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Vol 23. No. 6 June 2019 Australian Pork Newspaper PO Box 387 Cleveland 4163 Phone (07) 3286 1833 Fax (07) 3821 2637 Email ben@porknews.com.au
Passionate pork product sponsor and Berkshire pig farmer Catherine Hamson from Hamlet Pork and chef Chase Weber got into the spirit and the dragons as part of the Chinese Year of the Pig theme.
Nothing standard at The Standard
Big biosecurity business at the Forum
THE Australian Pork Limited delegates, Board and manage- ment met for our half-yearly Forum in Adelaide on May 9 for the normal full and frank discussions about the big is- sues in Australia’s pork in- dustry.
Many subjects were covered including pork promotional planning for the next period, the outcomes of the recently con- ducted Innovation Review, the Pig Standards and Guidelines Review and the three-yearly and forthcoming delegate nom- ination and election process.
Most of the day, however, was focused on two critical bio- security issues affecting our industry.
The first was the threat of the African swine fever outbreaks in Asia and in particular China.
The world seems to be slowly awakening – through increasing media reporting – to the impli- cations of what is happening to the pig industry in China and other parts of Asia.
We heard from Rupert Clax- ton of the Gira organisation (an independent economic and market research consultancy specialising in meat) that ASF is creating a hole in China’s an- nual pork production (normally in the vicinity of 60 million tonnes) to the magnitude of po- tentially between 15 and 20 million tonnes.
This amount of pork repre- sents somewhere close to 5 percent of the total meat pro- duction globally and for this to disappear through a disease crisis puts us in uncharted wa- ters – we’ve never really seen this happen before.
The rest of the world does not have the capacity to increase production in the short term to fill this hole, so it’s likely that not only pork but most meat prices will rise globally in re- sponse.
There are some opportunities in this for Australia’s pork in- dustry, despite the fact we can- not export pork to China yet.
Any increase in global de- mand will create a domino ef- fect of positive market chang- es increasing the desirability
Point of View
by ANDREW SPENCER CEO
of our product.
That is, however, according to
one important condition – that we ourselves do not get this disease in our country.
At the Forum, we heard from Robyn Martin of the Depart- ment of Agriculture and Water Resources outlining how this disease threat has mobilised teams and increased targeted activities to address the areas of greatest risk.
This included the commence- ment of testing of seized and declared pork and meat samples for ASF and other diseases.
More than 40 positive sam- ples for ASF (and two for foot and mouth disease) were found, emphasising the proximity and currency of this disease threat.
Our aim as an industry needs to be firstly to keep the disease out of Australia at all costs.
Despite recent media reports, it is not a matter of time before we get this disease.
We need to continue to do everything we can to prevent it getting here – we all have a role to play including the DAWR who are responsible for ensuring contaminated material doesn’t get past our borders.
The pig farmers’ role is to ensure contaminated material doesn’t get near a pig by manag- ing on-farm biosecurity.
The other big biosecurity is- sue discussed was the situation with illegally imported genetics in Western Australia.
There has been a lot of con- cern expressed through the in- dustry around the discovered existence of these genetics in the GD Pork herd and the sub-
sequent sale of this herd to Westpork.
In talking to delegates and other producers, the key con- cerns around this seem to be (1) the threat to our ongoing biose- cure status from illegal imports such as these; (2) therewith the threat to our ability to continue to protect ourselves from global disease threats through strong biosecurity import protocols; and (3) the perception that there is now an ongoing unlevel play- ing field through the industry with different genetics bringing different levels of productivity for different producers.
APL has since November last year stated our clear position that we don’t believe these ge- netics should be allowed to per- sist in the Australian herd be- cause they came here illegally.
To this point, for a multitude of reasons, we have been unable to find a pathway to achieve their destruction.
The end point of the discus- sion at the Delegates’ Forum was a request for APL to reopen negotiations with Westpork to find a mutually acceptable path- way for a compensated depopu- lation of the herd, which we have since been following up.
We’ll be reporting back on how this goes.
I encourage all pig farmers reading this column to also read that by Deb Kerr in this APN edition which goes into a bit more detail about what to ex- pect if we were to get an ASF outbreak here.
In the meantime, we all should be working to ensure it doesn’t happen.
PERTH’S PorkStar event rocked on May 27 and was its usual feast for the senses, albeit minus its usual signature ‘dish’ in the form of host and ‘rock star’ Mitch Edwards.
I understand Mitch has taken leave of absence for a while from Australian Pork Limited as he pursues a more public profile and a much bigger audience than PorkStar can ever offer him.
While Mitch has long been the foundation block on which the incredibly successful pork showcase that is PorkStar has been built, his understudy at The Standard in North- bridge, Western Australia was APL’s very able Kylie Roberts.
While PorkStar events are a showcase for chefs, in- cluding, in this case, The Standard’s head chef and PorkStar Chase Weber, along with his fellow culi- nary kings and queens, it’s also dotted with a few in- dustry types, including the likes of the author.
I chatted over a wine or two (well, maybe three, as the 2018 La Kooki Ten Foot Tempranillo from the Ferguson Valley was
Cant Comment by BRENDON CANT
soooo good) and yummy pork street food with the likes of APL chairman Da- vid Lock and fellow Board member David Plant, West- pork’s Richard Evison and Taya Clarke, Craig Mostyn Group’s Peter Spackman, D’Orsogna’s Jamie Neri and Wendy Wang and Mon- do’s John Thompson.
While Westpork these
days supplies almost half of WA’s primary pork produc- tion, hence represents a big chunk of the on-farm of- fering, PorkStar events are usually not studded with too many farmers.
It’s more about the other end of the industry that is chefs and food service.
The Standard was trans- formed into a Year of the Pig-themed festival, with street stalls showcasing Chinese-inspired dishes and lining the restaurant walls all the way out the back to the laneway where the loud and colourful drag- on dance took place.
Partnering with The Standard for this epic feast were local restaurants Billy Lee’s, Sweetwater Rooftop, Dainty Dowager and Chi- cho Gelato.
The PorkStar program was developed 14 years ago by APL to highlight the best chefs in the coun- try (100 or so attended the 2019 Perth event) and highlights pork’s versatility while stimulating chefs to be a little adventurous with how they prepare pork from nose to tail.
PorkStar’s Kylie Roberts
☛ continued P4
PROUD SILVER SPONSORS
Stockyard Industries are proud to be SILVER sponsors for the 2019 Victorian Pig Fair –
Tuesday 18th June at the Bendigo Harness racing facility. The Stockyard Team are looking forward to catching
up with all producers and the broader industry for a great social
evening to discuss any equipment and building
Stockyard Industries 54 King Street,
requirements.
Clifton QLD 4361
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