Exchanging knowledge, sharing innovation

Action to improve the pig industry

EU PiG is a network of 19 partner organisations from 13 member states, a €2million project running for four years which is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Led by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) in the UK, the network includes a range of partners from pig producer groups to researchers and economic advisers – connecting pig producers with the latest science, husbandry techniques and technologies.

EU PiG aims to raise the competitiveness of the European pig industry by linking producers and sharing tried and tested best practice and innovations. 

There are four key project themes, currently identified as the main focus areas for pig producers:

• Health management

• Meat quality

• Animal welfare

• Precision production

What we plan to achieve

• Map and consolidate existing knowledge from across the EU

• Facilitate knowledge exchange to help producers drive and adopt innovation on farm

• Bring science led innovations into practice, closing the gap between research and commercial pig production

How we are doing this

Each country has its own Regional Pig Innovation Group (RPIG) as the first point of contact, which links pig producers and other experts to identify emerging issues for EU PiG, and to share knowledge and best practice.

EU PiG wants to hear from producers about which specific challenges to tackle within the four key themes, so the network can respond to emerging issues. There are eight different challenges each year and the network will collate and share knowledge and best practice to help address them. The challenges for 2020 are:

The main way best practice is identified is via the EU PiG Grand Prix, an annual EU-wide contest, with more than 300 producers competing to be one of eight EU PiG Ambassadors, by telling us their ideas and best practice.  The eight producer Ambassadors will represent best practice within the each of the project’s key themes, tackling one of the eight challenges chosen for each year.

For information from the agricultural European Innovation Partnership (EIP-Agri) on other products that work to foster competitive and sustainable farming and forestry that 'achieves more and better from less', please visit their website.