Loosbroek, May 14, 2024 - The pig industry is taking important steps towards digitization and application of Artificial Intelligence (AI). During an inspiring meeting organized by AgriFoodInnovation (AFI), Connecting Agri & Food and Vion Food Group, supported by the Regio Deal Noordoost-Brabant, over thirty partners from the agri and food sector came together at the Heische Hoeve in Loosbroek. The meeting revolved around the future of the digital pig chain, focusing on the use of data and the prospects for AI and ChatGPT. "There are plenty of opportunities for the sector," said Koen van Bergen, director of Vion Farming Benelux.
Smart Pig Chain: From Fat Quality to Animal Health
The meeting was divided into three rounds, with the first two rounds focusing on specific projects within the Smart Pig Chain business case. These projects aim to improve animal health, welfare and meat quality through technological innovation.
Round 1: Steering for Fat Quality
In the project Smart Pig Chain - Steering for Quality the project team is looking for A way to control the fat quality of pork. Fransen Gerrits, Vion Food Group and Topigs Norsvin are working together on a method to measure fat quality in the slaughterhouse. A non-contact NIR hyper spectral camera inspection has been developed for this purpose. "What we have already achieved is that the innovative system works on the slaughter line," project coordinator Angela van der Sanden of Connecting Agri & Food tells in a short pitch. "The camera measures in-line the fat content of 1,300 carcasses per hour. Based on the data, the pig farmer can steer the fat quality with feed and genetics. This way we can better match supply and demand and reduce failure costs."
Nice bacon
In the first table discussion of the meeting, Bart Peijnenburg (Vion Farming), Jeroen Keunen (Vision Partners), Roos Vogelzang (Topigs Norsvin) and Jan van Haperen (Fransen Gerrits) elaborate on this. Why is it so important to be able to manage the fat quality of pigs? "Consumers want to see a nice bacon, with good structure and the right meat-to-fat ratio and distribution," says Bart Peijnenburg, chain specialist at Vion Farming. "For that, a good fat quality is necessary. With this novel technology we can manage that, without having to take samples for every carcass to be measured, for example."
Feed trials
With the data in hand, pig farmers can start influencing fat quality. "With feed, this can be done by steering on the iodine addition number in the pig's fat," says Jan van Haperen, head of Nutritics at feed company Fransen Gerrits. "For that, you have to steer on the proportion of unsaturated fatty acids in the feed. The lower that proportion, the better the fat quality. We demonstrated that in two feed trials at Schothorst Feed Research. In these, we wanted to create extreme differences. That way we could test whether they could also be measured with the camera. So that was the case."
Good cooperation
Jeroen Keunen, General Manager of Vision Partners, says he is surprised by the good cooperation in the chain. "We had to do quite a few tests with the camera on the slaughter line at Vion in Boxtel. In a production environment it is not always easy to get people along for this, but we got all the cooperation. This shows the innovative attitude of Vion."
"The fact that we went from a trial setup to a fixed framing technique in a relatively short time is unique, though," Peijnenburg responds. "And that we can now also start feeding back to the pig farmer with real-time data is really innovative and surprising for the industry."
Round 2: Steering for Animal Health
The Smart Pig Chain - Steering for Animal Health project focuses on improving pig health and welfare through data. Hendrix Genetics and Vion Food Group are using a Smart Barn climate sensor to continuously monitor the barn climate. "A more stable climate contributes to higher growth per day and better animal welfare," explains Van der Sanden. By analyzing the collected data, pig farmers can steer more specifically for an optimal barn climate.
The Future of AI in the Agrifood Sector
The third and final part of the meeting focused on the future of AI in the agrifood sector. Jeroen van Megchelen of Vanilla Gorilla gave an inspirational lecture on the application of AI and ChatGPT, followed by an interactive discussion. Participants discussed the many opportunities AI offers, such as increased efficiency, chain optimization and labor savings. The challenges around data sharing and privacy were also discussed. "AI can help different parties in the chain work better together by creating a better exchange of data," said one participant.
On to the Future
The meeting marks an important step in the digitization of the pig industry, but there is still much to be gained.
Vision Partners remains involved in these developments and will continue to contribute to innovative collaboration within the chain.
