Page 6 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Represent the Australian pork industry as an APL delegate
■ Voting closes on September 2, 2019
THE Australian Pork Limited delegate elec- tions are now open.
If you haven’t renewed or applied for APL membership yet, do it soon so you can vote for your delegate.
Alternatively, if you’re interested in represent- ing your fellow pig producers at industry events, consider becom- ing an APL delegate yourself.
Delegates play an im- portant role in assisting APL to better meet the needs of members and the broader industry.
All APL producer members are entitled to nominate and vote for an APL delegate to represent their interests more directly to APL.
Delegates are appoint- ed for three-year terms to represent members’ interests at APL general meetings and other in- dustry events, such as the biannual Delegates’ Forums, where dele- gates can provide input into and find out about APL strategies and ac- tivities.
Delegates form a vital conduit for the two-way
exchange of informa- tion between APL and the industry and have a responsibility to their producer voters to be diligent in representing them in industry mat- ters.
A delegate is a ‘natural person’, meaning they are appointed in their own right as an indi- vidual, not because of any organisational or representational role.
Delegates do not have to be members or direc- tors of APL.
To become a delegate, you must be nominated by one or more APL members who have in aggregate paid an amount of pig slaughter levy as recorded in the APL membership reg- ister equal to or greater than the ‘delegate levy amount’ determined for each election – in this case $460,880.
If you’re interested in becoming an APL del- egate, complete and sub- mit the Consent to Act as Delegate form, avail- able from australian pork.com.au/members or via the PigPass Portal at pigpass.com.au
APL encourages all potential candidates to submit their forms as soon as possible to al- low producers sufficient time to consider voting for them.
Candidates for election at the date of writing include (in alphabetical
surname order):
• Tracy Anderson
• Edwina Beveridge
• Russell Bishop
• Laurie Brosnan
• Ken Cameron
• Matt Cartwright
• Jorge Chorrez
• Cherie Collins
• Darryl D’Souza
• Tristan Donaldson
• Richard Evison
• Neil Ferguson
• Rod Hamann
• Karen Henwood
• Mick Hewat
• Ian Hill
• David Hodgson
• Peter Howard
• Andrew Johnson
• Marcus Jones
• Tim Kingma
• Rob Martyn
• Mark McKenzie
• Mark McLean
• Paul O’Leary
• David Plant
• Ean Pollard
• Nathan Sandral
• Aaron Scheid
• Kenton Shaw
• Rob Smits
• Matt Starick
• Paul Taylor
• Robert Van Barneveld • Darren Wilson
• David Wright.
More details about
these candidates, includ- ing their biographies, are available in the Pig- Pass Portal.
To view the progress of the delegate elec- tions in real time, log into the PigPass Portal and click on the Voting Progress link to see who has been nominated and how close they are to the
delegate levy amount – including whether they have already been ap- pointed.
From the PigPass Por- tal, you can also renew or apply for membership via the Membership Sta- tus section, complete a Consent to Act as Del- egate form, and vote for your chosen delegate.
When voting for your delegate, you are in ef- fect allocating votes equal to your entire levy amount to that candi- date.
Voting via the PigPass Portal helps ensure your levy vote allocation is directed to the nominee of your choice and not reallocated to a differ- ent nominee in the case where your first choice is already appointed.
If you prefer not to use the PigPass portal for membership renewal/ application and delegate voting, you can instead download the relevant forms from australian pork.com.au/members or request a copy by calling APL on 1800 789 099.
Please note, voting closes on September 2, 2019.
For more information, visit australianpork. com.au/members or contact the APL Mem- bership Team at mem bers@australianpork. com.au or 1800 798 099.
What you need to know
to protect your business
from African swine fever
IF we track the gradual spread of African swine fever over the past 10 years in Europe, de- spite best efforts made by farmers and govern- ments to prevent it reach- ing their domestic pig herds, these measures have generally failed.
Interestingly, the chal- lenges faced in Europe have been somewhat different to those now emerging in Asia.
In Europe, a large popu- lation of wild pigs made the task of limiting the spread of the disease through official move- ment restrictions all but redundant.
The proposals to build perimeter fences that stretched hundreds of kilometres have also been seen as being mostly fu- tile attempts at preventing the disease moving across borders.
The spread of the dis- ease in Asia appears to be different.
Asia has very little left of its wild pig population but from north to south, an approximate 580 mil- lion pigs can be found on Asian farms.
Pig farming in Asia remains predominantly practised by smallholder farms and this has been the principal cause attrib- uted to the rapid spread of ASF.
A lack of understanding of basic biosecurity con- cepts and continued swill feeding practices have all but guaranteed ASF was going to develop differ- ently in Asia.
In parts of Asia, panic set in, with both animal health authorities and pig farmers congregating reg- ularly to find out about the latest developments and measures taken, which has undoubtedly led to a faster spread of the dis- ease.
Farmers inadvertently carrying the disease on their shoes and clothing back to their farms fuelled a faster proliferation of the virulent disease. Australian industry fears
Much has been said in Australia about the inevi- tability of ASF reaching our shores.
Over the past few months, Australia’s De- partment of Agriculture and Water Resources has stepped up its biosecurity screening and teamed up with the Australian Ani- mal Health Laboratory to test for the presence of ASF in pork products seized at border entry points.
Alarmingly, the results of confiscated pork prod- ucts during two rounds of testing showed Afri- can swine virus DNA was present in 46 of the inter- cepted products.
In the past six months alone, Australian authori- ties have confiscated 17
tonnes of pork products from air passengers and two tonnes in the mail.
All of which was being brought into the country in contravention of cus- toms regulations.
With over 9.2 million visitors entering Australia every year, the chances of ASF entering Australia’s pig herd are very high.
What is of concern is Australia, like many parts of Europe, has a large wild pig population.
Some estimates put the number of feral pigs at between eight and 10 mil- lion.
As such, once the dis- ease has entered, control- ling its spread in Australia could prove to be chal- lenging and a repeat of the difficulties encountered in Europe.
Australia also farms many of its pigs through free range systems, which inherently increase the risk of the spread of dis- ease and could facilitate the movement of ASF between states and ter- ritories.
What can be done?
While Australia’s ani- mal health authorities and the industry continue to be proactive in preventing the entry and spread of this disease, the pig farm- ing community can ready itself by taking steps to mitigate the risk.
Biosecurity measures should be assessed and updated.
Simple things such as in- creased levels of disinfec- tion of people and vehi- cles entering and leaving farms should be adopted.
Farm workers who re- turn from overseas should be quarantined and moni- tored.
An inexpensive bio- security risk audit is rec- ommended to help farms ascertain if their current disease prevention sys- tems are adequate. Protecting your busi- ness
Several insurance prod- ucts are specifically de- signed to protect pig growers, their animals and businesses.
Livestock Mortality is perhaps the most common of the insurance protec- tions available.
This insurance covers the cost of production in case a pig dies from dis- ease or other events.
Receiving a payment for the costs incurred in breeding and rearing a pig can help a business re- stock quickly.
This compensation does not provide protection for the entire financial loss to the business.
Livestock Business Con- tinuity and Loss of Profits is a customised coverage to help livestock growers protect their farms and businesses against the fi- nancial impact, additional costs and loss of profits following the outbreak of
a serious disease.
In the event of a disease
outbreak in or outside the farm, a business can ex- pect to experience some form of interruption and impact to its bottom line.
• If it is external, animal health authorities are like- ly to impose movement bans and restrictions, preventing business trade from taking place and put- ting the farm under finan- cial stress to cover costs such as additional feed expenses, ongoing general overheads and loss of rev- enue as pigs are unable to be sent for processing. In some cases, it is also pos- sible pigs held for longer periods may gain weight and exceed local market requirements, resulting in animals having to be sold at below price or, worst case scenario, unable to be sold because of over- supply once the movement ban has been lifted.
• If the disease has en- tered the farm, animal health authorities would be expected to step in and enforce slaughter orders. Though compensation will be made available from the government, it is unlikely to provide the protection required to cover a business for its full loss of profits, ad- ditional expenses it has incurred (carcass removal and disinfection) and in some instances the costs of keeping the farm op- erational while it restocks and restarts. Keeping farm staff employed, hav- ing the ability to continue paying fixed costs (rent, insurance, maintenance and service) and other critical expense items such as loan repayments are crucial to allowing a business to get back on its feet as quickly as possible. Providing coverage for Australia’s pig produc- ers
Lockton Australia be- lieves some of these in- surance solutions need to be made more read- ily available to Australia’s pig famers.
In many cases, the pro- cess to secure coverage is simple and the policies inexpensive.
For many years Lock- ton has been advising and taking care of the insur- ance needs for some of the largest pig breeding businesses in the region and through our experi- ence we have developed a unique understanding of the issues and needs of the pig farming industry.
To register your inter- est and hear more about the insurance cover you can access to protect your farm and business, send us an SMS with the head- ing ‘ASFprotect’ on 0410 549 520 and we will be in touch with you right away.
Act now to protect your farm and business while coverage remains avail- able.
Page 6 – Australian Pork Newspaper, August 2019
www.porknews.com.au