AgriTech pilot shows labor, environmental gains from virtual fencing but flags cell-service and cost barriers

Dan Smith, executive director of the AgriTech Institute, presented results of a two-year pilot of GPS-based virtual fencing to a legislative committee, describing trials on Vermont cattle and goat farms and with utilities that manage power-line vegetation.

The pilot, funded in part by a $150,000 legislative appropriation routed through VHCV and complemented by contributions from the Dairy Business Innovation Center and other local foundations, tested collar-mounted GPS units controlled by a phone app to set movable pasture boundaries, presenters said.

The technology uses a phone app to draw fence boundaries; animals wear collars that produce an audio warning as they near a line and an electrical stimulus if they cross it. "It's kind of like the invisible fence for dogs," Smith said, adding the collars communicate location by GPS after they are loaded.

Kristen Doolin, owner of Doseley Farm in Bakersfield, described putting the system on a 50-goat dairy herd starting mid-July and said, "suddenly our milk production jumped up into, like, 12–13% improvement in milk production." Doolin said that access to browse and wooded forage previously too labor-intensive to fence by hand was the major reason for the increase and that the system helped keep goats in place more reliably than prior net fencing.

Ben Nader of Sun Valley Farm in Hardwick, who ran collars on a cohort of beef cattle, said animals adapted within days and that a benefit of the mobile boundary was reduced soil damage during a July 2023 flood: "we were physically cut off from this group of cattle for four days… With this, I was able to keep advancing their frontline… and lessen impact on the heavily saturated soil."

Jackie Pratt, general manager of the Stowe Electric Department, described a one-mile pilot under a sub-transmission line that served mountain tourism destinations. Pratt said the goats reduced understory growth and that the best utility application may be using goats as a preventive measure on recently cleared corridors rather than primary removal for heavily overgrown sections.

Presenters and participants listed recurring benefits: labor savings from not setting physical temporary fences (Ben and others estimated roughly 45 minutes to an hour saved per daily move); targeted exclusion of sensitive wet or riparian areas via app-drawn zones; and potential environmental gains from keeping animals out of streamside zones. Smith summarized a typical payback window of two to three years where farms have significant labor costs or high-value milk production.

Speakers also identified several barriers to broader deployment. Multiple presenters said collars require cell service to load new fence boundaries onto devices; once loaded, collars use GPS and do not need cell coverage, but poor cell reception slowed or blocked collar programming and real-time app tracking. "It only loading onto the collars requires cell service," Doolin said, and added that on some occasions she had to walk to the herd and use Bluetooth to remove collars because the cell network was too slow to act remotely.

Battery life and electronic reliability were also noted. Ben and others reported intermittent battery problems in earlier units and said manufacturers are releasing shielded batteries; collars include chargers and a small solar panel but moving animals frequently increases power draw. Cost was another impediment: presenters gave approximate equipment prices ranging from about $250 per collar up to $300–$325 for larger collars, plus subscription fees (Doolin cited roughly $1,000 per herd annually) and chargers. Nader and others calculated that labor and production gains could pay back equipment costs in a few years on many farms.

Predator risk and night-time security were discussed particularly for dairy operations. Doolin said she would not leave dairy goats out overnight without a livestock guardian dog and that farms often pair virtual fencing with perimeter high-tensile fences or guardian animals to reduce losses to coyotes.

On utility uses, Pratt said goats are less effective on large, woody vegetation and may be best deployed for preventive maintenance on recently cleared corridors rather than as a primary removal method for heavily overgrown transmission rights-of-way. Pratt described community interest in goat projects but noted the need to coordinate public access during working periods.

Smith said the AgriTech Institute is working to expand the pilot, restructure agreements with participating utilities and pursue financing options such as a revolving loan fund to reduce upfront costs for farmers. He invited the committee to consider future updates once those plans are developed.

The meeting included questions from committee members about service providers, battery and charging logistics, and whether the companies producing the collars have longer track records abroad. Presenters said the vendor tested has operated in Europe for roughly a decade and that European deployments informed current designs.

The presentation combined first-hand farmer experience with utility and institute perspectives and left several open items for follow-up: improving cell or Bluetooth-based collar provisioning, clarifying long-term costs and financing pathways for farmers, and testing optimal utility deployment models.