Page 13 - National Poultry Newspaper

AgriFutures Chicken Meat Program welcomes new research manager
the food safety, environ- ment and consumer needs objectives of the Chicken Meat RD&E Plan 2019- 22, while Georgina will continue to manage the program’s research invest- ments for projects fulfill- ing the supply chain ob- jective.
ABARES and ABS deliver new
Australian farm database
A NEW secure da- ing detailed evaluations proach to agricultural
tabase of Australian farms has been con- structed as part of a multi-year collabo- ration between the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Re- source Economics and Sciences and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
of government pro- grams or farm manage- ment practices.”
data and statistics that delivers more to indus- try and government us- ers, while reducing the respondent burden as- sociated with surveys,” Dr Hatfield-Dodds said.
The final report of the Agricultural Data Inte- gration Project released by ABARES details this innovative work that integrates several existing datasets to un- lock new insights and applications for Aus- tralian farms.
The project combined ABS Agricultural Cen- sus and survey data since 2000-01 to con- struct the Farm-level Longitudinal Agricul- tural Dataset, which was then integrated with the ABS Business Longitu- dinal Agricultural Data Environment.
As with all DIPA pro- jects, the privacy and anonymity of an indi- vidual’s information is protected, with the da- tabase de-identified and held in a secure envi- ronment to be used only for policy analysis and research purposes.
The report presents a range of new analysis undertaken with the da- tabase, exploring fine scale trends in crop production, the effects of seasonal climate and drought on farm out- comes, and measuring trends in water produc- tivity in the Murray- Darling Basin.
ABARES execu- tive director Dr Steve Hatfield-Dodds said the construction of this da- tabase was a significant achievement, provid- ing government with a long-term asset that can be used to inform key issues, ranging from the drivers of farm pro- ductivity, to the effects of drought and climate change, to understand- ing policy impacts in areas such as water re- form.
“The ABS Five Safes Framework and secure DataLab environment allow this valuable work to be undertaken while strictly protecting privacy and confiden- tiality,” Mr Shepherd said.
ABARES senior economist and project lead Dr Neal Hughes said the dataset can help us better understand, measure and potentially forecast the effects of drought and climate change across different types of farms.
“The project rep- resents an important milestone both for ef- forts to extract the best possible value and in- sight from existing gov- ernment datasets, and for the development of a new, modern ap-
The Agricultural Data Integration Project re- port can be viewed by visiting agriculture.gov. au/abares/research-top ics/climate/agricultural- data-integration-project
“This database pro- vides a clearer picture of long-term trends in the agriculture sector, allowing us to publish datasets at finer spatial scales and with more consistency over time, than has been possible in the past,” Dr Hughes said.
Project work was sup- ported by the Austral- ian Government’s Data Integration Partnership for Australia.
ABS industry statis- tics general manager John Shepherd said the project was a testament to the close relation- ship between ABARES and the ABS and their shared commitment to modernise Australian agricultural statistics.
“There are exciting future applications, in- cluding supporting new approaches to drought risk management for farmers and undertak-
AGRIFUTURES Aus- tralia’s general manager research John Smith has welcomed the appoint- ment of Annie Lane in her new role as Manager, Research for the Chicken Meat Program.
“The chicken meat in- dustry is very different from the other agricul- tural industries I have worked in,” Ms Lane said.
One key project within the food safety objective is PRJ-011593 sanitisers for commercial use in chicken meat production led by the University of Adelaide.
Annie joins the team at a time of expansion for the program.
No stranger to Austral- ian agriculture
“I am excited to learn new skills and be involved in delivering high quality research which will di- rectly benefit the indus- try.”
“As standard practice there are a number of in- terventions in place, from when a meat chicken leaves the farm to the pro- cessing plant, to control food borne pathogens in chicken meat,” Ms Lane said.
“Annie has worked for AgriFutures Australia for the past two years and her appointment builds on our commitment to the AgriFutures Chicken Meat Program,” Mr Smith said, who also thanked outgoing manager Dr Sue Hatcher for her contribu- tion.
Part of the team
Agriculture has always been a part of Annie’s life. Having grown up on sheep and cattle property near Delungra in north- ern NSW, she attended Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga complet- ing a Bachelor of Animal Science, with her honours project focussed on para- sitology in freshwater fish. Annie began working with AgriFutures Aus- tralia in late 2018 as co- ordinator research and worked across a variety of industries including pas- ture seeds, thoroughbred horse and honeybee and pollination programs, and more recently deer, buf- falo, goat fibre and kanga-
roo programs.
AgriFutures Chicken Meat Program welcomes new manager research Annie Lane.
The Australian chicken meat industry is an ef- ficient and fast-paced industry which requires RD&E that can deliver high impact results to en- sure chicken meat remains the number one consumed protein in the country.
“The carcasses are commonly washed in the processing plant using sanitisers to remove the contamination and to en- sure a safe product for consumers.
Annie joins the rest of the team, consisting of manager research Geor- gina Townsend, coordina- tor research Tasmin Rowe and senior manager re- search Dr Mila Bristow.
In her new role, Annie is looking forward to work- ing closely with a broad range of experts.
“This project aims to identify and test alterna- tive sanitisers efficacy in Australian conditions.”
