Agreement helps Darling Downs pork producers in export drive

Agreement helps Darling Downs pork producers in export drive

A three-party extension and development project signed last month will help position Darling Downs pork producers for a major export drive on the newly-opened world pork markets.

Farmers cooperative Darling Downs Bacon (DDB), the University of Queensland's Gatton College-based Australian Pig Institute (API) and the Pig Research and Development Corporation (PRDC) have linked together in the DDB Development Program.

The agreement, in the form of a 12-month operating plan yet to be voted on by DDB shareholders, will see the API provide a range of services, complementing the $37 million the DDB is investing to bring its plant up to world best practice and propel its export drive.

One of the priorities agreed on by a management committee formed at the June 29 project launch was to put in place a program to help the DDB farmer shareholders with business management skills. This will be done in conjunction with the Federal Government's PorkBiz initiative.

Other initiatives include a benchmarking project covering production and business management to best identify where assistance can be targeted. Funding for the project is being provided jointly by DDB and the PRDC.

API director, Associate Professor Alan King, said the initiative was timely because of the rapidly-expanding opportunities in world pig meat markets, particularly in Asia where many countries had refused to buy from major producer Malaysia because of a Nipah virus outbreak.

"We are going to deliver a whole lot of services to DDB to help them produce products which can be marketed not just within Australia but overseas and most importantly this must happen while maintaining a profitable shareholder base," Dr King said.

Dr King said the management committee's strategy was to "see what DDB customers are going to need in 10 years time and to work back from there."

"The number one thing we came up with is universal - a clean, green product," he said. "It also has to be a quality product the customers are happy to buy, so they have to be happy with the way it's raised, happy its got no hormones or chemical residues in it and sure it has been produced in an ethical manner."

Dr King said the project was a viable example of the mutually-beneficial relationships being forged between universities and industry as Federal Government research funding becomes more difficult to obtain. "Universities have to raise more non-DEETYA dollars and the only way to do that is to develop close working relationships with industry. I think this agreement is a seminal step in how bodies like API can work," he said.

For further information, contact Professor King on (07) 54601078.