boundary. These animals interact with one virtual boundary. So what we're wanting these livestock animals to do is to use their ears instead of their eyes, so they're listening for an acoustic warning. So through the training period they make an approach to the virtual boundary and then the acoustic warning will go off. That acoustic warning goes up in pitch and then we want the animal to turn around.

Through the training period we will see the animal, some of the livestock will get a zap. So that zap is three kilovolts in strength, so it's about half the amount of electric fencing. And what we're looking to achieve is the collars to tell the farmer and the user when the livestock are ready to be put into a full virtually fenced pasture. So each animal has to make 20 positive approaches to that boundary before the system tells the livestock farmer that the animal has understood the system. They understand what the acoustic warning does and what it means and then can be virtually fenced on all sides and a farmer can draw a pasture in the no vents app and you can zoom really close in in the in the app to get precise location of where the the grazing area that farmer wants to put the animals in, and that's pretty much integrity. It's the app, the collars, the farmer, the animals and then you're ready to go.

So talk a little bit about how does that benefit the animals, how does it benefit the farmer? What are the benefits of shifting to this kind of a fencing?

There's so many so I'll try and touch on each point as briefly as I possibly can. But the first point I would say is the peace of mind for the farmer. So the system is locating and identifying where the animals are, and a lot of farmers are grazing animals in remote locations on hillsides and it takes a lot of time for that farmer to go up, try and locate and find where the animals are and then check on them. With our system they can easily know and find where the animals are and then the system is also alerting them to key critical incidents. So, for example, if an animal hasn't moved for four hours, a push notification is sent to the app and that alerts the farmer on that individual animal. You click on that notification, it takes you to the map and it shows you exactly where that animal is.

The next point I'd say is that there is a cost-saving element to this. Managed grazing through the grazing months can allow for ruminants to stay out longer on the land and this allows a cost-saving element. Where the animals are out longer, they're using more of the grass up and therefore farmers aren't needing to pay for expensive winter feed when they're housed in, there's a cost element to maintaining fencing, whereas in most instances, with farmers grazing livestock on the land, you don't actually need to have a physical fence, so that eliminates the maintenance or buying new fencing all the time. Also, you can move livestock through the app, so you just open up a boundary and this then allows the animals to move into a new pasture. You bring the back fence up and then that puts them into a new pasture, whereas traditionally farmers would need to employ somebody to go out, move electric fencing, and that electric fencing could need to be moved every 24 hours or 48 hours, and that's somebody's time and effort to do that through electric fencing. Also, the ability to open up land that can't otherwise be used at the moment, so it may not be able to be fenced, which means that through virtual fencing, you can put animals into an area, use that area for forage, which is free food for the animal, which is good for the farmer.

There's also succession planning, and this is a challenge on farms. Farmers are using more advanced technology to aid in their operations. This will bring more youngsters into the industry. No fences at all to help farmers become even more efficient in their operations, and our technology is not there to replace a human being or a farmer wanting to take on good quality staff. We're also monitoring animals' data and movement so that data is expressed to the farmer in real time, and this allows the farmer not just to keep an eye on what the animals are doing. And this allows the farmer not just to keep an eye on what the animals are doing, but he can or she can take a look at pasture utilization, where each animal is spending their time in pasture, and really optimize what forage is there to get that into the animals.

Yeah, some of these benefits really kind of resonate with me, like my sister and her family are a big ranching family and they lost a cow they couldn't find in the mountains last year and they're like well, maybe we'll find it next year, I don't know. But I imagine, weber, some of this resonates with you because, in addition to being a general DC ag expert, you are also from a farming and ranching background and so can you kind of talk about maybe how some of those benefits John just talked through what kind of resonates with you. What do you think US farmers and ranchers are going to think about when they hear about these benefits?

Yeah, thanks for that, because for me it was a bit personal. I remember one of the last things I did. I graduated South Dakota State University with a degree in animal science and the week between starting my career in Capitol Hill I spent cross-fencing a fish and wildlife pasture that had not been grazed and had a prescribed grazing plan, and spent a lot of time getting ticks while cross-fencing an electric fence across pastures that had to be moved. For specific, you know prescriptive grazing, which had tremendous benefit that we understood, obviously for the feed availability and also the conservation benefit. But you kind of thought to yourself there has to be a better way than sitting out here fencing portions that are going to be moved eight days later. And so that's when I heard about no fence and virtual fencing and started following. It really clicked to me of one, the practicality. But then when you take a step back it really overlaps really nicely with some of the consumer changes, but also just some of the changes in farming practices.

I think one the US is facing one of the lowest cow herd inventories we've seen in a long time.

