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With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and 5G technology in China, the pig industry has finally ushered in a turning point, and a "smart pig breeding fever" is heating up
.
Pigs are handed over to intelligent equipment for production and management, and the feeding conditions, growth information, immune information, physical condition, etc.
of pigs can be monitored in real time through mobile phones, which not only improves the production efficiency of pig breeding, but also reduces personnel input and reduces the risk
of swine epidemic transmission.
"Eat!" With the crisp call of the owner, fat pigs in the pigsty gathered in front of the trough, scrambling for rations
.
The owner carried the bucket, weighed the spoon, and scattered the feed while shouting, thinking that these pigs could be sold for a good price when they came out of the slaughter
.
Such images often appear
in films and television works with rural themes.
In fact, in many people's concepts, raising pigs seems to be a hard work, washing circles, disinfection, feeding, epidemic prevention and other links are indispensable, tiring and tiring
.
Pigs have to be raised for a year before they can be slaughtered, whether they earn or lose to get to know, if they can sell at a good price, everyone is happy, on the contrary, the bamboo basket is empty
.
Pigs are the most valuable agricultural and sideline products in China, but the traditional pig breeding industry is facing difficulties and pain points
that need to be solved urgently.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and 5G technology in China, the pig industry has finally ushered in a turning point, and a "smart pig breeding fever" is heating up
.
Pigs are handed over to intelligent equipment for production and management, and the feeding conditions, growth information, immune information, physical condition, etc.
of pigs can be monitored in real time through mobile phones, which not only improves the production efficiency of pig breeding, but also reduces personnel input and reduces the risk
of swine epidemic transmission.
Nowadays, more and more pig companies and farms have begun to join this technological revolution in
the "pig world".
But at the same time, the same as the development law of other emerging things, the road of intelligent pig breeding is not smooth, and it is not as easy to practice as expected, and the doubts from the outside world have never stopped
.
High farm renovation costs, personnel retraining, low information utilization.
.
.
For small and medium-sized pig enterprises and pig farms, these problems may become an obstacle
to their embrace of the tide of intelligence.
How to overcome these resistances so that more pig farms can achieve transformation and upgrading through intelligent east wind? Journalists investigated
this.
Pig farming can also be more "fashionable"
In the sow farrowing pen of the pig house, a group of white fluffy, red-skinned piglets are huddled under the belly of the mother pig and smacking the milk hard, shaking their heads and wagging their tails in a cute manner, and the mother pig lying quietly on her side is fat and strong, very docile
.
In the intelligent pig farm of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd
.
, this warm scene happens every day.
The survival rate of piglets and the growth during lactation often affect the economic benefits of the entire farm, how to provide sufficient nutrition for lactating sows and obtain greater lactation volume? This is where the smart feeder installed on the smart farm comes into play
.
As the name suggests, the use of big data and related sensing technology, intelligent feeding equipment can automatically adjust the feeding amount based on different growth cycles, body conditions and other conditions of pigs, feed the feed tower directly diverts food to each pig trough through the automatic feeding machine, and realizes accurate feeding
through artificial intelligence weight estimation and feeding data calculation.
During the lactation period of sows, the intelligent feeder can realize individualized and precise feeding during lactation, improve the feed intake and lactation of lactating sows, and at the same time, the farm staff can also adjust the feed nutrition plan in time to meet the nutritional needs
of sows.
In order to ensure the healthy survival of piglets, intelligent insulation lamps are also installed in the farrowing pen, and the insulation lamps automatically light up when the temperature is low at night, real-time monitoring and accurate control of the ambient temperature in the house, and no longer have to worry about piglets getting cold and freezing
.
When the piglets have been in the farrowing pen for 21 days and weigh about 6 kg, they are weaned and fattened
after the nursery stage.
Fattening pigs also need precise feeding, the key is to spend less feed, in a shorter time, to obtain faster weight gain and better meat quality
.
Cameras are installed above the fattening house to monitor the growth and feeding of the pigs, which can be slaughtered and sold
when they reach the required weight.
Through the intelligent remote trading system, artificial intelligence camera and sensor chip, the number of pigs can be counted by artificial intelligence, accurately weighed, and the pig return monitoring can be carried out to complete remote transactions
.
What does intelligent pig farming mean? It is a pig breeding model
represented by the Internet, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, etc.
, which realizes the online, digital and precise multi-scenario and multi-application processes of pig farm production management, trading, finance and so on in the pig industry.
In recent years, medium and large pig enterprises and pig farms have joined the team of intelligent pig breeding, and intelligent pig farms have sprung up one after another
.
Obviously, compared with traditional pig farms, in smart pig farms, every link from birth to slaughter of a commercial pig integrates a number of advanced technologies to achieve full cost reduction and efficiency
increase.
The staff can remotely monitor and manage through computers or mobile phones, grasp the situation of pigs in real time, and fully digitize
the breeding process.
In the smart pig farm of Muyuan Food Co.
, Ltd.
, each pig has more than 30 intelligent pig breeding machines to serve
it in its lifetime.
According to the relevant person in charge of the company's intelligent business, at present, the Makihara intelligent research and development team has a total of more than 1,000 people, with the research and development of intelligent breeding equipment and the construction of the Internet of Things platform as the main direction, using science and technology to empower pig breeding, and has applied for a total of 697
patents 。 The research and development of equipment covers feed, breeding, breeding, slaughtering and other sectors, has achieved more than 30 products and technology transformation in five categories, some equipment such as inspection robots, needleless syringes, intelligent weighing instruments, etc.
have entered the stage of large-scale application, the cumulative scale of serving pigs exceeds 60 million, the Internet of Things platform has accumulated 1.
61 million devices, an average of 1.
04 million online devices per day, and more than 700 million pieces of
various breeding data.
In May this year, the "Xinjin Intelligent Pig Farm" built by New Hope Liuhe Co.
, Ltd.
was officially put into use, mainly engaged in pig breeding and breeding, with an estimated production sow inventory of 1,500 and 13,000 high-quality breeding pigs per year
.
