Conference round-up

First up, thanks to all of the hundred-plus people that attended the recent ‘Securing the Future’ conference in Christchurch. There was certainly excellent interaction with the speakers who provided high quality information. For those of you who missed out I’ll take the opportunity to provide some of the key messages that came from our speakers.

Paul Pattison the CEO of Rivalea, Australia’s biggest pork producer focused on the future of pig farming. He pointed to some of the major challenges in the market place, which include; an affluent society disconnected from agriculture, reactive and demanding consumers, pressure groups achieving traction, and retailers wanting a marketable story with a difference. In responding to these challenges Paul hit on a number of “must do’s”. Read more or download Paul's presentation

Ross Hyland is the Managing Director of Seales Winslow, a newly merged business with 51% owned by Ballance. Ross talked about securing the future of feed and in particular the implications of the changes in dairy nutrition in NZ; and the fact that grain which is now used as a “supplementary” feed and used at about 10% of a dairy cows diet could become 30% and move into a “complementary” role with protein meals and grains becoming a staple in the diet. This means about 800,000 tonnes more grain, in essence a doubling of current consumption, and in an increasingly volatile global marketplace. The reality is that domestic production is static, in general increased yields have kept up with falling planted area. Therefore we will have to use more imported grain. So what are the options for pork producers? Read more or download Ross' presentation.

Bruce Welch of PVS benchmarked NZ on-farm performance against international competitors and looked at opportunities for improvement. Bruce calculated “the prize” of high health, labour efficiency, feed efficiency (price and use), an efficient sow and a heavy carcase as been worth a potential $0.51/kg off the cost of production. Read more. Bruce's presentation is available to registered producers by emailing us.

Dave Porter of Harmony Foods gave a cutting demonstration of breaking a 91.5kg carcase into retail cuts which; meet consumer needs and price points, allow a profitable meat cabinet to be run by the butcher, but also allow the farmer to benefit from growing a bigger pig. There is a 1hr 15 minute DVD available showing the whole demo that you can get from NZPork by emailing us.  Read more.

At dinner Kevin Bryant, CEO of AgITO presented the Stockperson of the Year award to Phillip Christensen and the Herd Manager of the Year award to Nicolau Schwendler. Unfortunately, a family crisis meant that he did not present the recently completed analysis of the value added to the pork industry by training. Download the presentation.

Thanks for all of those who attended, spoke and contributed resources to make the conference happen. All the feedback tells us it was a great one. Finally, my thanks to the sponsors for their support:

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