On July 10, the jury meeting for the 30th edition of the Porc d’Or Awards took place at the IRTA-Fruitcentre headquarters in Lleida. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the Gala will be held on October 20 at the Palacio de Congresos de la Llotja, Lleida. The jury, in accordance with the evaluation criteria established in the Porc d’Or Awards bases, evaluated and ruled on the set of farms nominated and awarded in the normal categories and the farms nominated for special awards. The latter will be visited by the different committees of the jury before reaching a verdict on the winners.
This 30th edition of the awards comes loaded with news
Next, we will detail the changes in the criteria of the regulatory bases of the prizes:
• In this edition, the farms will compete grouped according to their census size in four categories instead of five:
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- Category 1: from 10 to 500 sows
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- Category 2: from 501 to 1000 sows
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- Category 3: from 1001 to 2000 sows
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- Category 4: more than 2,000 sows
With this new categorization, it has been possible to better balance the representativeness of the farms in the different categories.
• Following principles focused on improving animal welfare and adjusted to current regulations, the jury has agreed to rule out as nominees for the awards those farms with more than 20% of weaned piglets less than 21 days old and/or with an average in lactation less than 21 days. Farms with more than 25% mortality of piglets during lactation have also been ruled out. It has been agreed that this threshold will be progressively tightened in subsequent editions.
• The MAPA Porc d’Or Award for Animal Health, Welfare and the Environment is renamed the MAPA Award for Sustainability.
Two New Porc d’Or Awards
In times of change for the sector, the Porc d’Or Awards want to recognize the efforts of farmers in different aspects related not only to productivity, but also to aspects of animal welfare, health and the environment. That is why, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, two new Porc d’Or Awards are incorporated:
• The Porc d’Or Award for Lactation Management wants to recognize, among reproductively efficient farms, those that, through good management practices, stand out for a high survival rate of piglets during lactation. To grant this prize, the requirements of having an average lactation duration of more than 25 days, and a good balance in the annotation of adopted and retired are also imposed. In this first edition of the prize, a single prize per category will be awarded among three nominated farms, giving rise to a total of 4 prize-winning farms among the 12 nominees.
• The Porc d’Or One Health Award granted by CEVA Animal Health, IRTA’s new partner in the organization of the Porc d’Or Awards, wants to recognize the joint work of farmers and veterinarians in implementing innovative measures on their farms to improve health of their animals. This prize is incorporated as a new Special Prize of the Porc d’Or Awards, and will therefore be a unique prize that will be awarded to the one chosen from among the three nominated farms visited by a Committee of the Jury and CEVA experts. To be candidates for this award, whose call is still open until September 1, farms must fill out the questionnaire at the following link:
A total of 525 farms have been analyzed resulting in 804,300 sows analyzed
In each of the 4 categories, as in past editions, white coat pig farms will be rewarded based on the productive criteria of Longevity, Farrowing Rate and Numerical Productivity. In this way, and taking into account that a gold, another silver and a third bronze statuette are awarded for each criterion and category and, for the first time this year, a gold for each category in Lactation Management, there are a total of 108 nominations and 40 awards.
To these awards, we must add three more awards from the special prizes: the Porc d’Or from MAPA to Sustainability, the Porc d’Or One Health granted by CEVA Animal Health and, of course, by the Porc d’Or with Diamond, the highest award, which will go to the best white-coated pig farm based on its production results, its overall management and management, as well as compliance with the main health, zootechnical and animal welfare standards.
The jury for the awards is made up of prominent personalities belonging to the pig sector, both in the public and private spheres, which in this 30th edition are: by the General Subdirectorate of Livestock and Hunting Productions of MAPA, José Luis Agüero, Deputy General Manager, Pablo Bernardos, Deputy Assistant General Manager, Jesús Salas, head of the swine area, and Ruth Morales, head of service; on behalf of the Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Mercè Soler, Deputy Director General of Livestock, and Montserrat Alamós, head of the Livestock Management Service; by the National Association of Pig Producers (Anprogapor) its director Miguel Ángel Higuera; by the National Association of Select Pig Breeders (ANPS) its secretary Adoración Llorente; the professors of Animal Production Vicente Rodríguez (University of Córdoba) and Gerardo Blanco (University of Lleida); by CEVA Animal Health, Roger Galofré, veterinary specialist in new technologies; by IRTA, Carles Rosell, manager of the Animal Production area, Raquel Quintanilla, head of the Genetics and Animal Breeding program, and Carles Vilalta, CreSA-IRTA researcher; Jordi Baliellas, veterinarian from the Lleida Pig Sanitation Group; María Aparicio, director of the Digital Transformation in Livestock Department at PigChamp; Carmen Cía, content editor for 333; Pedro López, director of 333 Academy and Llibertat Tusell, secretary of the jury and researcher of the BDporc-IRTA group. The meeting had the follow-up and technical support of Núria Alòs, BDporc-IRTA database specialist.