"New Hope is currently in the exploration period of intelligent pig farming, and is actively exploring and landing in breeding process management, sales management, and intelligent equipment application
.
" Liu Shidong, general manager of New Hope Liuhe Digital Technology Department, revealed
.
Guangxi Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
(hereinafter referred to as Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
) is an early enterprise
in China to explore intelligent pig farming.
In 2014, Yangxiang began to explore the Internet digital intelligent pig breeding and made every effort to create "intelligent Yangxiang"
.
In 2017, its cluster-type intelligent pig farm has been officially put into operation, and on this basis, a new model
of "industrial Internet material, breeding, slaughtering and business integration" has been explored.
According to Wei Jiangcheng, executive president of the industrial Internet business department of Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
, each pig in the intelligent building pig farm is implanted with a chip, just like a person's ID card, the chip records the real-time information of the pig, which can be directly linked to the production management system, the system converts the information into a signal and transmits it to the feed mill, the feed mill can understand the growth and nutrition of pigs, back fat, personalized production of feed, through the connection of software and hardware systems to achieve intelligent operation of pig raising, the growth of each pig, how much to eat per meal, How to match can be real-time dynamic monitoring
.
At the same time, a group of agricultural technology enterprises focusing on the field of intelligent pig breeding have also begun to emerge, these enterprises focus on automatic feeding, automatic inventory, disease prevention and control and other functions, rely on their own technical advantages to design comprehensive solutions, and cooperate with pig enterprises or pig farms to achieve landing applications
.
Yu Ying, vice president of Beijing Rural Credit Internet Technology Group Co.
, Ltd.
(hereinafter referred to as Rural Credit Internet), said that Rural Credit Internet is such an industrial Internet platform service provider
that helps pig enterprises do digital breeding, input procurement, and online pig sales.
With a "pig network" that connects all links in the pig industry chain, more than 10 million pigs are connected to the Internet
.
The smart pig farm of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd.
is based on the "Pig Xiaozhi" supervision platform to form an intelligent landing application
of the whole production cycle from birth to slaughter.
As an artificial intelligence technology company focusing on the intelligence of the livestock industry, Xiaolong Stealth Technology Co.
, Ltd.
(hereinafter referred to as Xiaolong Stealth) realizes the real-time and accurate collection and analysis
of the core production data of large groups of pig farms based on "deep learning and machine vision" technology.
According to Zhang Xingfu, director of research and development of Xiaolong Stealth, Xiaolong Stealth has built a "pasture watcher" track patrol robot applied in the livestock industry, each robot is equipped with a visible light camera and a depth camera, and two cameras can complete the weight evaluation
of each pen pig.
Taking fattening pigs as an example, the daily weight gain curve of pigs can be obtained through the evaluation of the patrol robot, and the staff only needs to compare with the standard growth curve to understand the current growth progress of pigs, which is helpful
for the adjustment of subsequent breeding management feeding.
Usually, the track robot will be installed above the pig house, patrol according to the established route on the slide rail, through artificial intelligence, machine vision technology, according to the image captured by the camera to estimate the weight of the pig, the pig is not felt during the entire estimation process, forming a non-contact measurement process, avoiding the stress response
of the pig.
It is worth noting that intelligent pig breeding is not only reflected in the precise breeding of pigs, but also includes the monitoring of the overall environment of the farm and the norms
of staff behavior.
"In order to reduce the threat and economic losses caused by the spread of germs to pig farms, biosecurity prevention and control of pig farms is particularly important
.
In the intelligent pig breeding scenario, if the staff wants to enter the pig farm, they must first enter the intelligent washing room through face recognition, and the intelligent shower shower can control the bathing time, and when the staff is finished cleaning and disinfection, they can enter the next room and dry and disinfect
again.
After the above steps are completed, you can officially enter the farm
.
Yu Ying said
.
At the same time, artificial intelligence can also replace manual attendance, carry out 24-hour real-time monitoring, identify abnormal events such as pigs, personnel, vehicles, and materials in the farm, and find disinfection loopholes and pig health problems at the first time and warn them, thereby greatly reducing the probability of
African swine fever.
Calculate this "savings"
There is no doubt that artificial intelligence and digital technology are profoundly affecting the traditional pig industry
.
With the continuous development of science and technology, new technologies and new directions continue to emerge, the digital economy represented by artificial intelligence, cloud computing, blockchain, big data, 5G, industrial Internet, etc.
is profoundly changing the way of human life and production, and the supporting role of the digital economy on the global economy is constantly prominent, and it also subverts the production and management methods of traditional industries, and the pig industry is one of the representatives
.
But on closer examination, intelligent transformation is not just the result of
this industry in order to adapt to the trend and the environment of the times.
According to the "2022 China Intelligent Animal Husbandry Development Report" compiled by the China Animal Husbandry Association, the pig industry began to lay out intelligent pig breeding in 2018, on the one hand, scientific and technological start-up enterprises will combine the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, algorithms and other technologies with the pig industry, and have successively launched intelligent solutions for pig farms, such as intelligent feeding and intelligent environmental control; On the other hand, industrial Internet platform enterprises are committed to building a smart pig breeding ecological routing system to provide farmers with systematic intelligent pig breeding solutions
.
Even Alibaba, Jingdong and other Internet giants have come to "cross-border" pig farming, the former's Alibaba Cloud launched the "ET agricultural brain", the latter's Jingdong Digital introduced "voiceprint recognition" technology into the breeding industry, the popularity and attention of intelligent pig breeding is unprecedentedly high
.
"2018 is regarded as the first year
of intelligent pig farming.
" Liu Qiangde, deputy secretary-general of the China Animal Husbandry Association, said frankly, "It is characterized by the collection, transmission and storage of massive data, as well as the analysis, processing, learning, re-improvement and application
of data collection based on artificial intelligence.
" ”
The sudden African swine fever epidemic has stepped on the "throttle"
for the accelerated development of intelligent pig farming.
In August 2018, the first African swine fever epidemic occurred in China, and the impact continued to spread, bringing a series of "drastic changes"
to pig production capacity and pork prices.
