Page 15 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Innovating in the face of global pandemics
General Manager – Research & Innovation
by ROB SMITS
Destructive wild pigs can help build rainforests
AS with any time there is challenge or crisis, the strength of a long-term, focussed and viable in- dustry becomes evident.
veterinarians to identify key pig diseases and the pathogens and virulent serovars that impact the Australian pig industry.
Thisisthefirststudyto link animals to this key mechanism for main- taining hyper-diverse rain- forests.
Dr Luskin said that as the fieldwork was conducted in Malaysia where pigs are native – the impacts of invasive pigs in Australia may not create similar ef- fects.
As we enter our third year of the global pan- demic, we have observed a move through the phases of reaction – from alarm to protection and eventually to minimisa- tion of disruption to our everyday lives.
The project is pro- gressing very well.
Dr Matthew Luskin from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland has been researching the effect of native pigs in Malaysian rainforests and found their nests may be critical to maintaining diverse and balanced tree communi- ties.
The researchers tagged more than 30,000 tree seedlings in a Malaysian rainforest and were able to examine how tree diversity changed in the areas where pigs nested after recovering more than 1800 of those tree tags from inside more than 200 pig birthing nests.
“We’re currently in the process of designing new research to study the same pig processes here in Queensland,” he said.
The global pork in- dustry is encountering not only two pandemics – C OV I D -19 a n d A f- rican swine fever – but the impact of COVID on freight and restrictions of energy supplies such as CO2 for processing and packaging as well.
have a large bearing on pork-eating quality and memorable experiences.
data with sensory sur- veys, and consumer ac- ceptability and willing- ness to pay.
Our participating part- ners SunPork and Ri- valea have submitted many samples that have been crosschecked for testing accuracy and we are now confident we have a new diagnostic ca- pacity for producers and pig veterinarians to get results quickly and cost- effectively.
“We’ve shown that wild pigs can support higher diversity ecosystems and are not just nuisances and pests, thanks to a benefi- cial effect of their nesting practices,” Dr Luskin said. “Prior to giving birth, pigs build birthing nests made up of hundreds of tree seedlings, usually on flat, dry sites in the forest.
“You could consider pigs ‘accidental forest gardeners’ that prune common seedlings and inadvertently maintain di- versity,” Dr Luskin said.
“And we’ll also be com- paring our initial Malay- sian results with conditions in a nearby Malaysian forest that is heavily hunted and where many native pigs have been killed.
These are not easy chal- lenges to overcome in the short term.
“But our results suggest
It is also timely to rec- ognise that long-term research and innovation programs continue, even with difficulties in ac- cessing research sites and personnel.
Combined with existing knowledge and market insights, APL’s research and innovation team is working with researchers from the University of Melbourne and Austral- ia’s pork supply chains to measure carcass quality and variation – which in- cludes meat quality such as drip loss, tenderness, colour, muscle and intra- muscular fat characteris- tics.
Another APL research project with long-term benefits that is coming to the point of commercial use is the Pork MultiPath Panel project.
This is a critical step for the industry to allow early pathogen detection of bacteria and viruses as part of herd health surveillance on every pig farm.
“As they build their nests, the pigs kill many of the dominant seedlings and inadvertently reduce the abundance of locally dom- inant tree species, but usu- ally not rarer local species, supporting tree diversity.”
I commend all industry funded researchers for their flexibility.
This project enlisted the skills and technology of Genics, a commercial di- agnostic laboratory based in Brisbane – genics.com. au
I encourage all pro- ducers and industry vets to contact Genics and APL to see how they can begin to establish a cost- effective surveillance program to identify dis- ease before it breaks on farm.
Dr Luskin said wild pigs – sus scrofa – descended from the same species of domestic pigs and both have generally been con- sidered pests by farmers, land managers and conser- vationists.
As part of Australian Pork Limited’s invest- ment into eating quality over the years, we have recognised there are farm factors, processing conditions and consumer cooking practices that
This eating-quality hor- izon research program is combining the scientific
Genics and APL are working with industry
“Their negative impacts on natural and cultivated ecosystems have been well documented – ranging from soil disturbances to
According to Dr Matthew Luskin, wild pigs can support higher diversity ecosystems and are not just nuisances and pests, thanks to a beneficial effect of their nesting practices. Photo: Max Saeling
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Australian Pork Newspaper, March 2022 – Page 15
As part of our on- going program, APL is investing in developing meaningful quality scoring of pork, which should lead to consumer and hence retailer confi- dence in pork value as a long-term objective.
At the same time, there is a focus on adoption of best-practice manage- ment on-farm that con- tributes towards pork quality – such as elimi- nating boar taint through immunocastration, stress reduction through avoid- ance of pre-transport mixing and nutritional options for pre-sale.
This research and inno- vation project was funded because it provided a unique ability to quantify disease, thereby identi- fying multiple diseases from the one sample sub- mitted and giving an in- dication as to how much challenge is present.
“In many regions, there’s a focus on managing over- abundant pig populations to limit their negative envi- ronmental impacts.
“It’s an intriguing insight, as pigs have become the most widespread large animal on earth, so docu- menting any new ecolog- ical impacts has massive repercussions globally.”
WILD pigs are often thought of as ecosystem destroyers, but a new study found they also cul- tivate biodiverse rainfor- ests in their native habi- tats.
attacking newborn live- stock,” he said.
there may be some posi- tives to maintaining pigs in theecosystem.”