Page 12 - APN May 2017

WAPPA Pork Yarns past and present
HAVING held a mirror to WA’s pork industry for several decades, I’m nev- er surprised that much of what I hear today at in- dustry forums and talk- fests often sounds a little familiar.
While the topics are sometimes much the same, the solutions and science around them have, admittedly and thankful- ly, developed and evolved, at least in most instances.
The spruikers have of- ten changed too, which is mostly refreshing, with younger, wiser, better- educated heads around, but sometimes it’s a little sad as a handful of wise heads among the indus- try’s traditionalists have been and gone with the
Cant Comment
by BRENDON CANT
passing of the years.
In a mysterious moment of reflection brought about by I don’t quite know what, I ventured back a gentle 20-plus years into my WA pork industry publishing ar- chives, trawling through old editions of ‘WA PPA Pork Yarns’, a quarterly
newsletter I produced for WA Pork Producers As- sociation from 1994 to 2008.
Please indulge me to se- lect and reprint one quot- able quote from each of those years.
I’ll leave it to you to decide what’s changed, if anything, and if it
has changed, whether it should have.
It will probably not be too hard to pick those pork yarns that haven’t changed in 20-plus years.
December 1994, Roger Leigh-Firbank, WAPPA president: “It concerns me that some branches have great difficulty in find- ing delegates and offic- ers to run them. One of the reasons, of course, is that there are less produc- ers and I believe that this trend will continue.”
March 1995, David Gor- ham, retiring WAPPA EO: “My only regret is that there are many pro- ducers sitting back and quite happily taking ad- vantage of the Associa- tion’s activities, paid for
by you the member. I sin- cerely hope that they soon see the light and recognise that only fully committed industries prosper.”
April 1996, John O’Donnell, WA Pig Indus- try Taskforce chairman: “I believe pig farmers must become more involved in building networks with other parties in the indus- try, rather than trying to operate totally indepen- dently. I expect to see the emergence of co-operatives or networks so that costs of production can be shared, input costs reduced and economies of scale in buy- ing are available.”
January 1997, Jon Brad- shaw, WAPPA president: “Producers who don’t un- derstand they are in the
food business and think they are just breeding pigs are kidding themselves.”
June 1998, Lea Newing, WAPPA EO: “Producers need to co-operate with our processors more than ever before, by regularly supplying vital informa- tion on sow and weaning numbers so that proces- sors can accurately pre- dict throughout and sub- sequently plan sales and marketing strategies.”
November 1999, Chris Keene, WAPPA presi- dent: “The bottom line is we need to take greater control of our destinies, encourage and embrace more strategic alliances and gear ourselves more for export markets. Ex- port is the window of op- portunity.”
February 2000, Jim Kennedy, Supermarket to Asia executive director: “Australian producers and processors need to devel- op certification and objec- tive measurement systems acceptable to customers in Asian markets, to under- pin a marketing campaign to differentiate our pork.”
August 2001, Liam Fla- nagan, WAPPA President: “We must be very care- ful in the way we breed and raise our animals, as public perception of what we do is very real and we must conduct our busi- ness in a welfare-friendly manner.”
May 2002, Brian Ram- say, Australian Pork Lim- ited chief executive: “Aus- tralia’s most important competitive advantage is its unique and unparal- leled animal health status, which underpins the fu- ture of the industry.”
October 2003, Stuart Coole, WA PPA president: “WA’s clean green image is highly valued in mar- kets such as Singapore
and Japan. We need to capture those qualities in our own state with a label that identifies and pro- motes local product.”
March 2004, David McFerran, WAPPA EO: “High animal welfare standards are needed to satisfy an escalating sen- sitivity among consumers, who are increasingly con- scious of the impact of food production.”
December 2005, Roger Campbell, Pork CRC CEO: “Understand- ing where Australia sits against its competitors and where improvements and changes are most ur- gently required, is best gained from benchmark- ing studies, or comparing key performance indica- tors for different sections of the supply chain.”
April 2006, Graeme Dent, WAPPA president: “We want to ensure con- sumers buy locally pro- duced pork and once they have bought local they keep on buying local, which means we need to supply them with a supe- rior product.”
May 2007, Barb Frey, Consistent Pork: “Like it or not, how the com- munity and consumers perceive our product and the way it’s produced has a profound effect on our market.”
December 2008, Steve Martin, WAPPA president: “I’m pleased DAFWA and Murdoch University have been meeting with cereal breeding company InterGrain and Pork CRC about commencing plant breeding research in WA on feed wheats and triti- cale, since this gives us the opportunity to look more closely at varieties particularly relevant to WA.”
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Page 12 – Australian Pork Newspaper, May 2017
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