The young guns of the Australian pork industry got their heads together recently at the Queensland Pig Consultancy Group’s forum and formed the Australian Pork Young Leaders group.
The first meeting was attended by 25 people from Queensland, NSW and Victoria, and were a mix of pork industry representatives from both big and small farms, veterinarians, nutritionists, genetics sales and specialist pig cartage operators.
Rob Martyn, Tong Park Piggery, Warra said the reason the group was formed was a lack of focus on next generation leaders in the pork industry.
“We didn’t want to only focus young people working directly in the pork industry, but include other supporting industry participants such as veterinarians, sales representatives and livestock transport operators,” Rob said.
The group was formed after several discussions by a small group of people who asked Sara Willis from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, who is the pork industry’s local extension officer, to help create a network of young people so they could start to share ideas, discuss challenges and perhaps build a group to help young people develop their leadership skills.
Rob said the overwhelming feeling was that there was definitely a need for this group and that it will perhaps be a group that will grow, and grow quickly.
“As with any producer industry meeting there was solid discussion and debate around pig prices, grain prices and when it will rain next,” Rob said.
“But the most satisfying thing was the open discussion around what everyone is doing on their own farm to improve their production and become more efficient, plus the group was very keen to share ideas and see what they could learn from their peers.”
The group aims to meet once more later this year, most likely in Toowoomba, and have selected a steering committee of five people who will be tasked with arranging the next meeting, selecting topics to discuss, guest speakers and generally keeping the momentum going.
The overwhelming feeling at the meeting was our pig production is an important rural industry that contributes significantly to Queensland's economy.
The estimated gross farm-gate value of production in 2014 to 2015 is more than $269 million, most of which comes from products sold domestically.