Since the outbreak of African swine fever, on the one hand, it has indeed had a relatively large impact on China's pig production, and on the other hand, it has also played a very great role
in promoting the reform of production methods.
In September 2019, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Stabilizing Pig Production and Promoting Transformation and Upgrading", proposing to accelerate the informatization of the entire pig industry chain, promote the popularization of intelligent pig breeding equipment, and support pig farms (households) to purchase agricultural machinery and equipment such as automatic feeding, environmental control, epidemic prevention and control, etc.
, to improve production and operation efficiency
.
The swine fever epidemic has put forward higher requirements for the technical level of pig breeding enterprises, and the cost risk of retail pig breeding has increased, which has also led to the withdrawal of most retail investors from the pig market, accelerated the intensification of the industry, and laid the foundation
for the rapid development of intelligent pig breeding.
"African swine fever prevention and control and production capacity recovery have increased the demand for industrial automation and intelligent development, and with the improvement of scale, industrialization and industrial concentration, especially the rapid development and growth of leading breeding enterprises, it has promoted the transformation and upgrading
of the industry in the direction of intelligence.
" Zhu Zengyong, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explained
.
Wang Yubin, a professor at the College of Economics and Management of China Agricultural University, said that due to the geographical environment, land circulation, labor resources and other factors, China's pig industry has maintained an extensive operation and a retail breeding mode for a long time, with a trend
of technology, capital intensity, and reduced artificial input.
Intelligent pig breeding is emerging
in the context of this turning point in the industry.
"In fact, before the outbreak of African swine fever, the problems of traditional pig breeding mode have been highlighted, such as small farm scale, low degree of standardization, high labor costs, low scientific and technological content, and serious pollution in the breeding industry
.
"
In recent years, in addition to African swine fever, environmental protection pressure, the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the pig cycle, etc.
have made the pig industry turbulent several times, and industry practitioners have increasingly realized that intelligent upgrading is the only way to
go.
In essence, the most direct advantage of intelligent pig farming is that it can help pig enterprises and pig farms reduce costs and improve breeding efficiency
.
"Feed costs and labor costs account for the bulk of the total cost
.
" Li Zhi, chairman of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd.
, calculated the "cost account": "In recent years, feed prices have fluctuated and risen, and now the price per ton of feed is about 3,500 yuan
.
Not to mention the labor cost, there is a lot of dirty work in the traditional pig farm, such as manual feeding, which requires employees to carry their own feed bags, and feed one pig house after another, which is equivalent to a day's manual work
.
”
Li Zhi's hanging heart could not be put down
.
"To be honest, pig raising is inseparable from people, but the most unreliable is people, and the most prone to problems is also people
.
" Li Zhi said half-jokingly, "In traditional pig farms, how much feed each pig eats is all controlled by the feeder himself, which may be more or less, which may cause unnecessary feed waste
in the process.
" In addition, the emergence of African swine fever has increased the awareness of biosecurity prevention and control in the entire industry, but the difficulty of personnel management has also increased
.
”
When the smart pig farm was built, Li Zhi's experience was "more accurate"
.
"After the application of digital, intelligent equipment and systems, how much material each pig eats is the most appropriate, the temperature stability of the pig house is all controlled by the equipment, our staff has changed from the past 'hard work' to 'technician', only need to observe whether the pigs have any abnormalities through the monitoring equipment, according to our estimates, can reduce about one-third of the manpower
.
" Due to more accurate feeding, a lot of feed can be saved every year, thus reducing costs and increasing efficiency
.
”
How much cost can intelligent pig farming save? Xiaolong Sneak also has a "fine account"
.
According to its calculations, taking the 800 heads in stock as an example, after applying the precision feeding system of gestational sows, the annual parity of pregnant sows increased by 0.
03 times, the benefit of a single pig was 264 yuan, and the annual increase was 211,200 yuan; Taking the 9,600 pigs in stock as an example, after the application of the accurate management system of fattening pigs, the daily weight gain of each pig increased by 0.
05 kg, the survival rate increased by 2%, and the annual increase benefit was 1.
536 million yuan
.
On the whole, the average income of sow farms can reach 1144 yuan, and the average income of fattening pigs can reach 133.
2 yuan
.
According to Yu Ying's calculations, assuming that the intelligent feeding system can be adopted by sow farms across the country, compared with the current average, 13 million tons of feed can be saved every year, with a market value of about 54.
5 billion yuan.
"Digitalization is an effective means to
do refined operations.
From the perspective of efficiency, intelligent pig breeding reduces costs by improving breeding efficiency, and digitalization can better record and control various data in the breeding process, so as to find the direction of
efficiency improvement.
Liu Shidong said
.
On the other hand, in the context of "carbon neutrality", intelligent pig farming can also help achieve carbon emission reduction and promote the low-carbon development of
the industry.
At present, the main carbon emissions in animal husbandry come from fermentation gas, methane, etc.
in the intestines of farmed animals, greenhouse gases such as methane produced during animal manure treatment, and nitrous oxide emitted when manure is returned to the field, etc.
, and the intelligent feeding system can use artificial intelligence to analyze and make decisions to effectively improve feed utilization and conversion rate
.
"Reducing feed waste is itself a reduction in carbon emissions and a reduction in environmental pollution
.
" Liu Qiangde said
.
Problems such as the "dirty and messy" environment of pig farms, untimely treatment of dead pigs, and the lack of use of harmless incinerators can also be effectively improved
through the environmental protection management system.
Yu Ying introduced that the "Pig Xiaozhi" environmental protection management system can detect dead pigs in time by monitoring the pigs in the building, monitor the trajectory of the dead pig trailer throughout the process, monitor the sewage and wastewater discharged in the farm area, and monitor the gas emissions in the harmless treatment area, reduce the air pollution to the pig farm base and surrounding areas, and then improve the environmental quality
of the pig farm.
Step by step into the intelligent 100 billion yuan market can be expected
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's meat production increased from 84.
711 million tons in 2012 to 89.
8999 million tons in 2021, and among all kinds of meat, China's residents consume the most pork, eating about 700 million pigs every year, which also makes China the world's largest pork production and consumption market
.
