Innovative ideas for improved biosecurity to address the threat of African swine fever are among the challenges set out in the 2020 European Pig Innovation Group (EU PiG) Grand Prix.
The competition, which rewards innovation on EU pig farms, is open for entries until January 31, 2020. All pig producers are invited to enter their innovative ideas and examples of on-farm best practice in this annual EU-wide contest, with up to 300 producers competing to become an EU PiG Ambassador.
The competition seeks examples of innovation that tackle one of eight Grand Prix challenges, identified as current priorities by the industry, within the key themes of health management, meat quality, animal welfare and precision production.
The eight categories are:
- African Swine Fever (ASF) biosecurity measures
- Use of slaughter data to improve health outcomes
- How to promote pork to consumers?
- Being competitive in small-scale farming: developing a niche-market for pork
- Solutions for heat stress
- Strategies for dealing with piglets from hyper prolific sows
- Reducing costs
- Increasing overall farm sustainability
For full details of the eight challenges for 2020 and how to enter, along with case studies on the previous years’ winning Ambassadors, producers should go to: https://www.eupig.eu/
Winning one of the eight Ambassador titles in the EU PiG Grand Prix gives producers the chance to receive international recognition of their success, share their best practice with other producers, get in touch with other Ambassadors to perhaps find their next big idea and achieve added motivation for farm staff, the competition organisers said.
“EU PiG aims to raise the competitiveness of the European pig industry by connecting producers and sharing tried and tested best practice and innovations. When pig producers visit another farm or go on a study tour they almost always learn something valuable from fellow producers, and EU PiG provides another easy and practical way to do this, sharing new knowledge in one place, online.”
The EU PiG Innovation Group consortium consists of 18 organisations, led by AHDB, across 13 member states representing all aspects of the pig farming industry including producers, researchers, rural development boards and innovation practitioners.