Australian Pork Newspaper

Phone: 07 4697 3344 • Fax 07 4697 3532
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Vol 22. No. 7 July 2018 Australian Pork Newspaper PO Box 387 Cleveland 4163 Phone (07) 3286 1833 Fax (07) 3821 2637 Email ben@porknews.com.au
Australasian Pork Research Institute Limited chairman Dennis Mutton welcomed newly appointed APRIL Board member Dr Tony Peacock at APRIL’s June Board meeting in Adelaide, South Australia.
Mutton adds Peacock to pork body
AS our producers might imagine, the APL executive team is totally focused on doing what we can to address and mitigate our damaging industry downturn.
As our profitabil- ity crunch continues, we see our role to be (1) keeping our foot flat on the gas generating as much demand for our Australian pork as possible right now; (2) keeping our producers up to date with what we believe is going on in the production sector and in the market and providing accurate and timely information for them to make the best decisions they can for their business (this arti- cle being part of that); and (3) doing our best to manage the human toll coming out of this downturn.
It’s not a surprise that there are a lot of opin- ions about the specific things the industry and/ or Australian Pork Lim- ited should be doing to improve the present situation.
Of course, this is the subject of a lot of discus- sion at the APL Board and senior management level, and at the end of the day, not only do we need to decide what we will do, but with lim- ited resources, we also need to decide what we won’t do.
In general, for any ac- tivity APL undertakes, it must be desirable (that is, it will improve things if it is successful), it must be feasible (that is, it must have a reason- able chance of success) and it must be viable (meaning it must gener- ate a positive return on investment to industry relative to other poten- tial initiatives).
We owe it to our pro-
Point of View
by ANDREW SPENCER CEO
ducers to be able to ex- plain why we don’t do certain things.
I’d encourage all pro- ducers to come to their state farm or pork or- ganisation meetings now being planned, many of which are oc- curring over the next couple of months, to get a better understanding of this.
But let me start the conversation here con- sidering some of the more common ques- tions.
Question one – Why don’t we do something about imports?
Imports are not the source of the industry problems at present and in fact they haven’t re- ally changed in total an- nual volume since about mid-2015.
Put simply, imports are a part of the busi- ness environment in our industry.
Government will not stop them – they are sending global signals about how open trade oriented we are as a na- tion, which makes sense given our food produc- tion surplus.
Our World Trade Or- ganisation member sta- tus as a nation also ties us to not perform cer- tain behaviours around differentially protecting our own industries.
For us to try to con-
vince government to stop imports would not be feasible.
Question two – Why aren’t we asking gov- ernment to step in and help us?
In some ways, we are already doing this through attempts to streamline access to some of the financial support packages, and rural financial counsel- ling among others.
In the big picture however, this is playing about the edges.
Government has ab- solutely no appetite to prop up an industry and its participants due to unfavourable market conditions that have no origin in government policy.
To do so would argu- ably potentially extend the pain the industry is going through in any case.
We don’t like to hear this but it is the truth. Question 3 – Why don’t we pressure the super- markets to do more for our industry and their sales of pork?
There have been a lot of reasons for the im- pressive growth in fresh pork consumption since 2010 including relative pricing, better products and successful advertis- ing campaigns.
Most of that growth has come through re-
tail channels, the major- ity of the volume being through our supermar- kets.
Not only have they been able to support the growth of our product, they are also among the most reliable and gener- ous buyers of pork in terms of volumes and hence industry revenue.
It’s not very fashion- able to be on the side of the supermarkets, but the facts speak for them- selves.
The bottom line is we’ll continue to work with the supermarkets in a collaborative way to ensure everything possible is being done considering the present difficulties.
Every time we decide to do something new in APL, it must pass the test of being better than what we were doing be- forehand with the same resources – be they manpower or funds.
Considering the ongo- ing growth in consump- tion of pork and the suc- cess of the promotion of the product in driving this, there is a high hur- dle to leap over for new initiatives.
We aren’t short of new ideas, we’re just short of new ideas proven to do better than what’s al- ready being done.
Our latest information continues to show no lights at the end of the oversupply tunnel.
I encourage all pro- ducers to complete the production survey forms and return them to us so we can continue to give you the information you need to run your busi- ness the best you can.
A nd please remem- ber in these difficult times to keep an eye out for your industry col- leagues, especially those doing it the toughest.
AUSTRALASIAN Pork Research Institute Lim- ited chairman Dennis Mutton has announced the appointment of Dr Tony Peacock as an In- dependent Director.
CEO of the Canberra- based Cooperative Re- search Centres Associa- tion since 2010, Dr Pea- cock is a former manag- ing director of the Pig Re- search and Development Corporation and was CEO of a successful CRC for a decade.
A reproductive scientist, he holds a Bachelor’s De- gree in Agriculture and a PhD in veterinary sci- ence from the University of Sydney.
Welcoming Dr Peacock to APRIL’s June Board meeting in Adelaide, Mr Mutton said he would add a significant skill set to the Board.
“Tony’s leadership of the CRC Association, as well as his Board experience with start-ups, passion- ate advocacy for applied research and his track record in collaboration,
science communication, research partnerships and effective innovation sys- tems, make him a great fit,” Mr Mutton said.
Fellow APRIL Board members are Prof Robert van Barneveld, Ms Ed- wina Beveridge, Prof John Pluske, Mr Kenton Shaw and Mr Andrew Spencer.
APRIL, which replaces the Cooperative Research Centre for High Integrity Australian Pork (Pork CRC), is fully member based with a budget in 2018-19 approaching $3 million.
APRIL actively seeks new science and creative new ideas for its three programs, which cover re- silience, cost and return on assets.
A recent first call by APRIL for research to en-
hance the competitiveness and sustainability of the Australasian pork indus- try resulted in 14 propos- als being approved by the Board and funded to a value of almost $1 mil- lion.
The successful propos- als included 20 to 25 per- cent applicant cash con- tributions, giving a total cash budget for the first round of about $1.2 mil- lion.
The APRIL Board has also approved $100,000 for education in 2018/19 to support an Industry Placement Program simi- lar to that successfully initiated in Pork CRC, as well as top up postgradu- ate scholarships and hon- oursprojects.
www.APRI.com.au
No respite on the horizon
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