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The latest news and media releases from APRIL

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New APRIL Industry Placement Program awardee starts at the SunPork Group

New APRIL Industry Placement Program awardee starts at the SunPork Group

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APRIL is pleased to announce that Lauren Staveley has commenced her Industry Placement Program with the SunPork Group in South Australia.

a young woman dressed in a dark blue coverall holding a piglet on a farm
IPP awardee Lauren Staveley

Lauren began her interactions with the pork industry in her second year of undergraduate Animal Science studies at The University of Adelaide through the Pork CRC student placement program, where she was placed at the McMahons McPiggery in Lameroo. After a brief detour into sheep parasitology (Honours project), Lauren worked as a Technical Officer at The University of Adelaide for Dr Will van Wettere, spending most of her time on sow reproduction and welfare projects. This eventually led to Lauren commencing a PhD focussed on the potential use of a suite of early (pre-weaning) indicators to aid in the selection of replacement gilts, titled Conception to culling – effective management of the gilt to optimise reproduction and longevity. The main aim of her postgraduate studies is to reduce the high replacement rate of sows in Australian breeder herds. Lauren plans to submit her PhD thesis within the next 6 months.

Lauren currently works for the SunPork Group as a production Management Trainee based at a 5,000 sow breeder farm. Lauren has already been exposed to many aspects and production stages of the business; however, Lauren said that the  APRIL Industry Placement Program awardwill allow her to gain more in-depth knowledge of pork production whilst facilitating her involvement in reproduction and welfare experiments. The Industry Placement Program will provide Lauren with the opportunity to question and evaluate current production practices, and she looks forward to developing a greater understanding of pork production and research.

Annual General Meeting and Stakeholders’ Day

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The APRIL AGM and Stakeholders’ Day will be held on Friday 20th November, scheduled currently to be held in Melbourne (in association with the APL Delegates’ Forum and AGM). Clearly, the current uncertainties associated with COVID-19 means that conducting a ‘face-to-face’ AGM and Stakeholders’ Day remains problematic, even though I believe we’d all simply relish the opportunity to be involved in an interactive event instead of Zooming. 

We will keep monitoring the situation and may need to be flexible will regard to the venue/format, but in the interim, I’d ask if you could please place this date in your diaries.

[Now closed] Call for tender: Strengthening the AusScan Online Pig Digestible Energy (DE) calibrations

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Near infrared spectrophotometry (NIR) calibrations were developed within the Premium Grains for Livestock Program (PGLP) and the Pork CRC for ileal DE and faecal DE (MJ/kg) of cereal grains for growing pigs.

Near infrared spectrophotometry (NIR) calibrations were developed within the Premium Grains for Livestock Program (PGLP) and the Pork CRC for ileal DE and faecal DE (MJ/kg) of cereal grains for growing pigs. The DE calibrations for pigs contain a wide range of cereal grains including natural and artificially weather damaged grains, and at present the calibration includes only grains grown in Australia. In order to improve the robustness of the calibrations maize grains from overseas are to be incorporated into the calibrations, as well as connectivity grains.

APRIL manages the license for the commercial use of the AusScan Online calibrations and is responsible for maintaining and upgrading the calibrations. Recently, APRIL upgraded the poultry AME calibrations by including high energy wheat varieties from Europe and Canada, which significantly enhanced the robustness of the calibrations and improved their validity for use outside of Australia.

APRIL is requiring a qualified research team (or teams) with access to suitable facilities to provide the required specialisations to upgrade the current AusScan Online Pig DE calibrations. The research project will use imported maize samples and a number of connectivity grains (grains from previous studies), which will provide additional data for the pig Ileal DE and faecal DE calibrations to improve the validity and suitability of AusScan Online.

The DE calibrations for pigs contain a wide range of cereal grains including natural and artificially weather damaged grains, and at present the calibration includes only grains grown in Australia. In order to improve the robustness of the calibrations maize grains from overseas are to be incorporated into the calibrations, as well as connectivity grains.

APRIL is requiring a qualified research team (or teams) with access to suitable facilities to provide the required specialisations to upgrade the current AusScan Online Pig DE calibrations. The research project will use imported maize samples and a number of connectivity grains (grains from previous studies), which will provide additional data for the pig Ileal DE and faecal DE calibrations to improve the validity and suitability of AusScan Online.

The tender opened on 3 August 2020 and closed on 31 August 2020.

For further information or inquiries, please contact Dr Charles Rikard-Bell, APRIL Manager, Commercialisation and Research Impact (c.rikardbell@april.org.au; 0439 513 723).

