Producers urged to enter EU PiG Grand Prix
19th Nov 2018 / By Alistair Driver
The 2019 European Pig Innovation Group (EU PiG) Grand Prix is open for entries.
All pig producers have until February 28, 2019 to enter their innovative ideas and examples of on-farm best practice in this annual EU-wide contest. Up to 300 producers will be competing to become an EU PiG Ambassador.
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.
The eight Grand Prix challenges this year are:
- Early warning of diseases and production errors
- Influence of gut health on disease and production data
- Replacing GMO in soy for feed production
- Opening farms to engage with the public
- Strategies to reduce aggression between animals
- The quality of the farm atmosphere
- Reducing piglet mortality
- Dashboard systems/benchmarking
For full details of the eight challenges for 2019 and how to enter, along with case studies on previous years’ winning Ambassadors, producers should go to: https://www.eupig.eu/
The EU PiG Innovation Group consortium consists of 19 organisations, including AHDB, across 13 member states representing all aspects of the pig farming industry including producers, researchers, rural development boards and innovation practitioners.
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 and get in touch with other Ambassadors to develop their next big idea.
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 organisers said.