REVIEW ▶▶▶
Five names to remember in the pig industry
As from last year, the most innovative of the international agribusiness meet at the Animal AgTech Summit. Last year it was in San Francisco, this September the event was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Here are five interesting initiatives in the pig industry that were presented.
F BY VINCENT TER BEEK, EDITOR, PIG PROGRESS
irst things first: The initiative Animal AgTech Summit started out in 2018 with an event in San Francisco, CA, United States. The concept is now being rolled out over the continents, with a future summit in São
Paulo, Brazil next year, before it returns to San Francisco. In September 2019, it was time for a European version of the summit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Larger animal nutri-
1. SwineTech
SwineTech, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, IA, USA, has been experiencing rapid growth, predominantly in the North American market with its ‘SmartGuard’ concept in the farrowing pen, to send out an alarm to the sow when she is about to crush her piglets. The system gets activated on the basis of squeals. The company’s CEO Matthew Roo- da explained that by now the company has moved on to of- fer a whole range of solutions in and around the farrowing pen, improving welfare, productivity and sustainability.
tion and health companies, like e.g. Trouw Nutrition, Cargill, Zoetis, Boehringer Ingelheim and Merck/MSD had sent repre- sentatives to talk and interactively discuss the challenges of the modern era. After all, each of these companies have em- barked on finding innovative ways to embrace new techno- logical solutions. For instance, Merck/MSD completed the ac- quisition of animal identification company Antelliq/Allflex earlier this year, Zoetis introduced its herd monitoring soft- ware Smartbow late last year and Boehringer Ingelheim launched its biosecurity tool Combat in 2018. On the other side of the spectrum, there are also many small- er companies whose initiatives have just seen the light, whose technologies may still need more investments before they will become profit-making, or whose concepts are expe- riencing a breakthrough right now. Several presented them- selves at the Animal AgTech Summit – here are a few that jumped out for the pig industry.
2. Leeo
Now imagine one could capture any type of data inside the pig house, how to figure out what data to use and which not to use? That is an ongoing quest, also for the Nether- lands-based company Leeo, selling a complete system to follow individual pigs using ear tags. A range of farms in the Netherlands, the USA and Germany have already start- ed working with the system – one of the key figures is to be able to know what the animals weighed at every moment in their lives and where they were held exactly.
Matthew Rooda, SwineTech 26 ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 35, No. 9, 2019
The Leeo management system.
PHOTO: VINCENT TER BEEK
PHOTO: VINCENT TER BEEK
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