The team collectively manage the program and its research, development and extension invest- ments.
“As manager research, I am in the fortunate po- sition to connect with industry experts and re- searchers to determine the crucial questions that need to be answered to en- sure the chicken meat in- dustry remains efficient,” she said.
Driving high impact RD&E to improve food safety, the industry’s impact on the environ- ment and meeting con- sumer needs
Another addressing the environment objective is PRJ-011589 best practice manual for managing lit- ter.
Annie will be managing projects which fall under
While a large body of work exists based on Aus- tralian and international research, outlining the best practices for man- aging litter in the sheds and spent litter it is often documented for academic purposes and isn’t in an easy to access format for the average producer.
Through targeted, high- impact investment the Ag- riFutures Chicken Meat Program stimulates and promotes research, devel- opment and extension to grow the long-term pros- perity of the Australian chicken meat industry.
“This project brings all the relevant information regarding litter manage- ment into one manual, describing the whole pic- ture, and will provide the content in a web-ready format,” Ms Lane said.
With the support of the team, Annie will focus on managing the program’s RD&E investments to im- prove food safety of Aus- tralian chicken, to develop and implement measures to protect and improve industry impact on the en- vironment, and increase ability to meet consumer needs.
“The research team will also develop visual content such as videos to demonstrate best prac- tice.”
For more on these pro- jects Agrifutures Chicken Meat Program, visit ag rifutures.com.au/chicken meat/
Woolworths announces Supplier of the Year
quickly as possible.” Woolworths’ annual Supplier of the Year Awards were held in Sydney recently and recognised excellence across the thousands of suppliers the supermar- ket partners with to de- liver high quality food and everyday needs to
SANITARIUM, the brand behind iconic Australian favourites such as WeetBix, has been named Wool- worths’ Supplier of the Year.
The methane collected is converted to electric- ity, which powers most of its largest farm and processing plant.
“The strong collabo- rative partnerships we have with our suppli- ers allowed us to work together quickly and effectively during the pandemic to ensure our customers could access the everyday essentials they needed.
Sanitarium Health Food Company is a wholly Australian- owned business, manu- facturing its products lo- cally with an emphasis on helping Australians eat healthier.
its customers.
XXXX Rivalea Aus-
“As Woolworths works to create a better tomor- row through its own wide-ranging sustain- ability initiatives, the efforts of suppliers such as Rivalea can make a meaningful difference to communities, ani- mals and the environ- ment throughout the broader supply chain,” Mr Harker said.
“Thank you to our thousands of suppliers who have stood shoulder to shoulder with us in putting customers first, rapidly increasing pro- duction, pivoting to the projects that mattered most and thinking crea- tively to solve complex logistical challenges.”
Woolworths director of buying Paul Harker said, “Sanitarium shares our ambition to support the wellbeing of the com- munities we serve, con- tinuing to develop new healthier options across the grocery aisles.”
tralia was recognised as Woolworths’ Sustain- ability Supplier of the Year for its high animal welfare standards and impressive carbon re- duction innovations.
“This has been an un- precedented year for the communities we serve across Australia.
“Sanitarium’s dedica- tion to customers also drove its rapid response in the early stages of the pandemic.
Rivalea has partnered with Woolworths over the past 30 years, pro- viding high quality pork from its farms across NSW and Victoria.
“Teams quickly con- solidated production and pack sizes to keep up with demand and ensured its products made it to our shelves as
Rivalea’s methane capture program is an example of best prac- tice on-farm emissions reduction, delivering an environmental ben- efit equivalent to taking 9000 cars off the road each year.
Online registration open for virtual APSS February 9-10, 2021
WELCOME to the Australian Poultry Science Symposium.
Over the past four years we have witnessed a steady growth in at- tendance of the confer- ence and, even during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020, we came very close to achieving our 300-delegate goal.
reach of APSS.
This year’s over-arch-
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney, we have had to make the difficult de- cision to revert to a vir- tual only event for 2021.
ing theme will be ‘So- cial License for Poultry P roduction’.
We are confident that we will deliver an ex- traordinary online con- ference, with over 30 papers to be presented over the two days.
The impact of the global travel restric- tions will be hugely felt, however we are hope- ful of increased expo- sure of the event and in turn, continue to grow the number of attendees again in the years to come.
There will again be an interesting array of local and international invited speakers and as always we will be inviting re- searchers far and wide to submit and present a large range of scientific papers, loaded with in- dustry-relevant content.
The APSS is the pre- mier avian science con- ference in Australia, at- tracting delegates from across Australia and all around the world.
We strongly believe that this is a great op- portunity to expand the
Our extraordinary so- cial program will also provide everyone with plenty of networking opportunities over the two-day event by us- ing the most up-to-date conferencing software.
2021 will be the 32nd edition of the symposium.
We will be able to of- fer our attendee’s op- portunities to network with each other virtu- ally, as well as partici- pate in the Q&A during the event.
32nd Annual Australian Poultry Science Symposium
Feb 9-10, 2021 www.apss2021.com.au
For further informa- tion, visit apss2021. com.au
www.poultrynews.com.au
National Poultry Newspaper, January 2021 – Page 13