Three pork industry innovators who have delivered new creative solutions to benefit pork production were honored at the 2013 Banff Pork Seminar, held January 15–17.
Winners of the annual F.X. Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production include Sylven Blouin and Mathieu Couture of Agri-Marche Inc. St-Isidore Que.; Serge, Robert and Germain Labrecque of Conception Ro-Main Inc., St-Bernard, Que.; and Joel and Ron Wurz of Bench Colony, near Shaunavon, Sask. The Agri-Marche Inc. team was recognized for its development of a temperature-controlled semen conservation unit for delivery vehicles. Conception Ro-Main earned its award for the creation of an "intelligent" heat lamp controller and piglet creep system. Bench Colony had problems with some pit plugs popping out, and came up with a simple yet effective device to hold the pit plugs in place so the water would not drain off.