According to Li Weikun, business director of China Agricultural Industry Fund, the intelligent service fee of each fat pig slaughtered in the future will be 100 yuan (including the investment of smart equipment in the early stage and the annual data operation cost), which will be a blue ocean market
of 50-100 billion yuan.
As products move from reducing manual input, precision nutrition and production management to higher-end fields such as digital animal health and intelligent genetic breeding, the market size can be expected
to exceed 100 billion yuan.
Zhu Zengyong also said that there are currently more than 20 million pig farmers in China, and there is great
potential for market prospects and promotion and application.
At present, facing challenges such as high feed costs and biosecurity risks, China's pig breeding industry has reached a critical period of transformation and upgrading, and improving breeding efficiency and industrial competitiveness through intelligent breeding will be the only way for
the industry.
Can intelligent pig farming replace traditional manual pig farming? At least for now, there is still a long
way to go.
Although the intelligent pig breeding model solves some of the problems of traditional pig breeding at this stage, it also brings new difficulties and faces a lot of resistance
in the actual implementation and promotion process.
"At present, some advanced intelligent aquaculture technologies are applied to large-scale aquaculture enterprises, and for small farmers and individual farmers, they are facing great challenges
in terms of input and application.
On the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen the research and development of application technology and equipment for small and medium-sized farmers to reduce the marginal cost of intelligent facilities and equipment, on the other hand, it is also necessary to strengthen the training and education of farmers to promote the acceptance and application of new facilities and technologies
.
Zhu Zengyong suggested
.
First of all, the premise of realizing intelligent pig breeding is that the pig farm must undergo software and hardware upgrades, but this is undoubtedly a big burden
for small and individual farmers.
Li Zhi revealed that the company's intelligent pig farm has installed an intelligent feeding system, environmental control system and biosecurity monitoring system, and the overall transformation cost is about 2 million yuan
.
Secondly, although the number of pig enterprises and pig farms embracing the high-tech tide is increasing day by day, for some managers, they have not broken through the shackles of traditional thinking, and how to let old pig farms with a certain scale and transformation conditions actively participate in the process of digitalization and intelligence is also one of
the current problems.
"Among the practitioners in the pig industry, some people have not paid attention to intelligent pig
farming.
" In the view of Gao Yuanfei, secretary of the party committee and vice president of Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
, the biggest obstacle to the implementation of intelligent pig breeding is first of all a conceptual problem, "Some pig farms are temporarily unwilling to adjust, do not want to be 'guinea pigs', and do not want to become 'crab-eaters
'.
" However, almost all the leading enterprises in the pig industry are carrying out research and construction of intelligent pig breeding, and the industry will surely embark on this road
.
”
Liu Qiangde believes that these farms can be digitally and intelligently upgraded in stages and batches, and one of the modules can be installed according to the problems that the farm urgently needs to solve at present, first taste the sweetness through changes, see the changes, and then slowly adjust and improve
.
In the process of dealing with pig enterprises and pig farms, Yu Ying observed that the concepts and mentality of many managers are actually more easily affected
by the current market.
For example, when the pig price is at a high level, the return of funds is fast, and they are more willing to invest in equipment and facility upgrades, and when the pig price is low and the market is not good, many pig farms are difficult to sustain and begin to reduce investment in this area
.
For enterprises and pig farms that have carried out intelligent transformation, there are still difficulties
that need to be solved.
Liu Shidong mentioned that from the perspective of intelligent technology, the connotation of artificial intelligence technology is very broad, at present, in the breeding process, the most important is the application of computer vision, the main difficulty encountered is that the environmental conditions of breeding work are more complicated, and the stock of data is relatively small, which is not conducive to the training
of artificial intelligence models.
Due to the different actual conditions of each pig farm, intelligent equipment often encounters various emergencies during actual operation
.
"For example, if we install the camera on a pig farm, after a while, flies, feces, and dust will cover the lens, and the camera will not
collect anything.
In addition, many hardware products can run well in the laboratory, but because the conditions of some pig farms are not very standardized, the actual operation of the scene does not match the problem
.
Zhang Xingfu gave
an example.
"The smarter the device, the more
people need to learn.
Everyone has been accustomed to using traditional methods to raise pigs, and now that more intelligent equipment and systems are installed, it is necessary to additionally strengthen the training of staff, how to set the parameters of the machine, how to view the monitoring system, these need to be learned from scratch little by little, and even some older employees feel that the operation is too cumbersome, not as easy
as the traditional pig breeding model.
Wang Jiayu, director of the intelligent pig farm of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd.
, was a little helpless
.
China's pig breeding industry has undergone several transformations, from free-range to "company + farmer", and then to gradual scale, the pace of transformation and upgrading has accelerated, and it is developing in the direction of high quality, but the quality upgrading of the industry is a "multi-choice question", and intelligent transformation is only one
of the answers.
According to the "2022 China Intelligent Animal Husbandry Development Report", from the current development trend, intelligent pig breeding will develop in the direction of integration in the future, not simply integrating all applications, but opening up the management process and background data of pig enterprises, realizing online enterprise operation, intelligent enterprise production, data-driven and intelligent decision-making
.
The application of artificial intelligence in intelligent pig farms will also be more basic and full-scenario, which also means that the requirements of artificial intelligence for the use environment will gradually be relaxed, farm data collection will be more accurate, and farm decision-making will be more intelligent
.
Zhu Zengyong said that intelligent breeding is an important path to improve total factor productivity of breeding, but the improvement of total factor productivity involves the improvement of the efficiency of the whole industry chain such as pig breeding, feed nutrition, production management, etc.
, intelligent breeding is a very important part of it, but the transformation and upgrading of the industry requires the concerted efforts of multiple links in order to truly achieve transformation and upgrading
.
When the traditional pig industry meets high technology, the new door of intelligent breeding has been opened, and I believe that with the passage of time, the pig industry with digital and intelligent wings can fly higher and further
.
;
; With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and 5G technology in China, the pig industry has finally ushered in a turning point, and a "smart pig breeding fever" is heating up
.
