Innovation and technology

All divisions of the poultry complex are equipped with modern equipment from leading European and American manufacturers to ensure the most comfortable and efficient keeping of poultry. All production processes are automated as much as possible, with minimal human intervention: for example, two operators work in each feeding unit to regulate the feed, water supply, and temperature and humidity level in the unit.

The production halls are equipped with adjustable energy-saving lighting with different light levels and light spectra. In addition, a light barrier has been installed, which makes it possible to raise the poultry under various light conditions. The microclimate in the production halls is regulated by Fancom computers with the parameters set in them for poultry keeping, according to the recommendations for the COBB cross. The air in the production facilities is humidified by a fine mist of water, using nozzles, through a Lubing high-pressure pump. Heating is zoned by temperature sensors - gas generators, manufactured by the Dutch company ESTEL.

The evaporative cooling technology "Pad Cooling" is used in production facilities with high outside temperatures. Such a system is already in operation in production halls housing rearing flocks and parent stock. The operating principle is based on the fact that the hot outside air entering the poultry house passes through a cassette consisting of corrugated cellulose paper sheets with different corrugation angles, over which cold water flows. Part of the water evaporates and the remaining one acts as a rinse for the cooling cassette and is discharged back to the pumping station via the recirculation system. In this way, the air exiting the cassette is moistened and cooled at the same time. The special impregnation technology creates a strong, durable cassette structure that is protected against rotting and destruction. Heat exchange with water lowers the air temperature by 7-12°C, which then passes through the poultry yard in the tunnel ventilation system, effectively removing heat from the poultry.

Thanks to the unique feed formulation and the correct housing and feeding technology developed at the company, chickens achieve a weight gain of 62 grams per day, the highest in the industry. The feed consists exclusively of natural ingredients, as well as whole grains, vitamin complexes and vegetable oils.
The poultry are fed using the feeding lines of "Roxell", the world's leading manufacturer of automated feeding and watering systems for industrial poultry farming. The poultry are watered via nipple bowl drinkers with water pressure regulators.

The company uses the technology of rapid or shock freezing of products. Compared to the traditional method, this technology makes it possible to freeze products in a short time to a temperature of -18C. During such freezing, ice crystals are formed at a much smaller size and almost simultaneously in the cell and intercellular septa (cells remain undamaged). As a consequence, the structure of the tissues remains virtually unchanged. This keeps the product fresh and avoids water release when defrosting the meat. 

The company uses vacuum packaging and packaging in a gas-protective environment, which extends the shelf life and preserves the taste of products. At the same time, the product is attractively packaged and has its original appearance throughout its shelf life due to the lack of moisture exchange.

Chelny-Broiler LLC has acquired one of the innovations in global practice: a product packaging machine: carcass in vacuum. This technology eliminates operator contact with the product during packaging due to the absence of cross-contamination. The vacuum also prevents the growth of micro-organisms that live in an oxygenated environment - thus doubling the shelf life of the product. The packaging of the dressed carcass technology also aims to produce a safe and fresh product with maximum shelf life - it is a product in a gas environment. This technology removes oxygen from the packaging.

All agricultural companies are actively working to improve the breed qualities of cattle by using frozen semen of bulls with maternal cow productivity of at least 8,000 litres of milk per lactation. To this end, agricultural companies cooperate with breeding companies that provide artificial insemination points of farms and complexes with high-quality bull semen of American and domestic breeding stock, as well as consumables.

The agricultural companies have adopted European insemination technology. Artificial insemination coverage of breeding stock is over 70%. High-quality breeding stock is purchased.

Training for livestock breeders and reproduction technologists is provided on a regular basis with the involvement of specialists from leading breeding companies and livestock breeding organizations. The dairy farms have personal computers equipped with the latest CELEX and Alpro system software to keep breeding records.

In order to organize veterinary and sanitary and therapeutic and preventive measures in cattle breeding and livestock production, the holding company has established a veterinary service structure that works closely with the Federal State Institution Tatar Interregional Veterinary Laboratory, Biofram Company LLC and the district state veterinary associations.

