Page 8 - Australian Pork Newspaper

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WAPPA needs to dish up a variety of tasty morsels – some hot, some not – that will whet the appetites of consumers and others who can and will influence for good or bad the future of all WA pork producers. Image is a pork offal hotpot enjoyed three years ago by the author in Chengdu, the capital of south-western China’s Sichuan province.
All quiet on the western front with WAPPA
SIX weeks after the only a few social pic-
sumers who may or may not buy WA pork.
2020 Annual General Meeting of the WA Pork Producers’ Association, I remain none the wiser on its outcomes.
tures of WAPPA people and guests appear on its Facebook page, with the description “WA pork producers shake off the cobwebs at their industry day on Friday.”
Sadly, I’ve observed this demise for some time.
Nor am I aware of what speakers had to say at its industry day, which followed.
From my reading of local rural media, I noted no particular coverage ei- ther and I was informed – hopefully reliably – by one of the industry day’s attendees that no media were present.
A quick look at WAP- PA’s website for example reveals that it effectively stopped openly and pub- licly sharing and commu- nicating three years ago.
There’s nothing on WAPPA’s website and
Under the ‘News and Publications’ drop-down menu, the last reference to an AGM and Industry Day was 2017.
Hence, I followed up with one presenter, Dr Bruce Mullan (Director, Livestock Research and Industry Innovation, Pri- mary Industries Devel- opment, WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Develop- ment), whose topic was ‘DPIRD restructure and COVID-19 preparation’.
Cant Comment by BRENDON CANT
Here’s what WAPPA says it’s all about on the front page of its website – it makes for interesting reading.
He also said the COVID information was not re- ally suitable for pub- lishing.
Will also be interesting to learn of outcomes and learnings from the AGM and speakers at the in- dustry day.
While I’ve known Bruce for a very long time and always respected him highly – especially with his excellent research and producer extension work when he was more pre- cisely focused on a pork portfolio with the state government’s agriculture and food department, in its various guises – his response did make me wonder.
Some important topics were listed on the agenda.”
• Provide access to published information to improve pig production and quality
Surely any announce- ments or reflections on a restructure of a tax- payer-funded public de- partment such as DPIRD should not be kept behind closed doors to be shared only with a privileged few.
“Hi Brendon thanks for following what’s hap- pening in the industry on our industry Facebook page.
I do acknowledge that WAPPA emails a weekly ‘WAPPA News’, usually late on a Friday after- noon, and has done quite regularly for five years or so, but I don’t believe it would resonate with any significant spheres of in- f luence beyond WA PPA’s membership.
I also flagged my in- terest in another pre- senter, Dr Rob Wilson (WAPPA Life Member and Chair of Pork Inno- vation WA), whose topic was ‘WA pork research capacity – The fork in the road’.
Having received that and thinking a little about it, I simply con- cluded that WAPPA is now an inward-looking producer body, con- cerned only with its pro- ducer members and with no particular remit or desire to promote itself and what it stands for to the wider community – which of course includes pork producers who are not members and con-
Besides that, ‘WAPPA News’ typically cata- logues events and re- hashes announcements already made by others, with only rare commen- tary, critique, analysis or interpretation on any issues by its president Graeme Dent or execu- tive officer Jan Cooper.
Alas, no response from Rob at all.
on WAPPA’s Facebook page before referencing my interest in Bruce’s and Rob’s topics.
“The primary objec- tive of the Association is to promote and safe- guard the interests of the Western Australian Pork Industry.
I must say, I was sur- prised he felt most of his DPIRD restructure PowerPoint presentation wouldn’t make much sense to anyone without his dialogue, and most of that was probably not for publication.
In addition WAPPA aims to:
“Great to see social pics of peeps at WAPPA’s industry day on Friday.
•Provide a forum for the collection and ex- change of information
This annual event is al- ways a good get together, albeit sadly minus the evening dinner this year.
ad-
Alas, the only feed- back I received from my post came from WAPPA president Graeme Dent, who posted the following comment.
• Promote and par- ticipate in the improve- ment of the standard of pig meat production, processing and manu- facturing, through re- search.”
I think we have news covered well to our mem- bers.
Cheers GD.”
• Represent and vance the interests of the pork industry and its members with the Western Australian and Federal Governments and their respective de- partments
Page 8 – Australian Pork Newspaper, November 2020
I posted the following
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