Pigs are handed over to intelligent equipment for production and management, and the feeding conditions, growth information, immune information, physical condition, etc.
of pigs can be monitored in real time through mobile phones, which not only improves the production efficiency of pig breeding, but also reduces personnel input and reduces the risk
of swine epidemic transmission.
"Eat!" With the crisp call of the owner, fat pigs in the pigsty gathered in front of the trough, scrambling for rations
.
The owner carried the bucket, weighed the spoon, and scattered the feed while shouting, thinking that these pigs could be sold for a good price when they came out of the slaughter
.
Such images often appear
in films and television works with rural themes.
In fact, in many people's concepts, raising pigs seems to be a hard work, washing circles, disinfection, feeding, epidemic prevention and other links are indispensable, tiring and tiring
.
Pigs have to be raised for a year before they can be slaughtered, whether they earn or lose to get to know, if they can sell at a good price, everyone is happy, on the contrary, the bamboo basket is empty
.
Pigs are the most valuable agricultural and sideline products in China, but the traditional pig breeding industry is facing difficulties and pain points
that need to be solved urgently.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and 5G technology in China, the pig industry has finally ushered in a turning point, and a "smart pig breeding fever" is heating up
.
Pigs are handed over to intelligent equipment for production and management, and the feeding conditions, growth information, immune information, physical condition, etc.
of pigs can be monitored in real time through mobile phones, which not only improves the production efficiency of pig breeding, but also reduces personnel input and reduces the risk
of swine epidemic transmission.
Nowadays, more and more pig companies and farms have begun to join this technological revolution in
the "pig world".
But at the same time, the same as the development law of other emerging things, the road of intelligent pig breeding is not smooth, and it is not as easy to practice as expected, and the doubts from the outside world have never stopped
.
High farm renovation costs, personnel retraining, low information utilization.
.
.
For small and medium-sized pig enterprises and pig farms, these problems may become an obstacle
to their embrace of the tide of intelligence.
How to overcome these resistances so that more pig farms can achieve transformation and upgrading through intelligent east wind? Journalists investigated
this.
Pig farming can also be more "fashionable"
Pig farming can also be more "fashionable" Pig raising can also be more "fashionable" In the sow farrowing pen of the pig house, a group of white fluffy, red-skinned piglets are huddled under the belly of the mother pig and smacking the milk hard, shaking their heads and wagging their tails in a cute manner, and the mother pig lying quietly on her side is fat and strong, very docile
.
In the intelligent pig farm of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd
.
, this warm scene happens every day.
The survival rate of piglets and the growth during lactation often affect the economic benefits of the entire farm, how to provide sufficient nutrition for lactating sows and obtain greater lactation volume? This is where the smart feeder installed on the smart farm comes into play
.
As the name suggests, the use of big data and related sensing technology, intelligent feeding equipment can automatically adjust the feeding amount based on different growth cycles, body conditions and other conditions of pigs, feed the feed tower directly diverts food to each pig trough through the automatic feeding machine, and realizes accurate feeding
through artificial intelligence weight estimation and feeding data calculation.
During the lactation period of sows, the intelligent feeder can realize individualized and precise feeding during lactation, improve the feed intake and lactation of lactating sows, and at the same time, the farm staff can also adjust the feed nutrition plan in time to meet the nutritional needs
of sows.
In order to ensure the healthy survival of piglets, intelligent insulation lamps are also installed in the farrowing pen, and the insulation lamps automatically light up when the temperature is low at night, real-time monitoring and accurate control of the ambient temperature in the house, and no longer have to worry about piglets getting cold and freezing
.
When the piglets have been in the farrowing pen for 21 days and weigh about 6 kg, they are weaned and fattened
after the nursery stage.
Fattening pigs also need precise feeding, the key is to spend less feed, in a shorter time, to obtain faster weight gain and better meat quality
.
Cameras are installed above the fattening house to monitor the growth and feeding of the pigs, which can be slaughtered and sold
when they reach the required weight.
Through the intelligent remote trading system, artificial intelligence camera and sensor chip, the number of pigs can be counted by artificial intelligence, accurately weighed, and the pig return monitoring can be carried out to complete remote transactions
.
What does intelligent pig farming mean? It is a pig breeding model
represented by the Internet, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, etc.
, which realizes the online, digital and precise multi-scenario and multi-application processes of pig farm production management, trading, finance and so on in the pig industry.
In recent years, medium and large pig enterprises and pig farms have joined the team of intelligent pig breeding, and intelligent pig farms have sprung up one after another
.
Obviously, compared with traditional pig farms, in smart pig farms, every link from birth to slaughter of a commercial pig integrates a number of advanced technologies to achieve full cost reduction and efficiency
increase.
The staff can remotely monitor and manage through computers or mobile phones, grasp the situation of pigs in real time, and fully digitize
the breeding process.
In the smart pig farm of Muyuan Food Co.
, Ltd.
, each pig has more than 30 intelligent pig breeding machines to serve
it in its lifetime.
According to the relevant person in charge of the company's intelligent business, at present, the Makihara intelligent research and development team has a total of more than 1,000 people, with the research and development of intelligent breeding equipment and the construction of the Internet of Things platform as the main direction, using science and technology to empower pig breeding, and has applied for a total of 697
patents 。 The research and development of equipment covers feed, breeding, breeding, slaughtering and other sectors, has achieved more than 30 products and technology transformation in five categories, some equipment such as inspection robots, needleless syringes, intelligent weighing instruments, etc.
have entered the stage of large-scale application, the cumulative scale of serving pigs exceeds 60 million, the Internet of Things platform has accumulated 1.
61 million devices, an average of 1.
04 million online devices per day, and more than 700 million pieces of
various breeding data.
In May this year, the "Xinjin Intelligent Pig Farm" built by New Hope Liuhe Co.
, Ltd.
was officially put into use, mainly engaged in pig breeding and breeding, with an estimated production sow inventory of 1,500 and 13,000 high-quality breeding pigs per year
.
"New Hope is currently in the exploration period of intelligent pig farming, and is actively exploring and landing in breeding process management, sales management, and intelligent equipment application
.
