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AI in a Pig Barn Housing 80 Million Pigs, and Sheep Grazing Under Solar Panels – This Week's Roundup
This week in agtech takes us on a journey between two ends of the world: a Chinese pork giant shows how artificial intelligence can manage production on a scale Europe has yet to see, while American farmers prove that sheep and solar panels can work for each other's benefit. We take a look at what smaller Polish farms can learn from these two stories.
01 · AI in Livestock Farming
How Chinese giant Muyuan uses AI to manage the world's largest pig herd [1]
Muyuan Group is today the world's largest pork producer – the company raises more than 80 million pigs a year, a number that makes European farms look like backyard pig pens. To manage this scale, Muyuan has turned to artificial intelligence supported by 3.3 million smart devices that collect as many as 2 billion data points every day.
What does this mean in practice? The system makes it possible to detect diseases in animals earlier, before they become a problem for the whole herd, optimizes feed dosing and energy use, and reduces the need for antibiotics along the way. The company's CEO doesn't hide his ambitions – within the next 3-5 years, AI is set to connect the entire production platform into one unified management system covering every stage of production.
This is, of course, a scale beyond the reach of an average farm, but the direction is clear: real-time animal health monitoring, automated feeding, and predictive detection of health problems are technologies that are gradually making their way into smaller operations too. Today it's inspiration from China – tomorrow it could be the standard in European livestock farming.
02 · Agrivoltaics
Sheep under solar panels – how agrivoltaics combines livestock farming with renewable energy [2]
From a tech giant we move to American solar farms, where innovation looks completely different – and is far more pastoral. As many as one in ten solar farms in the US already uses sheep grazing between rows of photovoltaic panels as part of agrivoltaics.
The benefits are shared by everyone involved. The sheep get shade and access to feed right beneath the installation, crops grown under the panels are protected from harsh weather and benefit from higher humidity, and the panels themselves work more efficiently – cooled by the transpiration of the plants growing around them. It's a model in which livestock farming, agriculture, and renewable energy work together rather than side by side.
Despite all these advantages, agrivoltaics is still a niche – it accounts for less than 1% of global solar installation capacity, or around 18.4 GW. This shows the enormous room for growth, and a solution that works in the US could just as well find its place in Poland, where solar farms are expanding at an ever-faster pace, and grazing under panels could replace costly grass mowing.
Summary
Summary
From mega-scale automation in Chinese pig barns to sheep working hand in hand with solar panels – this week shows that innovation in livestock farming takes many different forms, but always points in the same direction: more efficient, cheaper, and more sustainable. If you'd like to see live the solutions that can already be implemented on Polish farms today – from animal health monitoring systems to installations that combine livestock farming with renewable energy – join us at the Agro FARMA Expo – Trade Fair for Livestock Farming Technology and Equipment.
Invitation
From smart sensors monitoring herd health to installations combining animal grazing with solar energy – you'll see these solutions live at Agro FARMA Expo. It's the place where farmers, technology suppliers, and renewable energy experts meet to talk about the future of Polish livestock farming. Come see how modern technologies can work on your farm today.
Agro FARMA Expo 2026Footnotes
[1] AgNavigator — https://www.agnavigator.com/Article/2026/09/23/how-pork-giant-muyuan-group-deploys-ai-to-manage-the-worlds-largest-pig-herd/[2] Tempo.co (za DW) — https://en.tempo.co/read/2120364/why-farmers-are-pairing-crops-with-solar-panels