Idele

The French Livestock Institute (acronymIDELE) is the French national technical reference and normative body in livestock farming systems. It is a non-profit, non-governmental organization featuring management bylivestock farmer’s federations and trade unions. Its activities encompass applied research, technical assistance, advisory services and technology transfer in cattle, sheep, goats and horses husbandry sciences. It employs 300 people and its yearly turnover is in the range of M€ 24-26. The main research topics are genetic evaluation, population management and selection, phenotyping and data collection, management of observatories of breeds, animal husbandry techniques and environment including fodder and pastoralism, quality of animal products, animal health and welfare, precision livestock farming, farm economics, value chain economics, farm workmanship and social approaches, methods and tools for references and advisory services. Based on its strong expertise on the livestock sector in France and EU, Idele plays a central role for the digital transformation of the whole ruminant value chain, by: Catching end-user needs. All Idele activities are livestock stakeholders driven. Idele is constantly in relation with all actors of the value chain and organises regular focus groups and surveys to catch and prioritise farmers and stakeholders needs. Thus, Idele is able to provide support to SMEs with their digital orientation. Prototyping digital solutions. To address the needs of end-users, Idele is also able to set prototypes or to detail prototype specifications for SMEs. Test and validation. Thanks to its experimental farms, Idele supports SMEs in the testing and validation of their digital solutions in real environment. Demonstration. Thanks to its national and EU networks, Idele participates to the demonstration phase of digital solutions through field implementation in different environments (different rearing systems, different breeds, different pedoclimatic conditions, …). This step is critical and essential to tailor digital solutions to the reality of the field and to facilitate SMEs digital transformation. Extension and communication. Idele act as a booster for the extension and communication of adapted digital solutions for the livestock sectors, thanks to the on-field demonstration, training, open days, shows, social media, website, video channel… Those, Idele plays a central role to accelerate the digital transformation of the ruminant sector. Since 2017, Idele has been mandated in France by all livestock farmers organisations (grouped into the Confédération Nationale de l’Elevage) to act as a hub and an activator to boost the digital transformation of the livestock sector (Sm@rt Elevage program funded by CNE). Since 2017, Idele has been mandated in France by all livestock farmers organisations (grouped into the Confédération Nationale de l’Elevage) to act as a hub and an activator to boost the digital transformation of the livestock sector (Sm@rt Elevage program funded by CNE). Keywords: Livestock