On Saturday, September 19th, Gentec’s Jenny Patterson and Mike Dyck were honored to run the George Foxcroft Reproduction Workshop at the Leman Swine Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota. This year marked another successful and well-attended workshop continuing the 20+ year collaboration between the University of Alberta and the University of Minnesota. The workshop was recently renamed in honor of Dr. George Foxcroft, whose original vision for the workshop was to create a session that focused on “Putting Science into Practice” to support improved breeding herd performance.
This year’s theme, “Closing the Gap – Why the Top 20% of Farms Outperform the Average” addressed a current industry challenge: while modern genetics have the potential for outstanding performance, only the top 10-20% of herds consistently achieve it. We had a fantastic lineup of industry experts who explored strategies to help producers better realize the full genetic potential in their herds. This workshop was a success because of the hard work and excellent presentations from our speakers.
Industry Experts (*Sponsored by NPPC):
- Nicole Boettger (MetaFarms)* – What the Data Says Top 10% Farms Do Differently
- Ximena Paz Portal (HANOR) – Dashboarding, Data Visualization & Data-Driven Decisions
- Robert Knox (University of Illinois) – Fertility Drivers in the Breeding Herd
- Chantal Farmer (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) – Maximizing Lactation Performance via Mammary Development
- Ashley DeDecker (Smithfield)* – Success Strategies for Managing Today’s Prolific Sow
- Amanda Minton (AcuFast)* – The boar stud’s role: Ensuring consistent results in the breeding barn
- Luc Dufresne (Demeter Services Vétérinaires) – Why Top Farms Do Better
- Jose Santiago (Tosh Farms)* – Building Teams That Drive Top Farm Performance
Special Thanks
A sincere thank you to the University of Minnesota and especially the Leman Organizing Committee for their support in the development of the program and organizing all the details – we couldn’t have done this without their help, Merck Animal Health for their ongoing sponsorship of the workshop, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) for sponsoring four of our speakers, and all of our attendees for spending their Saturday with us!
Stay tuned for further updates in the next newsletter, we will break down the session in more detail and provide the link to the recorded sessions.