Page 2 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Pig Industry Calendar of Events
2018
MAY 15 - 16 – British Pig & Poultry Fair, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, UK www.pigandpoultry.org.uk
MAY 16 - 17 – Forbes Stud Pig Sale, Bedgerabong Showgrounds, NSW E: ebaxter1983@outlook.com Ph: 0448 419 080
MAY 20 - 22 – ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, Lexington, Kentucky US www.one.alltech.com
MAY 30 - 31 – Pan Pacific Pork Expo, Gold Coast, Queensland www.pppe. com.au
JUN 6- 8 – World Pork Expo, Des Moines, Iowa US www.worldpork.org
JUN 20 - 22 – VIV Europe 2018, Utrecht, The Netherlands www.viveurope.nl/ en/Bezoeker.aspx
AUG 21 - 24 – Digestive Physiology of Pigs, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane QLD www.dpp2018.org
SEP 17 - 19 – VIV China, Nanjing International Exhibition Centre (NIEC), China www.vivchina.nl/en/Bezoeker. aspx
SEP 25 - 27 – PorkExpo 2018 Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil www.porkexpo.com.br
OCT 17 - 19 – Vietstock Expo & Forum, Saigon, Vietnam www.vietstock.org
NOV 11- 14 – Space 2018, Rennes, How to supply event details: Send all
details to Australian Pork Newspaper, PO Box 387, Cleveland, Qld 4163, call 07 3286 1833 fax: 07 3821 2637, email: ben@porknews.com.au
porknews.com.au
07 3286 1833
PA N Pacific Pork Expo 2018 is now less than a month away and I, for one, cannot believe how quickly this has come around.
PPPE is being held on Wednesday, May 30 and Thursday, May 31 at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The theme for this event is ‘Driving Efficiency To- gether’.
Many of you continue to experience very challeng- ing conditions, perhaps the most significant our industry has ever faced.
I’ve been in this indus- try for many years and I’ve seen it come through some tough situations, but challenging doesn’t come close to describing what is happening at the moment.
PPPE is a great oppor- tunity for our industry to come together, show our support for each other, let our hair down for a cou- ple of days and, hopefully, learn from each other as well.
We are sure the speakers chosen for PPPE’s techni- cal program will provide inspiration and take-home messages to help us to think through the mire that surrounds us and come out the other side.
The program kicks off with Dr Sally Isberg, the managing director of the Centre for Crocodile Re- search.
I can hear you all now... “Did she say crocodiles!?”
Yes, I did!
Like pigs, crocodile farming is also classed as ‘intensive’ farming.
Crocodile farmers have to manage many of the is- sues every pig farmer also has to consider including welfare, environmental impacts and improving animal health.
Sally is the keynote speaker for PPPE, and her topic will be ‘Learning from the top end: the chal- lenges of crocodile farm- ing and how we can apply it to our industry’.
Sally became involved in the crocodile industry after work experience she undertook during her Agricultural Science de- gree at the University of Sydney.
This led her down the unexpected career path with crocodiles.
This then-emerging in- dustry exuded obvious potential and led to Sally
by HEATHER CHANNON Acting Research and Innovation General Manager
undertaking her PhD in crocodile genetics.
Following the comple- tion of her PhD, Sally was immediately recruited to the position of chief scientist at the Darwin Crocodile Farm where she focused on improving production efficiency and productivity.
With subsequent re- structuring at the Darwin Crocodile Farm, Sally created her own company – the Centre for Crocodile Research.
The centre consults to the crocodile industry and is internationally regarded for developing relation- ships with government and universities to more ethically, economically and sustainably produce crocodilians.
Sally is passionate about crocodile conservation and volunteers heavily for the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group as the co-chair of the Red List Authority to assess global crocodilian extinction risks.
In 2015, Sally won the NT Rural Women’s Award.
This allowed her to explore her other pas- sion – capacity building of young people in the Northern Territory to pur- sue R&D careers in pri- mary industry sectors.
Sally is a dynamic speaker and I am certain you will all find her pres- entation inspiring, with issues being faced by the crocodile industry quite similar to those faced by modern pig production.
The second plenary ses- sion will branch out into the international arena and focus on global trends in efficient animal pro- duction.
Dr Mark Henryon is employed by SEGES, the Danish centre responsible for identifying the com- mercial potential in agri-
culture to provide Danish farmers and horticultural- ists with the best tools for running their businesses more profitably and sus- tainably.
