Updated on June 28, 2022.
The Oink Award was a success, the winners were updated in their knowledge of swine production and even won prizes. However, for us at Agriness, the greatest achievement is to stimulate continuous learning. Oink and the Oink Award are fun ways to learn about swine production, we are happy with the results we have achieved beyond the award itself. Let’s share a case that shows that when good ideas come together, they generate positive results in the lives of the people around us.
The case happened in Colmeia Yagro I and Colmeia Yagro II farms, which are located in Tupaciguara, Minas Gerais, and who told us this story was Lucas Vasconcelos, owner of the farms. For eleven years Lucas has been working with swine production, and today there are approximately 5,400 sows on these farms. When the Oink app came up, he took advantage of the available information to develop his technical knowledge.
“The app helped me a lot personally, with lots of questions in the technical part, in trying to find out, as an owner, how activities on the farm are going“.
The learning also generated positive impacts on his communication with managers, as he tells us.
“I found the application very interesting, because I started to interact more with the technical part. I was able to talk a little more using the language of my managers and farm leaders, so it became easier to communicate“.
“I decided to do something capacity-oriented and to reward the winner, to make both the game and knowledge more attractive. In a meeting with the managers, we decided to create the trivia game. It was the first one we did, we held it during the traditional June festivity, which we usually do every year here at the farm“.
Farm team playing Oink
The staff at the farm liked the idea, and about a month ahead of the trivia game they started studying for the challenge playing Oink. When the day came, three squares were marked on the floor with the alternatives “a”, “b” and “c”. As the questions were asked, the groups would walk on to the square of the answer they considered to be the correct one. In the end, the top three places won a cash prize. First Place was taken by Maria, from the farrowing area, who has been working on the farm for 6 years.
“What I learned about the front I am working on was very rewarding. I learned about the types of pre-farrowing management, about the piglets who get separated from their mothers, those weaker piglets, about colostrum. I learned a lot and I want to pass it on to the people who work together with me, what I learned. The more we learn, the more we want to learn, and I always want to learn more. It’s very good, I’m very grateful to Oink for what I’ve learned and I want to pass it on to my co-workers. Thank you very much“.
Maria
On the day of the trivia game, in addition to Maria, the big winner, more than 70 people participated in answering the trivia about pig farming that they had studied in Oink. In the end, the most interesting thing about the trivia game is that, in addition to the competition and the prizes, people learned more about their activities and this even contributed to increase the team’s engagement at the farm.
“After Oink, people started to work better with the methods, started to research more. So, today I want to do the Oink trivia game every year, because I want people to seek knowledge“.
Farm team on the day of the trivia game
The idea of using Oink on the farm came from the intention of stimulating operational staff, even those who do not have a very high educational level, to study and try to understand what they are doing at work on the farm. What Lucas realized in Oink was an opportunity to use it as a means of empowering people and stimulating healthy competition.
Lucas
“Not only would I recommend Oink, but I think it’s a fundamental tool that Agriness offers and that we, owners and managers, have to work on it, because it will help a lot in developing our people on the ground. I’m here in the office, the manager is in the farm office and it’s our people on the ground who are making it happen, so they need training. I think Oink is a fundamental tool that came to add a lot. Not only do I recommend it, but you also have to pull, to incentivize, do things like the trivia game I did, organize events, awards, because only in this way we will be able to win in our swine production industry.“.
See what Maria, winner of the scavenger hunt, had to say about what she learned from Oink.
Trivia game and farm
staff participation highlights
E você, promove, participa ou conhece alguma história do Oink?
Compartilhe a sua experiência conosco, é só preencher os campos ao lado.