" Liu Shidong, general manager of New Hope Liuhe Digital Technology Department, revealed
.
Guangxi Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
(hereinafter referred to as Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
) is an early enterprise
in China to explore intelligent pig farming.
In 2014, Yangxiang began to explore the Internet digital intelligent pig breeding and made every effort to create "intelligent Yangxiang"
.
In 2017, its cluster-type intelligent pig farm has been officially put into operation, and on this basis, a new model
of "industrial Internet material, breeding, slaughtering and business integration" has been explored.
According to Wei Jiangcheng, executive president of the industrial Internet business department of Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
, each pig in the intelligent building pig farm is implanted with a chip, just like a person's ID card, the chip records the real-time information of the pig, which can be directly linked to the production management system, the system converts the information into a signal and transmits it to the feed mill, the feed mill can understand the growth and nutrition of pigs, back fat, personalized production of feed, through the connection of software and hardware systems to achieve intelligent operation of pig raising, the growth of each pig, how much to eat per meal, How to match can be real-time dynamic monitoring
.
At the same time, a group of agricultural technology enterprises focusing on the field of intelligent pig breeding have also begun to emerge, these enterprises focus on automatic feeding, automatic inventory, disease prevention and control and other functions, rely on their own technical advantages to design comprehensive solutions, and cooperate with pig enterprises or pig farms to achieve landing applications
.
Yu Ying, vice president of Beijing Rural Credit Internet Technology Group Co.
, Ltd.
(hereinafter referred to as Rural Credit Internet), said that Rural Credit Internet is such an industrial Internet platform service provider
that helps pig enterprises do digital breeding, input procurement, and online pig sales.
With a "pig network" that connects all links in the pig industry chain, more than 10 million pigs are connected to the Internet
.
The smart pig farm of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd.
is based on the "Pig Xiaozhi" supervision platform to form an intelligent landing application
of the whole production cycle from birth to slaughter.
As an artificial intelligence technology company focusing on the intelligence of the livestock industry, Xiaolong Stealth Technology Co.
, Ltd.
(hereinafter referred to as Xiaolong Stealth) realizes the real-time and accurate collection and analysis
of the core production data of large groups of pig farms based on "deep learning and machine vision" technology.
According to Zhang Xingfu, director of research and development of Xiaolong Stealth, Xiaolong Stealth has built a "pasture watcher" track patrol robot applied in the livestock industry, each robot is equipped with a visible light camera and a depth camera, and two cameras can complete the weight evaluation
of each pen pig.
Taking fattening pigs as an example, the daily weight gain curve of pigs can be obtained through the evaluation of the patrol robot, and the staff only needs to compare with the standard growth curve to understand the current growth progress of pigs, which is helpful
for the adjustment of subsequent breeding management feeding.
Usually, the track robot will be installed above the pig house, patrol according to the established route on the slide rail, through artificial intelligence, machine vision technology, according to the image captured by the camera to estimate the weight of the pig, the pig is not felt during the entire estimation process, forming a non-contact measurement process, avoiding the stress response
of the pig.
It is worth noting that intelligent pig breeding is not only reflected in the precise breeding of pigs, but also includes the monitoring of the overall environment of the farm and the norms
of staff behavior.
"In order to reduce the threat and economic losses caused by the spread of germs to pig farms, biosecurity prevention and control of pig farms is particularly important
.
In the intelligent pig breeding scenario, if the staff wants to enter the pig farm, they must first enter the intelligent washing room through face recognition, and the intelligent shower shower can control the bathing time, and when the staff is finished cleaning and disinfection, they can enter the next room and dry and disinfect
again.
After the above steps are completed, you can officially enter the farm
.
Yu Ying said
.
At the same time, artificial intelligence can also replace manual attendance, carry out 24-hour real-time monitoring, identify abnormal events such as pigs, personnel, vehicles, and materials in the farm, and find disinfection loopholes and pig health problems at the first time and warn them, thereby greatly reducing the probability of
African swine fever.
Calculate this "savings"
Calculate this "saving account" Calculate this "saving account" There is no doubt that artificial intelligence and digital technology are profoundly affecting the traditional pig industry
.
With the continuous development of science and technology, new technologies and new directions continue to emerge, the digital economy represented by artificial intelligence, cloud computing, blockchain, big data, 5G, industrial Internet, etc.
is profoundly changing the way of human life and production, and the supporting role of the digital economy on the global economy is constantly prominent, and it also subverts the production and management methods of traditional industries, and the pig industry is one of the representatives
.
But on closer examination, intelligent transformation is not just the result of
this industry in order to adapt to the trend and the environment of the times.
According to the "2022 China Intelligent Animal Husbandry Development Report" compiled by the China Animal Husbandry Association, the pig industry began to lay out intelligent pig breeding in 2018, on the one hand, scientific and technological start-up enterprises will combine the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, algorithms and other technologies with the pig industry, and have successively launched intelligent solutions for pig farms, such as intelligent feeding and intelligent environmental control; On the other hand, industrial Internet platform enterprises are committed to building a smart pig breeding ecological routing system to provide farmers with systematic intelligent pig breeding solutions
.
Even Alibaba, Jingdong and other Internet giants have come to "cross-border" pig farming, the former's Alibaba Cloud launched the "ET agricultural brain", the latter's Jingdong Digital introduced "voiceprint recognition" technology into the breeding industry, the popularity and attention of intelligent pig breeding is unprecedentedly high
.
"2018 is regarded as the first year
of intelligent pig farming.
" Liu Qiangde, deputy secretary-general of the China Animal Husbandry Association, said frankly, "It is characterized by the collection, transmission and storage of massive data, as well as the analysis, processing, learning, re-improvement and application
of data collection based on artificial intelligence.
" ”
The sudden African swine fever epidemic has stepped on the "throttle"
for the accelerated development of intelligent pig farming.
In August 2018, the first African swine fever epidemic occurred in China, and the impact continued to spread, bringing a series of "drastic changes"
to pig production capacity and pork prices.
