Pig farmers from across Europe are invited to enter their most innovative ideas and examples of on-farm best practice for a prestigious EU competition.
The 2020 European Pig Innovation Group (EU PiG) Grand Prix is open for entries until January 31, 2020, to compete to become an EU PiG Ambassador.
Last year, Lancashire farrow-to-finish producer David Goodier (pictured top) was named as one of the eight EU ambassadors.
EU PiG
EU PiG is looking for entries that tackle one of eight Grand Prix challenges, identified as current priorities by the industry, within the project’s key themes of:
- Health management;
- Meat quality;
- Animal welfare; and
- Precision production.
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.
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 eight Grand Prix challenges this year 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: eupig.eu/.
