WOODSTOCK, Ont. — Bob Brcka believes pork production is similar to a car assembly line, but without the electronic efficiency.
However, as new radio frequency identification (RFID) technology comes into more use in the pork sector, the industry will run as smoothly and efficiently as the automobile industry, he said.
“What goes on in the swine farm is like an assembly line,” said Brcka, general manager of PigChamp, a computer software program for the hog industry.
Like assembly lines in the automobile industry, pig production is separated in different areas of breeding, feeding, farrowing, weaning, growing, finishing, trucking and slaughter.
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Between each area of production, staff often write down ear tag numbers of each pig being moved on a piece of paper before transferring it to a computer.
Writing numbers on paper is time consuming and prone to error, said Brcka of Ames, Iowa.
He believes RFID technology used in other livestock industries to track the movement of animals will soon become a tool all pork producers use in their barns to measure the efficiency of each step of the pig assembly line.
“It’s completely accurate information and you never have to write it down on a piece of paper,” he told visitors during an RFID demonstration at the Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock.
“You can’t improve what you can’t measure.”
By having the information move from an RFID hand reader to a computer, producers can see which is the most efficient pig, which line of pigs grows the fastest, or which sow raised all her piglets.
“It’s an opportunity to look for efficiencies. It’s a way to turn data into making better decisions.”
While electronic ear tags and identification is mandatory on other animals, it hasn’t become part of the pork industry.
A pilot project in Ontario is attempting to measure the financial savings of using electronic information gathering instead of people gathering and transferring the information to a computer.
An application for a similar project has been put forward in Alberta, but has not yet been approved.
“I’m paying someone in the barn to collect the information and someone else to put the information into the computer.
“With the RFID reader, the information is automatically updated into the PigChamp program. It won’t let you make a mistake.”
Brcka said the technology gives producers information about when a pig was bred, when it farrowed, how large a litter it had and how many of the litter survived and then it allows producers to track the live pigs until the animals are finished and slaughtered.
Bar codes on bags of feed and vials of semen can allow even more detailed information tracking.