Since the outbreak of African swine fever, on the one hand, it has indeed had a relatively large impact on China's pig production, and on the other hand, it has also played a very great role
in promoting the reform of production methods.
In September 2019, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Stabilizing Pig Production and Promoting Transformation and Upgrading", proposing to accelerate the informatization of the entire pig industry chain, promote the popularization of intelligent pig breeding equipment, and support pig farms (households) to purchase agricultural machinery and equipment such as automatic feeding, environmental control, epidemic prevention and control, etc.
, to improve production and operation efficiency
.
The swine fever epidemic has put forward higher requirements for the technical level of pig breeding enterprises, and the cost risk of retail pig breeding has increased, which has also led to the withdrawal of most retail investors from the pig market, accelerated the intensification of the industry, and laid the foundation
for the rapid development of intelligent pig breeding.
"African swine fever prevention and control and production capacity recovery have increased the demand for industrial automation and intelligent development, and with the improvement of scale, industrialization and industrial concentration, especially the rapid development and growth of leading breeding enterprises, it has promoted the transformation and upgrading
of the industry in the direction of intelligence.
" Zhu Zengyong, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explained
.
Wang Yubin, a professor at the College of Economics and Management of China Agricultural University, said that due to the geographical environment, land circulation, labor resources and other factors, China's pig industry has maintained an extensive operation and a retail breeding mode for a long time, with a trend
of technology, capital intensity, and reduced artificial input.
Intelligent pig breeding is emerging
in the context of this turning point in the industry.
"In fact, before the outbreak of African swine fever, the problems of traditional pig breeding mode have been highlighted, such as small farm scale, low degree of standardization, high labor costs, low scientific and technological content, and serious pollution in the breeding industry
.
"
In recent years, in addition to African swine fever, environmental protection pressure, the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the pig cycle, etc.
have made the pig industry turbulent several times, and industry practitioners have increasingly realized that intelligent upgrading is the only way to
go.
In essence, the most direct advantage of intelligent pig farming is that it can help pig enterprises and pig farms reduce costs and improve breeding efficiency
.
"Feed costs and labor costs account for the bulk of the total cost
.
" Li Zhi, chairman of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd.
, calculated the "cost account": "In recent years, feed prices have fluctuated and risen, and now the price per ton of feed is about 3,500 yuan
.
Not to mention the labor cost, there is a lot of dirty work in the traditional pig farm, such as manual feeding, which requires employees to carry their own feed bags, and feed one pig house after another, which is equivalent to a day's manual work
.
”
Li Zhi's hanging heart could not be put down
.
"To be honest, pig raising is inseparable from people, but the most unreliable is people, and the most prone to problems is also people
.
" Li Zhi said half-jokingly, "In traditional pig farms, how much feed each pig eats is all controlled by the feeder himself, which may be more or less, which may cause unnecessary feed waste
in the process.
" In addition, the emergence of African swine fever has increased the awareness of biosecurity prevention and control in the entire industry, but the difficulty of personnel management has also increased
.
”
When the smart pig farm was built, Li Zhi's experience was "more accurate"
.
"After the application of digital, intelligent equipment and systems, how much material each pig eats is the most appropriate, the temperature stability of the pig house is all controlled by the equipment, our staff has changed from the past 'hard work' to 'technician', only need to observe whether the pigs have any abnormalities through the monitoring equipment, according to our estimates, can reduce about one-third of the manpower
.
" Due to more accurate feeding, a lot of feed can be saved every year, thus reducing costs and increasing efficiency
.
”
How much cost can intelligent pig farming save? Xiaolong Sneak also has a "fine account"
.
According to its calculations, taking the 800 heads in stock as an example, after applying the precision feeding system of gestational sows, the annual parity of pregnant sows increased by 0.
03 times, the benefit of a single pig was 264 yuan, and the annual increase was 211,200 yuan; Taking the 9,600 pigs in stock as an example, after the application of the accurate management system of fattening pigs, the daily weight gain of each pig increased by 0.
05 kg, the survival rate increased by 2%, and the annual increase benefit was 1.
536 million yuan
.
On the whole, the average income of sow farms can reach 1144 yuan, and the average income of fattening pigs can reach 133.
2 yuan
.
According to Yu Ying's calculations, assuming that the intelligent feeding system can be adopted by sow farms across the country, compared with the current average, 13 million tons of feed can be saved every year, with a market value of about 54.
5 billion yuan.
"Digitalization is an effective means to
do refined operations.
From the perspective of efficiency, intelligent pig breeding reduces costs by improving breeding efficiency, and digitalization can better record and control various data in the breeding process, so as to find the direction of
efficiency improvement.
Liu Shidong said
.
On the other hand, in the context of "carbon neutrality", intelligent pig farming can also help achieve carbon emission reduction and promote the low-carbon development of
the industry.
At present, the main carbon emissions in animal husbandry come from fermentation gas, methane, etc.
in the intestines of farmed animals, greenhouse gases such as methane produced during animal manure treatment, and nitrous oxide emitted when manure is returned to the field, etc.
, and the intelligent feeding system can use artificial intelligence to analyze and make decisions to effectively improve feed utilization and conversion rate
.
"Reducing feed waste is itself a reduction in carbon emissions and a reduction in environmental pollution
.
" Liu Qiangde said
.
Problems such as the "dirty and messy" environment of pig farms, untimely treatment of dead pigs, and the lack of use of harmless incinerators can also be effectively improved
through the environmental protection management system.
Yu Ying introduced that the "Pig Xiaozhi" environmental protection management system can detect dead pigs in time by monitoring the pigs in the building, monitor the trajectory of the dead pig trailer throughout the process, monitor the sewage and wastewater discharged in the farm area, and monitor the gas emissions in the harmless treatment area, reduce the air pollution to the pig farm base and surrounding areas, and then improve the environmental quality
of the pig farm.
Step by step into the intelligent <> billion yuan market can be expected
Step by step into the intelligent 100 billion yuan market can be expected to step into the intelligent 100 billion yuan market According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's meat production increased from 84.
711 million tons in 2012 to 89.
8999 million tons in 2021, and among all kinds of meat, China's residents consume the most pork, eating about 700 million pigs every year, which also makes China the world's largest pork production and consumption market
.