Beef demand remains high In a post-COVID, health-conscious world. Consumers continue wanting to buy more beef and finding more ways to produce more on less land. Virtual fencing fits that. There's also been this tremendous push in precision agriculture, trying to do more with less and trying to add efficiency, while also, you know, pushing climate benefits of reducing inputs, reducing emissions, and that's something that's really easy to accomplish, or easier to accomplish with row crops, with technology for tractors. It's much more challenging when the thing that you're using to harvest the product in this case four-legged ruminant has a mind of its own that you can't move, and this virtual fencing and no fence has really kind of found a way to cross. You know, find the center of that Venn diagram of those issues that consumers care about, what the climate conscience crowd is looking for, as well as that third piece about domestic food security of how do you produce more with less here in this country, and it's been really exciting to explore all the possibilities.

Well, it really seems like a win-win thus far. But, john, why don't you tell us the story of NoFence and how it started and how it's looking at expanding in the?

US. Yeah, so no Fence was started by our founder called Oskar Hovde. So Oskar is an engineer by trade but was a part-time farmer with goats for many years. So he would graze his goats on really mountainous terrain. So Oskar would go up, try and find the goats, struggled to locate them, but also, more importantly, would find dead goats from past months or even years. So that reduction in herd number and the deaths of them goats made him think what can I do to help me help the goats? So with his engineering background he come up with a lot of different concepts, a lot of different colors to try and figure out how do you contain a goat and anyone who has got any goats will know that they're probably the hardest thing to keep into an area. So he come up with the idea of trying to use acoustic warning to keep animals in, specifically goats. He found that this was highly successful. Goats understood the acoustic warning very quickly. So goats take between five to 10 days, depending on breed, age, the sex variables, like that, age, the sex variables like that so quickly. That was used on the goats. The same collar was used on then sheep and it was also found that sheep responded very well to that and then for cattle.

There was a huge demand in Norway from cattle farmers to see if they could use this technology, so that was then borne out. So no Fence was born then in 2011 as a business and was selling widely in Norway. We then moved to the UK and started selling in the UK and then quickly opened Spain and Ireland, and now we've just opened the US properly in January of this year. In the US, we had 45 pilots for the last 18 months, where we've had staff looking after these pilots, checking in on them, what are the benefits, what needs to be improved. So we've done our due diligence with them 45 pilots. So we're now rapidly expanding in the US. So since January, we've added 250 additional customers to our inventory, which is fantastic, and we've had just under 6,000 inquiries that have come through specifically from the US. So I think the demand is there, the interest is there for the products and the technology, and it's about servicing them customers now and understanding how they graze, what issues are they facing and where does this tech fit into their operation.

Yeah Well, first, congratulations on the growth. Second, I imagine that the female goats get the things much faster than the male goats.

Of course yes.

Yes. But so one thing when I think about this in U? S is there are just huge swaths of land. I mean, my parents just got cell service and it is only Verizon, so I have AT&T, so I still don't get cell service at my parents' house. So when you think about how these work in a kind of low cell service coverage environment in some of these rural and mountainous areas in the US, how should people think about that? And then, second, is there a story of a US user that you think has been really powerful that you can share, on how they've implemented virtual fencing?

Yeah, firstly on the coverage. So when farmers reach out to us, coverage is a question that we ask and we dive into quite deeply. Coverage isn't widespread, certainly in rural areas. Rural areas have sort of been left behind in terms of that aspect of technology. So we want to understand how often they're moving animals, which means how often are they going to open binderies, how often are they going to interact with the collet. That gives us a good understanding of what type of coverage in terms of good, average or poor is acceptable for that usage of collet.

We look for good coverage because most farmers want to interact, they want to get real-time data from their animals, which is why they bought into the system so integrally. Most areas in the US will have black spots and small areas of connectivity. That is not there, which is fine. We can work with that, because an animal will walk into that area. They won't get some updates for maybe 30 minutes, 45 minutes, however long the animal's in that area, but when they walk out, all the data is stored in the collar and will be sent back to the app Integrally.

If there's no connectivity, the animal makes an approach to the Boundary, they still get that acoustic warning and they still get that zap but it means that all that data isn't sent back to the user, so they're buying into half a system. So we look for good connectivity as much as possible and we believe that our system without the need of a base station is really important because that builds into flexibility of the system. Farms change, so herd and flock numbers change and fluctuate. Some farmers then leave livestock farming and go more into arable or into more areas. That means that that system can be sold anywhere in the US and they get a return on investment by selling the system.

One thing I might add to that that's been really interesting is farmers always trust but verify and are always reluctant for anything in new change. It's a slow, methodical process as they change their operations. The great part about that is, as you mentioned, the infrastructure is there, so you can try a few collars. We found that, as we've been working around, is that's been well-received by both producers and policy makers that you're not having to go all in on one technology.

