Pig Data: analytics for the Swiss swine industry
Author
Dr John Berezowski
University of Bern
Interview with the principal investigator of this NRP75 project.
What was the aim of your project?
The overarching goal of the project was to develop new methods aimed at gaining a better understanding of, and optimizing, the structure and complexity of the pig farming and production network in Switzerland. More specifically the project aimed to determine whether useful information can be created from the many varied data that are collected by the different actors (individuals and businesses) that are involved in producing pigs and pork in Switzerland.
Results?
The project demonstrated that new, useful and valuable information could be created by combining many disparate data sets from across a complete pig supply chain. The pig data supply-chain partners reported that the information created to answer their specific questions was interesting and useful. In addition, the supply-chain partners recognised that the information could not have been created without combining data from many data providers who normally would not have combined their data.
Does your project have any societal implications and recommendations?
This project demonstrated that it is possible to combine data from various actors in the pig supply chain. It also firmly established that this approach can generate new and useful information. The Pig Data project can be seen as a pilot experience about the application of Big Data approaches in the Swiss swine industry. Its success was key to drawing the attention of key stakeholders (such as the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office) to the importance of this topic and for the planning of new projects that will further explore the field. This is evidenced by the official support of a new project that aims at establishing a ‘competence & information centre for pig health in Switzerland’ which will collect, analyse and publish health data from various projects and practitioners in the field in order to obtain a real-time overview of the population’s health status and the occurrence of emerging and re-emerging diseases.
Keyword “technology transfer”: In your opinion, who could be possible users of your project? Who could benefit from this?
One of the Pig Data project components aimed at answering questions from the industry partners, called Dream Queries. As agreed with the industry partners, some of these Dream Queries were answered using a scientific approach. The results of these Dream Queries provided the industry partners direct input that can be used to improve their production management processes. It also helped the industry partners to evaluate their policies. For example: the slaughterhouse company enrolled in the project applies economic penalties if carcasses present meat quality parameters that are not within a given range. When analysing data related to these meat parameters, we verified that the vast majority of farmers provide carcasses within the specified ranges. By combining data from multiple sources, we were able to further explore and characterize the farms that did not comply with the company specifications and provide this information to the relevant stakeholders.