Benchmark Magazine Article Archive

Across the globe, PigCHAMP databases house records on millions of animals. On the farm, managers use this information to make daily management decisions – to breed or to cull? To retain or to sell? Analysis of cumulative data helps managers with long-term business planning and decision making. Users of PigCHAMP software have come to rely on this data to manage their day-to-day operations, to grow their farm businesses and to keep their animals healthy.

At Prairie Swine Centre we start every meeting with a safety tip. Today’s safety tip is also an innovation – the deadstock mover. According to workplace research we should be careful when lifting anything greater than 15% of our body weight (source: Kansas State University), and the fewer steps we take carrying heavy objects the better. Sows die, sometimes in awkward places, and sows are much greater than 15% of any ‘group’ of people’s combined body weight. Various devices exist to assist this removal task, usually involving a rig similar to a bagged feed cart with a knuckle-breaker hand winch located inconveniently around the height of your shoulder.

This article is simply an overview of the last ten years of benchmarking data from the Pigchamp.com database of reproductive trait performance. Over a ten year period there is some change to be expected in the reproductive performance of swine herds in the USA. But just how much change is expected, and what has been seen in the data?

Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) was confirmed in the United States in May of 2013, and quickly spread across the swine industry. Sow farms affected experienced up to 100% mortality in baby pigs for three to four weeks on average before enough immunity had developed in the sow herd. Nurseries also experienced increased mortality as many of these piglets were weaned at a young age. Loose stools spread through the farrowing house as well as the breeding and gestation barns. Sows were also vomiting and off-feed.

With over 50% of worldwide pig production, 735 million marketed pigs in 2014, China is the powerhouse leader of the world’s swine industry. By comparison, the world’s second largest producer, the United States, is only 1/5th of China’s size. Indeed, many market opportunities exist due to China’s dominating size, but even more exist due to the significant productivity gaps across its pig production.

Benchmarking is an inevitable part of any production process. It can be done informally, through comparisons during conversations at meetings or other get-togethers. It can be done through retrospective comparisons, by asking producers to recall prior productivity levels. Finally, it can be done by taking the records and analyzing the data in a standardized method across farms.

More than ten years ago, Eric Spell saw that the agricultural industry needed to raise the bar on recruitment practices in order to drive the talent pipeline. In the early 2000s, Monster.com, CareerBuilder and other job boards started to pop up on the internet. “That is when the light bulb in my head started flashing and I went to work designing a website for online recruitment in agriculture,” shared Spell, President of AgCareers.com.

When Kelly Dodge returned to teach at her alma mater at Iowa Lakes Community College, she brought with her the skills, knowledge and tools she had gained in more than 14 years in the pork production industry. Among those tools was PigCHAMP Knowledge Software, which is now a key teaching tool in Iowa Lake’s Agriculture Production Technology Program.

What’s the future of swine production in Ontario? One thought is precision feeding gestating sows for increased economic efficiency and decreased environmental impact, say researchers at the University of Guelph.

Together we live in a dynamic and exciting business environment in which the market and technology are constantly changing. In this context Topigs Norsvin must make the right strategic choices to follow our vision “Progress in pigs. Every day.” Topigs Norsvin’s mission is to serve people, planet, and profit. We do this by striving to be the most innovative genetic company in the world.

In the mid-1990s, when cell phones were still the size of a brick and computers dominated desktops, handheld data collection was a fledgling but promising innovation for the pork industry. Pigtales, then owned by PIC, first developed a commercial handheld mobile device in 1994, but it never really took off amongst producers – the technology was still in its infancy; internet and wireless connectivity was not yet widely adopted; and the paper and pen had not yet been replaced by touchscreen and Ipads.