You can try it, verify it and see how it fits best to the operation. And we actively encourage that because I think it's important that if farmers can break away a selection of their flock or herd and graze them 10, 20 of them with virtual fencing, they really get a feel and a flavor of what virtual fencing is, the flexibility of it and what is the true cost saver for them. Is it labor? Is it checking on animals? Is it the fact that they get a push notification? Come through All these things. We inform them and tell them, but there's nothing like try before you properly buy.

Yeah, and Weber, one question for you. You know being in DC and talking to policymakers and others about sort of adoption of new technologies. How are policymakers thinking about virtual fencing? How does this fit into the broader conversation? You mentioned precision agriculture. You mentioned kind of climate aspects. Climate aspects my sister was saying that this test that her family is running is trying to keep the cows away from goat grass and to enable certain types of environments to continue to thrive, and so can you talk a little bit about how policymakers in DC are thinking about that balance?

Yeah, I think absolutely, and I think what they're viewing it as a new, innovative tool in the toolbox Policymakers always look at how do we do things in a voluntary way, incentive based, in a way that you know fits multiple resource concerns for conservation and fortunately no fence fits that, that bucket really nicely.

You know, fencing and rotational grazing have really been kind of a bedrock practice for conservation and, I think, one that's had a really great success story over the years, but one where there's still a lot of acres to be covered and a lot of those acres to be covered are in the areas that are more challenging defense, frankly. So I think, as you know, we've been bringing this to policymakers. They really thought about it as kind of a common sense item. Obviously there's the questions about understanding anything that's new technology, but as they look at the landscape, it's something that helps us get to a place where I think everyone knows we need to get to. We just didn't have the tech to be able to do it today. But I think the understanding of the benefits of conservation grazing, obviously from a wildlife perspective, soil health perspective, wildlife production perspective and ability to do more with less seems to have be understood and there really seems to be a really solid baseline knowledge there on that piece.

Yeah, and what I'd like to get back to is how US users are using virtual fencing. You had a great story about the goats and the grazing challenges in Norway, but how are you seeing customers in the US use this right now?

Yeah, so it's spread over quite a large differential in how farmers graze from commercial farmers, farmers wanting to utilize this for habitat management. So one example, or multiple examples I can give you is California, where farmers are buying our virtual fencing technology to graze areas that provide fire breaks, and obviously I think it was last year where there was some really terrible fires that were raging in California.

It's kind of every year, but yes, yes, yeah, but also other states.

California was obviously on the news, but there's a lot of states in the US that are in drought at the moment and it's a tinderbox. So if animals can play their part and farmers play their part in creating grazing areas and create them, fire breaks. It means that a fire starts up. It can be contained in a very small area, but it's also a benefit to the farmer and the livestock, whether that's cattle, sheep or goat that's grazing that area because it's free feed. It's opening up that land that couldn't otherwise be used, because most of these areas again couldn't be fenced. So there's a win-win there for everybody, from the farmer to society as a whole.

Yeah, that's such a great example because it's using kind of nature to protect nature in a big way, so it's really cool. All right, coming back to the policymaker point, for any farmers and ranchers listening to this, are there particular policies or programs, either existing or on the horizon, that could accelerate the adoption of this technology?

Yeah, absolutely, and fortunately they're wildly popular.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program, commonly known as the EQIP Program, is kind of the bedrock cost share program for, as I always say, producers that want to do and try to do the right thing but they want to look for a partner in that to de-risk it in case it doesn't work and fit their operation.

So what that program does is you apply through your local NRCS office through a conservation plan saying I would like to do a prescribed grazing plan that involves fencing on these acres, prescribed grazing plan that involves fencing on these acres, and then USDA, through NRCS, provides a cost share for the upfront costs and the capital investment for collars or fencing or physical infrastructure to be able to accomplish those goals. Fortunately, we've seen a lot of interest from the grassroots and in virtual fencing, as producers are wanting to participate in these programs but wanting innovative ways to do that. So we're seeing well over 10 states now with approved virtual fencing practice standards and the ability to write contracts to cost share virtual fencing. We're really anticipating that growing really drastically for next fall as those application seasons start and really not seeing a lot of resistance in this and a lot of interest from the producer side of things as much as other places going forward.

I think I would just add into that that, with my role covering so many different countries and continents, the US has certainly quickly viewed virtual fencing, assessed it and I think correct me if I'm wrong there's 11 states that have taken on the practice, and so there's certainly more to do from our side in education. But when you make a comparison to some other countries and governments and there's a lot of pressure on the finances all the time but fundamentally the US has taken this technology a bit by the scruff of the neck and is going to really utilize it, and I see and speak to a lot of people in the US government organizations that really see the benefit and I can only see this moving forward at a rapid pace.

