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Increasing reproductive performance and productivity
General Manager – Research & Innovation
Pork Industry Calendar of Events
2021
MAR 22-25 – 2021 Meat Conference, Virtual Event www.meatconference.com
MAY 4-5 (POSTPONED) – Pan Paci c Pork Expo (PPPE), Gold Coast E: pppe@australianpork.com.au
AUG tbc – Kingaroy Baconfest www.kingaroybaconfest.com.au
SEP 7-10 – International Animal ProductionShow www.feriazaragoza. com/ gan-2021
NOV 15-18 – Australasian Pig Science Association (APSA) Conference www.apsa.asn.au
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LOOKING closely at the data, it seems produc- tivity per sow in Aus- tralian pig herds is on the rise.
pigs per litter was 0.104 – equivalent to a little over a pig per litter every 10 years.
directed nuclease – due to editing, deletion or repair and not be classified as GMO.
This is great to hear, and it hasn’t come about by accident.
Australia’s bench- marking data suggests that we are also increasing in litter size in our commer- cial herds over time, due to better genetics and im- proved environmental and husbandry factors.
Gene-editing technology – the most common of which is clusters of regu- larly interspaced short palindromic repeats, al- lows a particular site on the DNA or genome to be attached and then cut, to edit the functioning of that genetic sequence.
Over the three decades I’ve been involved with the pork industry, we have invested considerable re- search investment into increasing reproductive performance.
sian Pig Science Associa- tion conference, Dr Kim Bunter from the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit at the University of New England in Ar- midale, presented an ex- cellent paper explaining that population variance within Australian pig herds will allow sufficient genetic ‘room’ to continu- ously improve selected breeding traits.
size born and weaned per sow.
But we are far from achieving a comparable breeder performance level as recorded overseas – as an industry, our bench- mark value of 22.1 doesn’t even put Australia on the chart!
By doing so faulty parts of the genome can then be repaired, which could then for example be used to cure genetic diseases.
This has come through best practice gilt manage- ment and mating tech- niques including the move to artificial insemination.
In 2019, Australia aver- aged 22.1 pigs weaned per sow per year in the Australian benchmarking group compared to other countries supplying pork for ham and bacon – no- tably Denmark, the US and the Netherlands, as per the graph.
For the most part, gene sequences in normal plants and animals act in an inhibitory way, so an- other use of gene editing is to identify these inhibition gene sequences and delete them, thus a magnified ex- pression of the trait being inhibited is realised.
There has also been significant nutritional improvement before and during pregnancy to in- crease ovulation, improve embryo and foetal sur- vival as well as prior to farrowing to minimise stillbirths.
If we look at compara- tive performances from overseas, maternal ge- netics is the main area where Australia lags, especially in the perfor- mance indicator of litter
The top three Australian herds averaged 26.1 weaned per sow per year for all parties.
In 2019, the Common- wealth Government Of- fice of the Gene Tech- nology Regulator decided to exclude several forms of gene editing from being classified as a genetically modified organism, as an amendment to the Gene Technology Regulations 2001.
As Australia has re- mained closed to imported genetics since 1991, many speculated how producers would remain globally competitive.
As cited in the US Na- tional Hog Farmer pub- lication recently, the long- term trend for annual US commercial increase in
These alterations, which came into force in Oc- tober 2020, will now allow changes to genetic material – SDN-1 or site-
CRISPR has been around since 2012 and as more is becoming known about the pig genome, genomic research for breeding pur- poses is transformational.
At the 2017 Australa-
Australia has the tech- nical capacity and scien- tists to rapidly improve on the genetic base of the Australian pig.
by ROB SMITS
These innovations will hopefully lead to a new era of accelerated genetic advances in pig breeding in Australia.
We may finally be able to catch up to the per- formance of overseas ge- netics, especially as Den- mark and the EU have de- cided to not allow changes to their GMO classifica- tion.
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The decision as to which genomic traits will be ad- vanced by gene editing and which performance traits are targeted by the US – and possibly the UK now that they are no longer in the EU – will be of much interest.
For the latest interna- tional benchmarking per- formance levels report or to find out more, please email rob.smits@australi anpork.com.au
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Page 2 – Australian Pork Newspaper, March 2021
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