According to Li Weikun, business director of China Agricultural Industry Fund, the intelligent service fee of each fat pig slaughtered in the future will be 100 yuan (including the investment of smart equipment in the early stage and the annual data operation cost), which will be a blue ocean market
of 50-100 billion yuan.
As products move from reducing manual input, precision nutrition and production management to higher-end fields such as digital animal health and intelligent genetic breeding, the market size can be expected
to exceed 100 billion yuan.
Zhu Zengyong also said that there are currently more than 20 million pig farmers in China, and there is great
potential for market prospects and promotion and application.
At present, facing challenges such as high feed costs and biosecurity risks, China's pig breeding industry has reached a critical period of transformation and upgrading, and improving breeding efficiency and industrial competitiveness through intelligent breeding will be the only way for
the industry.
Can intelligent pig farming replace traditional manual pig farming? At least for now, there is still a long
way to go.
Although the intelligent pig breeding model solves some of the problems of traditional pig breeding at this stage, it also brings new difficulties and faces a lot of resistance
in the actual implementation and promotion process.
"At present, some advanced intelligent aquaculture technologies are applied to large-scale aquaculture enterprises, and for small farmers and individual farmers, they are facing great challenges
in terms of input and application.
On the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen the research and development of application technology and equipment for small and medium-sized farmers to reduce the marginal cost of intelligent facilities and equipment, on the other hand, it is also necessary to strengthen the training and education of farmers to promote the acceptance and application of new facilities and technologies
.
Zhu Zengyong suggested
.
First of all, the premise of realizing intelligent pig breeding is that the pig farm must undergo software and hardware upgrades, but this is undoubtedly a big burden
for small and individual farmers.
Li Zhi revealed that the company's intelligent pig farm has installed an intelligent feeding system, environmental control system and biosecurity monitoring system, and the overall transformation cost is about 2 million yuan
.
Secondly, although the number of pig enterprises and pig farms embracing the high-tech tide is increasing day by day, for some managers, they have not broken through the shackles of traditional thinking, and how to let old pig farms with a certain scale and transformation conditions actively participate in the process of digitalization and intelligence is also one of
the current problems.
"Among the practitioners in the pig industry, some people have not paid attention to intelligent pig
farming.
" In the view of Gao Yuanfei, secretary of the party committee and vice president of Yangxiang Co.
, Ltd.
, the biggest obstacle to the implementation of intelligent pig breeding is first of all a conceptual problem, "Some pig farms are temporarily unwilling to adjust, do not want to be 'guinea pigs', and do not want to become 'crab-eaters
'.
" However, almost all the leading enterprises in the pig industry are carrying out research and construction of intelligent pig breeding, and the industry will surely embark on this road
.
”
Liu Qiangde believes that these farms can be digitally and intelligently upgraded in stages and batches, and one of the modules can be installed according to the problems that the farm urgently needs to solve at present, first taste the sweetness through changes, see the changes, and then slowly adjust and improve
.
In the process of dealing with pig enterprises and pig farms, Yu Ying observed that the concepts and mentality of many managers are actually more easily affected
by the current market.
For example, when the pig price is at a high level, the return of funds is fast, and they are more willing to invest in equipment and facility upgrades, and when the pig price is low and the market is not good, many pig farms are difficult to sustain and begin to reduce investment in this area
.
For enterprises and pig farms that have carried out intelligent transformation, there are still difficulties
that need to be solved.
Liu Shidong mentioned that from the perspective of intelligent technology, the connotation of artificial intelligence technology is very broad, at present, in the breeding process, the most important is the application of computer vision, the main difficulty encountered is that the environmental conditions of breeding work are more complicated, and the stock of data is relatively small, which is not conducive to the training
of artificial intelligence models.
Due to the different actual conditions of each pig farm, intelligent equipment often encounters various emergencies during actual operation
.
"For example, if we install the camera on a pig farm, after a while, flies, feces, and dust will cover the lens, and the camera will not
collect anything.
In addition, many hardware products can run well in the laboratory, but because the conditions of some pig farms are not very standardized, the actual operation of the scene does not match the problem
.
Zhang Xingfu gave
an example.
"The smarter the device, the more
people need to learn.
Everyone has been accustomed to using traditional methods to raise pigs, and now that more intelligent equipment and systems are installed, it is necessary to additionally strengthen the training of staff, how to set the parameters of the machine, how to view the monitoring system, these need to be learned from scratch little by little, and even some older employees feel that the operation is too cumbersome, not as easy
as the traditional pig breeding model.
Wang Jiayu, director of the intelligent pig farm of Shanxi Helan Breeding Co.
, Ltd.
, was a little helpless
.
China's pig breeding industry has undergone several transformations, from free-range to "company + farmer", and then to gradual scale, the pace of transformation and upgrading has accelerated, and it is developing in the direction of high quality, but the quality upgrading of the industry is a "multi-choice question", and intelligent transformation is only one
of the answers.
According to the "2022 China Intelligent Animal Husbandry Development Report", from the current development trend, intelligent pig breeding will develop in the direction of integration in the future, not simply integrating all applications, but opening up the management process and background data of pig enterprises, realizing online enterprise operation, intelligent enterprise production, data-driven and intelligent decision-making
.
The application of artificial intelligence in intelligent pig farms will also be more basic and full-scenario, which also means that the requirements of artificial intelligence for the use environment will gradually be relaxed, farm data collection will be more accurate, and farm decision-making will be more intelligent
.
Zhu Zengyong said that intelligent breeding is an important path to improve total factor productivity of breeding, but the improvement of total factor productivity involves the improvement of the efficiency of the whole industry chain such as pig breeding, feed nutrition, production management, etc.
, intelligent breeding is a very important part of it, but the transformation and upgrading of the industry requires the concerted efforts of multiple links in order to truly achieve transformation and upgrading
.
When the traditional pig industry meets high technology, the new door of intelligent breeding has been opened, and I believe that with the passage of time, the pig industry with digital and intelligent wings can fly higher and further
.
