Enlighted pigs: integrating light with animal-friendly and sustainable farming

Current pig production faces the challenge to improve animal welfare (including health) and to reduce its environmental impact, without compromising profitability. Up till now, artificial light has been largely ignored in the search for smart solutions for sustainable pig production systems. Light affects daily rhythms and it is already proven that light can increase production. However, new insights in animal welfare strongly indicate that light may also improve natural behaviour and moods, and potentially reduce the environmental impact. This project aims to increase fundamental knowledge on light for pigs, concerning their behaviour, health, welfare and growth, and to develop adaptive light concepts to contribute to sustainable pig production. With a multidisciplinary team, we will first conduct experiments to study the effect of light intensity and wavelengths on positive and negative animal welfare, and their trade-offs and synergies among other sustainability issues (e.g. production efficiency, hygiene, ammonia emissions). Next, a new, smart lighting concept will be developed that stimulates pig behaviour to optimise animal welfare and production efficiency. The project is expected to provide an innovative light concept for the pig industry with controlled and tuneable lighting, which easily integrates with standard monitoring systems and contributes to a more sustainable production of pork.