A key challenge faced by the Australian pork industry is the need to maintain local production of high quality food for a reasonable price and return on production capital invested, without negatively impacting pig welfare, the environment or the health of the consumer. Through innovative, collaborative, whole value chain research, development and education programs within the CRC, the Australian pork industry will meet this challenge by facilitating production that:
- is efficient and ethical with reduced need for sow confinement and judicious use of antibiotic medications.
- safely delivers key nutrients, enhancing the health and well-being of consumers.
- utilises innovative feed sources and effluent management systems, resulting in emissions of less than 1 kg of CO2 per kg of pork produced.
- contributes significantly to Australia’s economic growth and food security without drawing on the ecological capital of other parts of the world.
Delivery of these outcomes will differentiate Australian pork as a high integrity meat that is welfare-optimal, premium quality, safe, nutritious and in high demand, which can be produced while conserving energy and water resources, minimising greenhouse gas emissions and maintaining efficiency and cost of production at a level that promotes investment, growth and sustainability of the industry
The research programs are:
- Reduced confinement of Sows and Piglets – to optimise sow and piglet welfare in reduced confinement systems while maintaining production efficiency.
- Herd Health Management – develop novel technologies for health diagnostics and management without antibiotics which will significantly reduce the reliance on antibiotic medications in production systems.
- Healthy Pork Consumption – complete research demonstrating that consumption of pork can improve the health status of target consumers through prevention or alleviation of Type-II diabetes, obesity, and colon cancer. Also investigate paths to market for High Integrity Australian pork, both domestically and in Asia.
- Carbon Conscious Nutrient Inputs and Outputs – reduce effluent emissions through novel management, offsetting traditional nutrient inputs with alternate sources derived from algae, and restructuring grain breeding and ingredient evaluation programs to complement these new nutrient sources.
To accommodate those projects from the previous CRC that could not fit into the program structure for the new CRC, but will deliver outcomes of importance to the pork industry, two additional programs were established.
Program 5 – Improving sow reproduction – enhance the reproductive efficiency of the Australian industry by providing better means of detecting pregnancy , increasing litter size and ultimately volume.
Program 6 – Nutritional manipulations to enhance the performance and feed efficiency of growing pigs – enhance the performance and feed efficiency of growing pigs. The research establishs the extent chemosensory factors or components of ingredients might be used in diet formulations to manipulate feed intake.
The projects within these latter two programs will be completed, and the programs finalized by June 2014.
Principles for management of intellectual property
To help give effect to the Policy Drivers, Pork CRC has adopted the following principles of Intellectual Property Management to be acknowledged by all project parties and research team members as part of each Project Agreement.
The Adoption/Commercialisation Strategy for each project will identify the potential project outputs and embodied intellectual property. The principles below provide guidance on Pork CRC’s approach to identification and management of this intellectual property to achieve the industry outcome identified in the Adoption/Commercialisation Strategy.
Principles for management of intellectual property
Research Highlights:
Research highlights are available in Pork CRC’s Annual Reports