On-demand: Webinar on Advanced Pig Farming

With pig farmers now working within a new era of technology it is interesting to see how the digital revolution can help make their businesses more efficient with smartphones, drones and sensors.

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How technology can make pig farming more efficient

First up on November 16, 2020, was Aidan Connolly, president, AgriTech Capital, who discussed the topic ‘Imagining a Digital Future for Precision Pork Production.’ Connolly said whilst pork was the highest consumed meat in the world the industry was facing a number of environmental challenges in the future with diseases at the top of the list. In order to meet these challenges, Connolly highlighted how technology could make pig farming more efficient.

He said: “We need to be able to identify body weights in real time using cameras, need to be able to monitor stress levels, be able to spot diseases and be able to increase yield.”

Connolly said technology include hardware, software and are connected by the Internet of Things. Robotic technology is certainly playing a key role in pig production to aid with labour on farm and in the processing plants.

Some examples voiced by Connolly include Kuka in meat processing; Pellon Group pig robot for efficient feeding and SkaldTek for housing improvements. In conclusion Connolly advised farmers considering investing in new technology to compare the costs versus benefits gained and research how long the technology will last.

Precision feeding technology for pigs

Next speaker was Amanda Uitermarkt from Gestal/Jyga Technologies who discussed precision feeding for pigs. Amanda highlighted the amount of data farmers can collate and how her company uses this in technology for gestation, lactation and grow to finish stages.

For gestation, Uitermarkt said it was important to feed to the needs of the individual pig and to ensure pigs were not over-conditioned leaving the gestation period. Using technology, she said, can control this. Lactation feeding technology can control feed blending to formulate nutrient intake, therefore increasing efficiency.

Uitermarkt did highlight that farmers should calibrate their feeders once per month especially when changing diets or types of feed.

Digital solution to advancing pig production

Lastly, Jens Toppenberg, founder of Cloudfarms looked at digital solutions to advancing pig production. His company has developed IT solutions for full line pig production and is now operating in 37 countries worldwide.

He said: “We are trying to use modern technologies like sensors integration, to leverage all the different data on the farm to be able to give the farmer the right platform to make their decisions.”

Toppenberg outlined a number of situations where his applications are being used including electronic scanning of pigs using mobile phones and obtaining day reports that monitor different stages in the production line. Using Cloudfarms technology allows a farmer to track a pig all the way from birth to slaughter and identify details like medications administered.

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Due to some technical hiccups, it took a bit longer to make this webinar available. Other webinars included in the Misset Webinar Week are also available for viewing on-demand. Their themes were ”Weaning”, ”Gut health” and ”Gut health piglets”.