Successful Research Grant to Further Reduce Antimicrobial Use in Pork Production

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The University of Queensland, The University of Melbourne, the SunPork Group and DSM, together with support from the Australasian Pork Research Institute Limited (APRIL), have secured an Australian Research Council-Linkage grant exploring the topic, ‘How to make antimicrobials in pig feed redundant, naturally’. 

Total cash funding for the 4-year project was $2,027,819, with the Australian Research Council contributing $852,000 and partners contributing an additional $1,175,519, of which $359,223 derives from APRIL. The total value of the project (cash plus in-kind contributions) is $3,835,847.

Continue reading “Successful Research Grant to Further Reduce Antimicrobial Use in Pork Production” →

APRIL’s vision expands to build innovative industry

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SA pork producers can expect to see innovative feed and disease research projects continue with vigor, despite major changes to the pork research sector in recent times.

Australasian Pork Research Institute Limited chief executive officer John Pluske has committed to ensuring the sustainability of Australasian pork production, following the wind-up of the Port Cooperative Research Centre in June.

The future of APRIL’s investment into research, education and training, and commercialisation will be centred around four major streams – transformational, priority, innovation and commercialisation projects.

Read the full article at Stock Journal.

Charles Rikard-Bell standing next to an APRIL pull-up banner in from of bushland
FOCUS MAINTAINED: Australasian Pork Research Institute commercialisation and research impact manager Charles Rikard-Bell said research into efficient feeding will continue to be a focus going forward.
[INNOVATION APPLICATIONS CURRENTLY CLOSED] APRIL open for business on innovation and commercialisation fronts

[INNOVATION APPLICATIONS CURRENTLY CLOSED] APRIL open for business on innovation and commercialisation fronts

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Australasian Pork Research Institute Ltd (APRIL) is seeking applications for Innovation and Commercialisation projects.

An independent, member based research entity, APRIL continues the approach to research, education, training and commercialisation of the very successful CRC for High Integrity Australian Pork, which concludes June 30, 2019.

APRIL Innovation Projects are negotiable to around 12 to 15 months, have a maximum budget of $50,000 to $75,000 and require a minimum external cash co-investment of 25 per cent of the total cash cost of the project.

There will be two calls per calendar year for Innovation Projects, with the first deadline May 17, 2019.

Open all year round, Commercialisation Projects are where the path to market of a product or technology may be close and additional co-investment may bring it to fruition.

Read the full media release
Find out more on the Funding Opportunities page

APRIL Industry Placement Program starts

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APRIL’s IPP program is similar to that successfully initiated in Co-operative Research Centre for High Integrity Australian Pork and complements future APRIL student support in education and training.

The APRIL IPP program places graduates with employers able to give them hands-on experience, with specialist mentors, on-farm and in production.

Continue reading “APRIL Industry Placement Program starts” →

Research grant to help improve stress resilience in pigs

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Australasian Pork Research Institute Limited, The University of Melbourne, The University of Queensland, SunPork Solutions and Rivalea Australia have secured an Australian Research Council Linkage grant to support a $900,000 research project to improve pig welfare by modulating stress resilience.

ARC funding for the three-year project, ‘Early stress experiences and stress resilience in pigs’, was $450,000 with an additional $449,393 cash from other partners, of which $100,000 was from APRIL.

APRIL CEO and Chief Scientist John Pluske said the ARC grant was very significant, with improving pig welfare a hot button issue in the Australasian pork industry.

Read the full media release

AusScan Energising Feed Grain Evaluation

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AusScan calibrations for pig faecal digestible energy and ileal DE for cereal grains have been upgraded on completion of Pork CRC Project 4B-117, ‘Strengthening the AusScan pig DE, DE intake index NIR calibrations’.

The project determined pig ileal and faecal DE and faecal DE intake index of 67 new grains: 22 wheat, 13 barley, 8 triticale, 4 sorghum and 20 maize samples. Improved accuracy and robustness were also achieved by adding this data, according to Charles Rikard-Bell, Manager Commercialisation and Research Impact, with Australasian Pork Research Institute Limited (APRIL).

“The NIR calibrations show significant improvement due to the larger number of new samples and range of cereals added,” Dr Rikard-Bell said.

Since the last update in 2013, significant new cereal data has been added to the calibration dataset. The revised calibrations have improved the faecal DE prediction by 22 per cent and can now also predict the faecal DE of maize.

Read the full media release