Its main task is to organize and carry out measures to prevent animal diseases and fatalities, the purpose of which is to increase the number of livestock and its productivity, to provide the population with high-quality livestock products with the least amount of labor and money.

Veterinary activities on dairy complexes are carried out by veterinarians and veterinary treatment operators for animals and premises. The veterinary service at each dairy complex has its own material and technical base. Specialists are equipped with all the necessary equipment and the latest veterinary drugs for the prevention and treatment of cattle. A range of measures to eliminate cattle leukaemia is implemented in the agricultural holding company. Each complex has an equipped bio-thermal pit for the disposal of biological waste.

The holding company established hoof treatment and rectal examination teams with ultrasound scanners for cows and heifers, which increased the efficiency of livestock breeding by reducing culling and service period. A method of diagnosing blood sugar and ketone bodies in dry and newborn cows has been developed and implemented. Veterinary practitioners have also introduced refractometers - devices for determining immune bodies in the blood of newborn calves - into active use on farms.

The holding company uses the latest immunoprophylaxis schemes from birth to adult livestock.

The transition to modern feeding systems is profitable by increasing milk productivity, improving animal health and reproduction, as well as reducing feed wastage.

The livestock's own fodder supply is provided by the harvesting of rough and succulent grasses. Technological processes are mainly carried out using equipment from leading global manufacturers. High technical equipment, harvesting of fodder grasses in optimal time allows preparing high quality fodder in large volumes.

The use of premixes and feed additives is widespread in agricultural companies and has increased the marketability of milk to 96-98%. The use of premixes makes the rations of cows and young cattle more nutritious. Fodder quality is analyzed by the farms in the production laboratory, which allows feed rations to be calculated according to their actual nutritional content.

Improving genetic potential is implemented in accordance with the approved genetic plan, with the involvement of the world's leading genetic companies - Genex and WWS. By investing in innovation, the cattle farms have achieved new quality indicators. In particular, the average daily weight gain of young cattle increased by 40 grams, which makes it possible to reduce the breeding period of heifers for reproduction by 15 days. On a Holding scale, this factor has a great economic effect. Innovations in feeding and keeping allow the genetic potential of the animals to be realized and to increase the average annual cow productivity by 350 liters at the end of the year.

Big data obtained through the digitalization of production makes it possible to find reserves for increasing cost efficiency and provides analytical data on consumer preferences. Agrosila's JSC livestock breeding division has five such projects in active implementation:

•  Power BI (Business Intelligence system)
•  Dairy Production Analytics, which allows real-time access to up-to-date data, analysis and monitoring of key indicators, timely notification of deviations, and reliable forecasts.
•   CELEX, which allows you to create a closed cycle of information processing for cattle on the farm.
•  Dairy feeder, managing the feeding process.
•  Dairy Comp, responsible for herd management.
   

The digital concept, like the livestock sector in general, is about moving from quantity to quality, by concentrating livestock and increasing productivity while reducing costs. For example, the implementation of Dairy Production analytic (Artificial Intelligence) allowed for real-time access to up-to-date data, analysis and monitoring of key indicators, timely notification of deviations and reliable forecasts. AGROSILA specialists monitor the condition of animals through digital projects. Non-contact sensors enable monitoring processes that affect milk production: controlling the animal's condition (motility, sex drive, calving, watering, feed intake and thermometry), and monitoring the herd (reproduction, disease, attrition and identification of underproductive cows for culling).

The seed plant is a new step in the development of the holding company's crop production. Agricultural company Kama LLC's seed plant is the largest seed plant in Russia. The capacity of the unique seed plant reaches 40 tons of grain per hour in calibration. The main types of products produced by the company are original, elite and first reproduction seeds of grain and leguminous crops.

The seed plant provides the holding's agricultural companies with high-quality seeds and improves the quality of their products while reducing production costs through the use of modern, advanced technology, which allows for the proper selection of varieties adapted to a particular farming area through competitive varietal testing. At the same time, the yield of grain crops increases by 5-7 cwt / ha. The company has its own variety-testing fields, where more than 100 types of promising varieties are tested.

