A Professor with the University of Saskatchewan says research that looked at the conversion of sow farms to group housing is helping farmers make the move with minimal expense and maximum efficiency. The report, "From Research to Results: Measuring the Impact of Pork Research in Canada," released by the University of Saskatchewan and profiled in a YouTube webinar, looks at the value of swine research funded through partnerships involving Swine Innovation Porc.
Dr. Stuart Smyth, a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan and one of the report's authors, says a project led by the Prairie Swine Center from 2013 to 2018 in collaboration with the University of Manitoba and CDPQ in Quebec looked at conversions to group sow housing.
Quote-Dr. Stuart Smyth-University of Saskatchewan:
This one was really looking at animal welfare and barn design. Farmers had to convert their sow housing and this was going to be an expensive undertaking and so it was a bit of a case study with farmers that had already undertaken this transition to the new regulatory requirements as well as another group of farmers that were midway through the process.
They were comparing what had changed in terms of feed costs, in terms of operating efficiencies just to create more knowledge to help farmers better understand what was going to be the short-term costs and the potential for longer term savings from undergoing this transition. There was going to be an average cost they identified that ranged at the low end from about 250 dollars up to the higher end of 500 dollars.
But they found this varied depending on the size of each of the pork operations.
But it also highlighted that the efficiencies that would be gained from this transition were quick to be realized.Once a farm had made this transition to new sow housing, the benefits began to be observed immediately.
Dr. Smyth says many of these projects are not necessarily focused on animal welfare as the leading objective but that's a strong secondary benefit.To access the webinar search YouTube for "From Research to Results: Measuring the Impact of Pork Research in Canada."
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Source : Farmscape.ca