After explaining directions for the new CRC for High Integrity Australian Pork, he noted that producer involvement in the new Pork CRC was critical and although uptake and interest was already good, it could still be enhanced.

Paul Ridgewell and Richard Evison, both of Westpork, with Pork CRC CEO Dr Roger Campbell and Professor Paul Hughes of SARDI had a chat after the Perth Roadshow. Please note places are filling fast for Pork CRC sponsored production course at Roseworthy run by Professor Hughes. Book your place with him by 31 October.

Three generations of Howards, prominent pork producers from Wannamal, WA, attended the APL/Pork CRC Roadshow, with 11 month old Emmett seemingly wondering what all the fuss is about, as he’s nursed by grand-father Errol, while dad Brenden and mum Ashlee look on.

"One way to do this is to get more producers involved in the R&D and decision making processes of the Pork CRC and the new R&D model adopted by the Pork CRC is set up to achieve this," Dr Campbell said.

"Be assured, the new Pork CRC intends to take Australia and our producers ahead of the rest of the world by differentiating Australian pork on the basis of how it is produced and by hopefully enjoying such obvious benefits of an extra two piglets per sow from our research into inducing ovulation during lactation," he told the largely producer-based audience.

After his presentation and while speaking with a handful of producers and researchers about the new Pork CRC and what it would likely mean for the Australian pork industry, Dr Campbell made the following points:

• To compete globally, producers and researchers needed to think globally.
  
  
• Even those producers supplying only into the domestic market had to implement world’s best practice in everything they did on-farm.
  
  
• Producers needed to be aware of changing community expectations, in terms of pig welfare and should seek out, via bodies such as the Pork CRC, the best available science to help them economically meet and preferably exceed, those consumer expectations.
  
  
• Producers should look to the Pork CRC and the intellectual firepower of the researchers it supports, to help them remain sustainable and profitable.
  
  
• Producers should be assured that the new CRC for High Integrity Australian Pork would be proactive, wherever possible, rather than simply reactive, to industry challenges and needs.
  
  
• Evidence of the Pork CRC’s increasingly proactive response is its globally ground breaking research into the management and mating of sows during lactation, while working towards confinement free sow and piglet management, now entrenched as Program One in the new Pork CRC.
  
  
• The functional and well established Pork CRC and APL relationship remained a key driver in the new Pork CRC and this proven model encouraged producers and levy payers to have input into science that will make a difference to their bottom lines.

Other speakers at the Perth APL/Pork CRC Roadshow, which followed similar events in Queensland and SA and preceded those in Victoria and Tasmania, included: Professor Paul Hughes of SARDI on enhancing reproduction performance of female pigs; Rob Hewitt of CHM Alliance on value chain mapping and boar taint; Dr Darryl D’Souza of APL on the effects on sow welfare and reproduction of group housing during gestation; Dr Rob Wilson of Pork CRC on nutrient management; Karen Moore of DAFWA on improving whole feed conversion, in particular by using Improvac; Hyatt Frobose of University of Melbourne on lecithin supplementation and pork quality.

Mr Frobose, a visiting Fulbright scholar from Kansas State University, USA, was supported in his visit to WA by the WA Agricultural Produce Commission.