SEGES represents the political, research and de- velopment interests of the pig industry in Denmark.
Mark’s main area of in- terest is in animal breed- ing and genetics, with an emphasis on improving the genetics of livestock and fish species used in commercial production.
After Mark completed his PhD (Animal Science) at the University of West- ern Australia, he took a position with the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at Aarhus University (for- merly the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences).
The faculty is Den- mark’s largest research organisation within the agriculture and food sec- tor, and an international leader in the fields of plant and animal research.
After 12 years at Aarhus University, Mark became a senior scientist at SEG- ES, the Danish Pig Re- search Centre.
At SEGES, Mark is de- veloping and introducing new genetic methods that will make Danish pig pro- duction even more com- petitive internationally.
Mark’s presentation will cover Danish advances in pig genetics, and what we can do in Australia to im- plement similar advances in our industry.
An update of US trends in pig production will be presented by Dr Steven Pollman.
Steve is originally from a small farm in Central Utah.
Steve holds a Master’s and PhD in Swine Nutri- tion from the University of Nebraska.
He is a 2012 Master Pork Industry Leader, and is the chairman of the
Animal Science Commit- tee of the National Pork Board in the US.
Since retiring from Mur- phy-Brown LLC in May 2014, Steve has operated DSP Consulting LLC.
Steve has worked in many roles within the US pig industry including:
• Senior vice president, Support Operations, Mur- phy-Brown LLC (respon- sible for all support op- erations domestically and international businesses);
• President, Western Operations of Murphy- Brown LLC;
• Director of Operations of Western Operations;
• General manager of Circle Four Farms in Utah;
• Vice president of Re- search and Technology for Consolidated Nutri- tion (previously Central Soya); and
• Extension Swine Spe- cialist at Kansas State University.
His presentation and attendance at PPPE pro- vides us all with oppor- tunities to learn from his significant industry expe- rience over many years.
The transformational benefits that the applica- tion of precision livestock farming technologies may provide to the Australian pork industry have been recognised and proposals to address this priority are being called for as part of Australian Pork Limited’s R&D 2018/19 call for ten- ders announced earlier this month.
Innovative approaches on how precision livestock farming technologies are being applied in the UK poultry industry will be addressed by David Spell- er, the final speaker in Plenary Session 2.
David is the owner of Applied Group and con- tract farms, consisting of about 1.5 million broilers around the UK via man- agement agreements.
He has some very inter- esting life experiences.
In 2004, with no expe- rience in poultry, David bought an existing, but ageing, broiler poultry business.
After a short period, the site was redeveloped to embrace the latest tech- nologies and improve pro- duction efficiencies.
His leadership and in- novativeness has been recognised, with David
winning several UK poul- try industry awards for ef- ficiency achievements.
In addition to farm- ing, David and the Ap- plied Group are involved in extensive research and innovation projects (both through UK government- funded work and com- mercial trials).
These projects are fo- cused mainly on disease/ bacteria sensors and in- shed robotic platforms.
In 2017, David set up OPTIFarm, which we be- lieve is the world’s first round-the-clock poultry monitoring centre where his clients’ poultry farms and facilities are moni- tored and optimised using all the knowledge gained from his own farming and research experience.
Currently, the service is operational in Australia, Canada, Italy, the Nether- lands, Portugal, Peru and the UK.
OPTIFarm has re- ceived the backing of many global businesses, ranging from equipment manufacturers to insur- ance, pharmaceutical and veterinary companies.
In the past 12 months, Applied has taken several clients from the bottom of their peer group to the top, principally by turning data into knowledge and by helping make practical real-time decisions based on that farm-specific knowledge around the clock.
This highlights the im- portance of real-time data, robust production knowledge and being able to benchmark your pro- duction against what is going on in the industry.
Benchmarking pro- grams give producers op- portunities to learn from other producers.
On this, APL is busily working to finalise details to pick up the industry’s benchmarking program to build upon the efforts of Dr Rowan O’Hagan, who ran the Pork CRC Bench- marking Program.
I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at PPPE 2018.
For further informa- tion on any of the topics discussed in this article, please do not hesitate to contact me on 0423 056 045 or heather.channon@ australianpork.com.au
PPPE 2018 – thinking outside the box
© Collins Media Pty Ltd – Contents may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. It is the responsibility of advertisers to ensure the correctness of their claims and statements. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher.
Page 2 – Australian Pork Newspaper, May 2018 www.porknews.com.au