November 3, 2013
Farmex's monitoring system boosts pig production gain
"You can't control what you don't measure and, happily, a new generation of pig producers is recognising this," he said.
He explained that the independent PIVIT (Pig Improvement Via Technology) project, started at the beginning of 2012, which aimed to find out how producers and stock-people could gain commercial advantage from monitoring, was already beginning to bear fruit. Achievable improvements included a reduction of five to 10 days in time taken to finish pigs, a narrowing in variation, a 50% reduction in fossil fuel use and an 80% cut in water waste.
The impact of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) or 'smart' pig farming would result in less variation between herds. Crabtree suggested that, with monitoring, 90% of the national herd should aim for the level of performance achieved by the current top 10% of herds. This would mean feed conversion would improve from 2.72 to 2.21, daily live weight gain from 822 grams to 839 grams per day, with feed costs per pig produced dropping from the current BPEX-recorded average of £41.11 (US$65.5) to £25 (US$40).
Monitoring had already seen electricity consumption drop from 40 kilowatts to 16 kilowatts per pig and electricity cost per pig produced drop from an average of £3.51 (US$5.60) to £1.41 (US$2.25) on farms using Farmex's 'Barn Report' data capturing system.
Monitoring also enabled pig farmers to check their units' performance 'live' so that potential problems could be highlighted and adjustments made on a day-to-day basis.
