Pig software wins NI award

16-11-2009 | Home | News

The Pig Grading Information System (PiGiS) has recently picked up the prize for the Best Product in the Digital Media Software category at the prestigious Northern Ireland Science Park 25K awards.

This online software allows pig producers to assess and analyse the quality of pig carcasses produced on their farm and benchmark their data with others in the industry. It is widely used by both producers and processers to help quantify pig carcase quality and in turn make informed management decisions.

The system was developed by Mark Hawe, Erica Chisholm and Mark Browne as a joint venture between the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI).

Highlighting its potential, Michelle Gildernew, Northern Ireland’s Minister of the Department of Agriculture said, “The whole pig industry will benefit from this innovative technology. I would congratulate the development team of Mark Hawe from CAFRE, and Erica Chisholm and Mark Browne from AFBI. They worked closely with the pig industry to harness innovative technology which will ultimately improve the quality of pigs produced here.”

At the NI Science Park 25K Awards judges of the competition concluded that the success of PiGiS clearly indicated the potential to market the program to other agriculture production sectors like beef and lamb.