Abstract

The adoption of new feeding technologies plays a crucial role in improving farm’s productivity and competitiveness which in turn ensures the economic viability and sustainability of the livestock industry. The developed precision feeding within the feed-a-gene project is proposed as an essential tool to enhance the utilization of feedstuffs and reduce feeding costs and nutrient excretion. This study aims at investigating the impact of adopting new feeding precision technology on pig production. To do so, we estimate the total factor productivity (TFP) change and its components, technological change and efficiency change, for four EU countries during the period 2010–2015. The Färe-Primont index has been calculated for two feeding alternatives namely, ad libitum and restricted techniques. Results indicate that German, French and Spanish farms experienced TFP progress, while Polish farms do not for both feeding strategies. Moreover, our empirical findings suggest a high impact on the productivity of ad libitum feeding technique compared to the restricted one for all countries. Precision feeding strategies provide another avenue to more sustainable livestock production and further evidence that implementing individual ad libitum feeding systems for pigs could enhance farm’s productivity.