Today’s pig farming can no longer be based solely on experience or intuition. There are a number of resources ensuring better choices for a farm´s future, for example the Award for The Best Swine Producer Agriness.
Every January begins the closing cycle of another edition of the Best. For 12 months production data of more than 2 thousand farms* and 1.5 million sows* from nine Latin American countries (*figures of the 12th edition/2019) are sent. That data generates a ranking of farms according to the best performance regarding the number of weaned/sow/year obtained during the edition period. To ensure the reliability of the information, audits are carried out at the final contestants and the consolidated data is presented in the Swine Production Annual Report of Performance.
Throughout the edition, the farms can have online access to productivity indicators and compare themselves, that is, they can do benchmarking.
Benchmarking is a learning process with others. It means looking around, identifying who is getting the best results, seeing how they are doing it and trying to adopt the best practices.
When we compare ourselves to others, we can see the differences between the performance and practices in general and what is happening on each farm. By taking only the results of your farm as a reference, you run the risk of being stuck to your own limits. Looking for external references makes it easier to see those with higher performances in farms of the same size as yours. Comparing yourself is an incentive to you and your team to look for alternatives to improve farm performance and make a leap in productivity.
Always ask yourself whether a farm similar to yours can produce the same and how you can be better.
