a man holds a cell phone camera up to a cow's ear tag

Data-Driven Farming Solutions

Cornell Agricultural Systems Testbed and Demonstration Site (CAST) for the Farm of the Future

The Farm of the Future Is Now

The Cornell Agricultural Systems Testbed and Demonstration Site (CAST) for the Farm of the Future advances data-driven solutions for smart agriculture. Working with farm and industry partners, we are developing an ecosystem of networked technologies and techniques to meet the needs of 21st-century farms.

CAST includes three real-world, commercial-scale farms that together form an advanced hub for research, extension and education. We focus on field crops and dairy production as models for the US agricultural economy. Among the largest agricultural sectors, they also offer some of the greatest challenges and opportunities for technology implementation, improving efficiencies and fostering climate resiliency.

a drone's eye view of a farm
Play At Cornell CAST, the Farm of the Future Is Now

Learn about CAST

CAST gives multidisciplinary research teams a place to come together to share ideas and try out new technologies and management practices. Watch and learn how.

Our Mission

We aim to accelerate a smart agricultural transformation with data-driven technologies and management practices through innovation, collaboration and education.

a woman holds a bolus and looks at data on a phone
Research

Our research demonstrates the value of integrating existing and emerging data-driven technologies and practices under commercial-farm-like conditions.

a woman talks to people on a farm
Outreach

Through engagement with farmers, industry professionals and other stakeholders, we are actively involved in knowledge transfer, education and training.

a student looks through microscope in classroom
Education

Our educational efforts focus on experiential learning—creating, touching, doing, interacting, evaluating and reflecting, with CAST as a living classroom.

a man looks at a cluster of golden mirrors inside a sensor
a man uses a laptop to look at data from a piece of tech in a farm shed
a man looks at a gas sensor set up by a manure pit

Technology Highlight

MyCow$

An automated dairy management support tool that calculates real-time cash flow for individual cows and groups of cows.

Currently, there’s no efficient way for farms to track and understand the contribution of any individual cow to the farm’s bottom line. The MyCow$ tool can change that. 

Daily, for each cow, MyCow$ integrates data such as milk yield and body weight and retrieves management data, such as calvings and health interventions. Then it applies appropriate values to any sources of income and appropriate costs to any expenses based on farm-specific values entered by the user at set up, calculating a cow’s real-time cash flow. With this information, farmers can make informed decisions as they manage the herd.

MyCow$ is being developed and tested on the CAST farm in real-world conditions.

a woman points out data on a screen to a man
Photo by Jackie Swift.

Connect with us

News

Louis Longchamps speaking to a group of people at a farm

News

Louis Longchamps’ lab brings scientific tools to farmer-led experimentation
Growers routinely conduct their own on-farm experiments, testing different seeds and management strategies to improve yields and long-term sustainability. But most growers don’t have the time, resources or expertise that scientists have to fully...
  • Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Soil and Crop Sciences Section
a woman points out data on a screen to a man

Field Note

Angela George: Discovering how much that cow contributes to the bottom line
Angela George MS’26 is a masters student in the Animal Science Department and a researcher in the Dairy Cattle Biology and Management laboratory led by Julio Giordano , professor of dairy cattle biology and management. Giordano is also director...
  • PRO-DAIRY
  • Animal Science
  • Digital Agriculture
two men and a woman sit at a table talking with a schematic of farm and data on a view screen next to them

News

Building a farm data and analytics platform that keeps things private
by Jackie Swift Farms generate huge amounts of data. A dairy farm in the United States, for instance, will typically produce data that tracks herd health and breeding, and milk production and quality, for a start. If the farm also grows its own...
  • PRO-DAIRY
  • PRO-LIVESTOCK
  • Animal Science
a man crouches in front of a line of dairy cows

Field Note

Refining RuFaS: Predictions are only as good as the data behind them
Haowen Hu PhD'26 is a doctoral student in the Animal Science Department working under the supervision of Kristan Reed, former Animal Science faculty member and the scientific director of the RuFaS project. His main research focuses on the...
  • PRO-DAIRY
  • Animal Science
  • Digital Agriculture
Julio Giordano, professor of animal science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, shows dairy industry leaders a collar that can track cows' food intake, at the Cornell University Ruminant Center on June 30.

News

‘Farm of the Future’ showcased at Cornell PRO-DAIRY celebration

On June 30, dairy industry leaders from New York state toured the Cornell University Ruminant Center, a one-of-a-kind testbed for new technologies and strategies and a crucial resource for the state's dairy farmers.

  • PRO-DAIRY
  • Animal Science
  • Animals
three logos for NIFA, CIDA, and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff

CAST for the Farm of the Future research is supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative grant no. 2023-77038-38865 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.