And even thinking to this week, you know we've seen several iterations of farm bills and reconciliation packages and major investments from Congress of both parties in conservation, and we've seen the EQIP program continually receive investment from both parties, when it's been single party bills, when it's been bipartisan bills, on both sides, and the demand remains strong. At the end of the day, I think US farmers and ranchers absolutely want to do the right thing. They want to embrace technology and make these investments. I think US farmers and ranchers absolutely want to do the right thing. They want to embrace technology and make these investments. It's just de-risking that first little step so that they can take that jump and order some collars, try it out on the first paddock and build it out from there, and the ability to scale to really implement it across the landscape.

And this for me commercial farming can and should work in partnership with the environments and the land. Farmers are the stewards of the land. They want to do the best, they want to hand that farm and that land and the environment to their children and they want to look after that. But farmers want to make a profit. Farmers want to be more efficient and there's a lot of technology, for example, on the dairy side, but I feel that no Fence as a business is one of the first businesses that are really driving technology towards beef, sheep and goat farmers to allow them to be more efficient and allow them to get the most out of the land while still protecting that land, and I think that's a key feature of what we can offer, and I think that the US, in their approach I think that's how they see that too- Absolutely, and earlier you mentioned something about this potentially helping more young people get interested and engaged in farming and ranching.

Have you seen that? Can you talk about that a little bit more?

Yeah, so certainly in the UK there's farmers, sons and daughters that want to take over the farm, but they see their parents put a lot of hours in a week, maybe not have a life. They don't go out that much. Their life is the farm, tending to the animals, and I don't think that will change with farmers, even young farmers or people coming into the industry. Fundamentally they want to look after livestock and the land, but I think these days youngsters want to be able to farm, but with tools that enable them to do that more effectively, efficiently and allow them to also have a life like their peers that are not in farming. And we see that in the UK that adopting technology, not just no fence, allows them to come in and take on the role of that farm.

Awesome, and Weber, are you seeing any of this?

We're seeing that. I think the data says it and then the anecdotes say it. You know USDA does surveys and you know the average cow herd is quite small in the US and a lot of those cow herds are part time farming and it's kind of the first step into farming. A lot of beginning farmers look at the capital cost of row crops or anything else and it's astounding and daunting. But livestock really offers that opportunity to start. With 20, 40 cows on the side, when you have fewer numbers, you're looking for better margins and greater efficiency and a lot of those same farmers, either first generation or new entries in there, have day jobs and they have to have healthcare and they have to have kind of a steady income as a hedge and this allows them technology to, you know again, have a foot in both places at the same time.

Well and better protect their investment and understand the health of the animal, which I think is really important. That that's a that's a benefit of this of the animal, which I think is really important. That's a benefit of this. So I want to be mindful of time here. John, let me ask you this what do you think are the biggest barriers for the technology and what's next for NoFence as it continues to innovate here?

Yeah, I think that's a really good question and I would pinpoint two areas. I think we've already touched on funding for farmers through different schemes globally, especially the US NRCS as one direct route, or organisations to help them fund. They want to be able to have a business and farming is a business. It is there to try and make money for the next generation and to invest in that business and that's what we're asking farmers to do in a no-fence product, to invest in the technology. And I think the funding aspect and the grants that are available I think need to be more wide-scoping. As we've touched on before, the farmers really want to do the best for the land and that funding sort of skews towards the positive that they can make. But I just wonder if there's a bigger picture here when it comes to funding, how farms are funded and where they spend that money. They may not be using funding directly from organisations or government. They might be using their own money and that's an important aspect that we're asking them to use that money to invest in no offence, for the sustainability of that farm and business.

But farmers are not millionaires generally Most of them they don't have a lot of money spare. So when they do spend money, it has really got to make a return on investment for them and make a high impact for their business. And then I think from our side as a business, it's providing that awareness and education element. So virtual fencing sounds like a wacky idea, right? If you speak to a consumer that isn't in farming, they will go what is this? This sounds absolutely nuts, but we have sold over 150,000 collars in countries where we're operational and I think that's testament to farmers that they adopt new technology technology. But we've got far more to do on the engagement and awareness side through governments and organizations, to really show the benefit of what this system can bring.

Yeah, absolutely well. Thank you so much, both of you for being here to our listeners. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, and follow us on x at pentagroup, on LinkedIn. At Penta Group, I'm your host, Andrea Christenson. As always, thank you for tuning in to What's at Stake.