Benchmark Magazine Article Archive

Time means everything for producers. Sometimes, it feels like your farm to-do lists are constantly growing. The PigCHAMP team is always looking for ways to help you be more productive in the barn so that you can keep accurate records, make informed decisions and, ultimately, move onto the next item on your list.

We know that you take any and all investments made on your farm very seriously – and we think you should! Making decisions for your operation means taking factors like time, finances, staff and more into consideration.

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still in its infancy; internet and wireless connectivity was not yet widely adopted; and the paper and pen had not yet been replaced by touchscreen and Ipads.

Over the past 3 years, PigCHAMP has been actively involved in several government-funded projects in Canada to help provide efficient, low cost solutions for producers to help comply with animal traceability regulations. The following article, prepared with the cooperation of The Alberta Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, provides the results of one of these projects. It shows that traceability compliance does not have to be costly and time consuming, and that with the right technology, you can actually provide better efficiency and time savings throughout a farm’s operation.

Benchmarking is a term and a methodology that has been abused, misused and yet, in spite of our faults, it has survived and provided useful guidance to the industry. The etymology of benchmarking is interesting: