Page 9 - APN March 2017

WAPPA Pig Day Out
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partment’s Meat Exports Branch area technical manager and veterinarian Dr Ran Tal.
Dr Tal did his best to answer the many que- ries fired at him, as did Department of Agricul- ture and Food, WA sen- ior compliance officer Alex Stewart, a 38-year DAFWA veteran based at Narrogin.
Much less controversial was an update on the re- search activities of Pork Innovation WA delivered by Emalyn Loudon, PI- WA’s secretary/treasurer and a WAPPA executive committee member.
Aside from finalis- ing Pork CRC and APL projects PIWA inherited from DAFWA in June last year, its most significant new project hopes to es- tablish WA as the Austral- ian centre for the produc- tion of high-quality free range pork.
The two-and-a-half-year project will specifically tackle cooling system de- sign for farrowing huts and nutrition protocols for supplementing essential fatty acids and betaine in lactating sows and devel- op a management toolkit for free range operatives.
PhD candidate Ka- ren Moore of PIWA ad- dressed the topic of op- timising production of male pigs using Improvac, admitting that summaris- ing six years of work into six minutes was a difficult task.
Her key take-home mes- sages were: most fat depo- sition occurs in the second two-week period after the second dose of Improvac; Improvac males should be fed the same level of SID lysine as entires for two weeks after the sec- ond dose and following this the SID lysine should be decreased; light en- tires can still have boar taint; mineral salts reduce feed intake and improve FCR but have no effect on backfat or whole car- cass fat; and albus lupins may reduce feed intake, improve FCR and reduce backfat.
The Pig Day Out’s final speaker, Rabobank Food
and Agribusiness WA manager Crawford Taylor, unveiled his crystal ball to deliver a measured com- modity outlook: world economy to improve in 2017; and grains, oil and freight to see price im- provement, but only limit- ed recovery due to signifi- cant stock and capacity overhang.
Mr Taylor said the US was expanding pork pro- duction, with a forecast 3 percent growth and, in the process, bringing five new plants online in the next two years.
China’s domestic pork production was expected to rebound by 2 percent in 2017, while the EU’s was tipped to decline by 1.5 percent.
Speaking after a very successful Pig Day Out, WAPPA president and Popanyinning producer Dawson Bradford said highlights were the robust discussions on all topics, but especially the hot but- ton issues of animal wel- fare and codes of practice and the attendance of year 11 students from Catho- lic Agricultural College Bindoon.
“As we continue to grow our industry in WA, our future is increasingly de- pendent on developing, nurturing and accessing an available pool of qual- ity, committed piggery staff,” Mr Bradford said.
“We therefore encourage secondary and tertiary students to seriously con- sider making their careers in WA’s pork industry and WAPPA commits to help- ing ensure pathways are both accessible and attrac- tive.”
WAPPA’s executive committee comprises Dawson Bradford (presi- dent) of Popanyinning, Graeme Dent (vice presi- dent) of Cuballing, Tor- ben Soerensen (treasurer) of GD Pork, Dean Rom- aniello of Craig Mostyn Group and Emalyn Loud- on, consultant to the pork industry.
Front page photo foot- note
Stacey Carter, then Sta- cey Martin, daughter of WA pork producers Steve and Sharon Martin of Wannamal, was the in-
augural Ron Collins Me- morial Award winner in 2004.
Her award involved trav- el to the US and Canada to study auto-sort/weigh machines and to investi- gate how their piggeries attempted to alleviate la- bour costs.
After that, she managed her parents’ farm un- til 2008 (when she took time out to have children), handing the reins over to her husband Jarrad.
He is the current manag- er after taking some time out of the industry.
Stacey started her Grad- uate Diploma in Educa- tion (secondary science and maths) in 2015, doing it part time.
She graduated at the end of 2016 and gained employ- ment as a Science/Ag Sci- ence/Biology and Animal Production Systems teach- er at Catholic Agricultural College Bindoon this year.
www.wappa.com.au
Veterinarian Sarah Kahn, recently appointed DAFWA animal welfare director, discussed welfare and bio- security issues over lunch with WAPPA executive officer Jan Cooper.
Hungry men circled the food and OJ at the Pig Day Out.
David Plant of Milne Agritech spent the lunch break doing some one-on-one networking.
Murdoch University students Lauren Oakden (animal science), Nicole Rutledge (veterinary science) and Bastian Ness (veterinary science) attended their first WA Pig Day Out where they welcomed one-on-one chats with veterinarian Kim Nairn of Portec and WAPPA president Dawson Bradford of Popanyinning. www.porknews.com.au
Australian Pork Newspaper, April 2017 – Page 9