The no-till technology eliminates the use of the plough, which destroys soil structure and leads to soil erosion, reduced biohumus levels and, consequently, lower fertility. Instead, disc harrows, different types of cultivators, deepeners that improve soil structure and wide-cutting equipment are used to reduce the number of passes over the field and thus reduce costs per hectare of cultivated area. Simultaneously with cultivation, sowing is done in one pass, which also reduces the cost per hectare. This technology allows for proper crop rotation with the use of green manure crops (rapeseed, colza). This reduces the use of mineral fertilizers and crop protection products and improves soil fertility.

For high yields, farmers use fractional applications of nitrogen fertilizers, foliar fertilizers, and differential fertilizer application based on the results of agrochemical soil surveys. A large-scale biologization of lands with the help of microbiological preparations and organic fertilizers, using a system of grassland crop rotation, as well as the most modern grain harvesting equipment, is carried out.

AGROSILA was one of the first companies in Russia to introduce innovative precision farming technology. Investments in differentiated fertilizer application based on the results of agrochemical soil survey amounted to 3.2 million rubles. The project has already ensured:

- reduction of fertilizer costs by not applying fertilizer in areas of the field with sufficient availability (for example, in field 42008, with an area of 153 ha, an economic effect of 480,000 rubles excluding VAT was obtained by reducing the amount of ammophos applied);
- higher yields through optimum use of fertilizers.
In the future, deeper integration with machinery is planned, including online interaction, remote data exchange for downloading application maps and uploading application results.

The crop production division makes extensive use of business intelligence, which allows it to generate reports, see regularly updated information, and make interactive reports with indicators such as crop yields, report on crop refinancing rate, cost structure of crops cultivated, and so on. Farmers use aerial photos, digitization of fields. Specialists have made electronic maps of the fields, which have a sufficiently high level of detail with the allocation of uncultivated areas (buildings, woodlands and bushes, wetlands, ravines, etc.). This gave the holding data on the actual cultivated area of each plot. As a result:

- the time required to prepare and update maps has been reduced;
- the basis for further implementation of precision farming technologies and use in other systems (business intelligence, machinery monitoring and accounting system) has been created;
- it is now possible to create thematic maps with a clear representation of the data and the necessary analytics (crop rotation, agrochemical soil analysis data, UAV overflight results, NDVI index, crop yields, etc.);
Used in crop production and IOT (Internet of Things). The implementation of the project has already minimized the workload of the staff in charge of the monitoring function thanks to the automatic data processing mechanisms that have been developed. Monitoring is carried out remotely by the monitoring centre. As a result of the system implementation, the following results have been achieved:

- a mechanism for monitoring the operation of grain harvesting equipment during the harvesting campaign has been implemented, over 250 harvesters are being monitored (including unloading of grain) by just one staff member;
- monitoring the speed of machinery during agricultural operations;
- calculation of the cultivated area based on the machine's activation data;
- automatic detection of work in "foreign" areas.
Future plans include deeper integration with machinery, receiving machine data via ISOBUS and transmitting it remotely, and using machine learning technology to move towards fully automatic control.

AGROSILA Holding is one of the first companies in Russia to introduce the innovative Amity sugar beet cultivation, processing and harvesting technology. The main advantage of the new technology is the ability to take advantage of rather harsh climatic conditions. The difference with this technology is that the row spacing in the crops is 56 cm instead of 45 cm. The weeds are eliminated mechanically and herbicides are only applied to the crop rows. This reduces costs and the pesticide load, resulting in cleaner fields. And the sugar content of the root crop increases due to spot application of liquid fertilizers and leaf dressing. In total, the new system increases the harvesting rate by 24%.

To implement the project, Amity Technology's state-of-the-art, high-capacity agricultural machinery was purchased to help reduce costs and increase yields. Foreign specialists were invited to train the employees of the holding.

In order to increase the storage time of sugar beet, the holding has created a state-of-the-art system of pile fields. Innovative industrial cooling and ventilation equipment has been installed at the Zainskiy Sugar factory. With the new technology, the beet storage period is increased from 4 to 6 months. This system thus makes it possible to unify technological processes, as well as to minimize losses during storage of root crops almost twice.