face to face
“The farmers generally respect the advice of the researchers and the researchers feel they are working to make money for the farmers.”
of seasonal day length. We played around with
I noticed this when I was working at the Pig
melatonin implants and found there was an
R&D Corporation. In certain piggeries all the pigs
underlying likelihood that sows would become
would go to the back of the stall when I walked in,
infertile during the early phase of the year but you
whereas in other piggeries they’d be snuggling up to
could overcome it with nutrition, housing and good
you being really friendly. The attitude and culture
welfare at that time of the year.
of a place was important - it would only take one
That was the start of a type of movement that said you should have your sows ‘fit but not fat’. The
of all humans.
industry is now moving away from stalled housing,
We developed a multimedia program and
reportedly for welfare reasons. But the move to
showed people working in piggeries how to use a
group housing of pigs traces back to research at
sow-moving board. Rather than hitting an animal
Sydney University in the 1980s where we showed
you use a board and give her no alternative but the
that farmers are probably better off to have their
board and she will move forward. By using these
sows housed in groups.
tactics a shed’s production will increase by about
Stalled housing has some advantages in that
7%. More importantly, it’s safer and less stressful
it stops animals fighting and you can feed them
for the staff.
individually much more easily, but it has the
LLS: Can you explain how the R&D Corporation
disadvantage that consumers don’t like to see dry
works?
sow stalls.
TP: It’s recognised around the world as one of the
Group housing has basically become the norm. I think by about 2017 there’ll be no dry sow stalls
best ways of doing agricultural research. Every time a pig was killed a levy went towards
in the Australian industry.
research. In those days it was 70 cents and the
LLS: And you continued working at a very
government matched that under the Rural R&D
pragmatic or applied level with the pig industry?
Corporation Levy. The legislation was brought in
TP: Yes, I ended up with an industry-funded
by John Kerin when he was Minister for Primary
scholarship and worked for the pig industry for
Industries.
about 15 years. I just went to the launch of their
It’s a compulsory levy and makes it possible for
strategic plan at Parliament House last month - I
relatively small groups of farmers to be involved in
think I will always have an affiliation with them.
research. And because the farmers pay for it, they
I came back from a research position at the
have a stake in it. Even though half of the money is
University of Saskatchewan in Canada in 1993 and
from the government, the R&D Corporations really
was research manager for the Pig R&D Corporation
do work for the farmers.
in Canberra. In my first few years there we did a lot of work on welfare, stock handling and the industry standard, and supported a program called Prohand - the professional handling of pigs.
© iStockphoto.com/Anatolii Tsekhmister
bad apple on the staff and the pigs would be scared
The farmers generally respect the advice of the researchers and the researchers feel they are working to make money for the farmers. Now the marketing and the R&D have largely joined up. It’s basically still the same system. That’s
It came out of the Victorian Department of
how we now have Australian Pork Ltd, which does
Agriculture and Melbourne University and really
the job the Pig R&D Corporation did and also
was ahead of its time. The Victorians showed that
represents the pig farmers.
fear of humans can be measured in pig sheds and that
They have to account to government for the
professional handling of the pigs is really important.
levies they use on R&D and they also have a levy on
For example, you might slap a pig on the
marketing - the government collects that levy for
bottom to move her along a laneway but she’ll perceive that as aggression and develop a slightly higher level of stress.
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them but doesn’t match marketing money. That’s what pays for the pork advertising that you see. I think it’s a good move - anything that
LAB+LIFE SCIENTIST - October 2014 | 7