HoCoTec: A Dutch farm in Colombia

HoCoTec is a multisite production system with 750 females in a farrow-to-finish site, on 25 hectares located in the department of Cumaral, in the Meta region of Colombia. It is surrounded by forest with gardens and natural protective barriers, with temperatures of 25 to 35ºC (77 to 95ºF).

Regarding the facilities, innovative techniques have been implemented, such as the Freshnose system, which consists of directing cold air only at the snout of the lactating sows, which allows a greater sensation of thermal comfort. All the roofs of the barns for sows, nursery and growing-finishing as well as the gilt development area have a special design that allows constant and sufficient air circulation, thus providing suitable conditions for the animals, even though the climate is tropical (RH>80% and high temperatures). The company consciously chose not to work with a controlled environment but to build a system that would work from an engineering perspective and that could be replicated under similar conditions.

Insemination and early gestation are carried out in stalls; the rest of the gestation period is carried out in group pens with automated feeding.

The biosecurity program includes 7 zones that are strictly differentiated by color:

• the black zone, which corresponds to the area outside of the property,
• the gray zone, which corresponds to the property, but not to the perimeter of the farm, which is accessed via a sanitary filter for the worker vehicles,
• the white zone, which corresponds to the interior of the perimeter of the farm itself, within which there are zones according to each production phase;
• the blue zone, for gestation and replacement animals;
• the green zone, for farrowing house;
• the yellow zone, for the nursery and
• the red zone, for growing and finishing

It is important to mention that according to the area, personnel must wear clothing and footwear of the same color as the zone in which they are located, starting the moment they enter the white zone. In addition, in each area there is an additional hand washing and disinfection system, a boot washer, and a clothing container for entry to each site with items of the corresponding color. This makes it possible to practically control the transit of workers inside the production units, emphasizing internal biosecurity, which often goes unrecognized on farms and which is very important to limit the circulation of pathogenic agents between batches or age groups.

To complement the above, HoCoTec personnel must wear protective foot covers when entering the farrowing crates in order to keep them clean and reduce the risk of contamination between litters. They have: differentiated lorries for feed and transfer of pigs; batch farrowing; a protocol All-In All-Out, not by room but by the whole barn; double silo feeding systems to quarantine the feed prior to making it available to the animals.

In addition, HoCoTec has a unique loading pen that can hold 80 animals located in the gray area of the property for the biosecure transshipment of the finishing animals. This system consists of 3 strictly separated areas (with independent pits), including the area that receives the animals going for sale, by means of rigorous internal transport, the pre-shipment holding area and the shipping area. It works on a one-way traffic. The purpose of this is to increase external biosecurity, preventing the truck collecting the slaughter animals from having access to the gray zone and increasing the distance to the white zone (animal barns).

The production system uses long lactation lengths (>26 days), to obtain a greater amount of kg weaned per lactation and sow. This, along with the use of slow intestinal transit diets with low protein content in all phases, contributes to improved intestinal health, digestibility, and significantly reduces the use of antibiotics throughout the productive life of the animals, also generating less dense and less odorous manure.

Another aspect that sets this company apart from other Latin American productions is that they comply with the animal welfare standards established by the European Union and work in accordance with the latest Dutch standards of good pig farming practices. This results in a humane, socially responsible, profitable, and sustainable production while respecting the animals and the environment. They have a policy to which they try to fully adhere: "If you focus on cost, quality goes down, if you focus on quality, your cost goes down."

But HoCoTec is not only a farm with a novel production system, it is also an academic center, a demonstration center for customers, and an experimental testing center for new products.

As an academic center, they have a highly trained and experienced team that applies a unique didactic methodology of learning through applied science (learning by doing), with the objective of ensuring the most up-to-date and innovative pig farming practices worldwide that are applicable according to the reality of each farm and production system. They carry out a concept called TopSuin whereby the training team visits customers on a regular basis to ensure the correct implementation of the techniques learned.

Accordingly, HoCoTec's facilities allow personnel to be incorporated to participate in training courses in an environment specially designed for this purpose. For example, the semen processing laboratory allows for the viewing of the entire procedure, even without having to enter; the farrowing room has different types of sow crates implemented so that the participant can learn how each system works.

HoCoTec makes its facilities available so that associates can show their clients and prospective clients the benefits of implementing their concepts or adopting their technologies.

In this way HoCoTec is a productive system that takes on the challenge of serving as an open center for learning and experimentation, being a state-of-the-art model worth visiting.