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toPigsIssue 2 Autumn 2017

Welfare R&D: key highlights

– page 2 –

Use manure as fertiliser and soil

improver– page 4 –

APIQü® Standards and Performance

Indicators– page 6 –

Inside this issue:

Research and Innovation

Save the Date! The Victorian Pig Fair will be held on 4-5 April at the Bendigo Exhibition Centre. Entry is free for all producers – for further information please

contact the committee president, John Bourke on 0419 552 768.

Have you downloaded our ‘Tech Toolbox App’? The App contains all of our R&D information in one handy database and it is free to download and use! For help

accessing the App please contact Ashley Norval on 02 6270 8823.

We welcome any feedback you have on this edition and would love to hear from you – please feel free to contact us at the details below.

APL MembershipFor information

call Heidi Eldridge on 02 6270 8807 or visit the APL website at www.

australianpork.com.au/members.

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Issue 2 Autumn 2017Pigs to Pork

Physi-Trace is a validation and traceback tool, devel-oped by APL, to enhance pork and product traceability in the event of an incident that threatens the integrity of the pork supply chain. It is based on determining the trace elemental composition of pork samples.

Interestingly, each farm has a unique multi-element chemical composition or ‘fingerprint’, so the compar-ison of the ‘fingerprint’ of an unknown sample with those from known origin can be used to assess the identity of an unknown sample.

Physi-Trace is an integral part of the Australian pork industry’s Product Integrity system, together with APIQü® and PigPass. This system also sets the Australian pork industry apart as no other livestock industry in Australia or overseas has this capability. For fresh pork, Physi-Trace involves regular sampling of fresh meat samples of known origin from participating abattoirs according to an agreed sampling plan. These samples are then stored to maintain an archive, against which a questioned sample(s) may be compared, facili-tating identification of the farm of origin. For processed ham and bacon, the system can be used to verify whether the product is made from Australian pork, or not.

More recently, a need to extend the use of Physi-Trace to tracing liver samples back to property of origin was identified. A study was conducted to determine whether the trace elemental data for liver could be accurately transformed, using mathematical algorithms, into equivalent raw pork data to enable raw pork profiles to be used to identify the property of origin of an unknown liver sample. If successful, this approach would save having to regularly sample livers, as is done now for fresh pork, and allow the Physi-Trace system to have this capability without too much additional cost.

Liver and muscle samples from six processors were collected and analysed, with a total of forty two tat-toos involved. Overall, the success rate of being able to accurately trace liver back to processor of origin was greater than 90% (up to 97%). For tracing an individual liver sample from a specific tattoo back to the equivalent meat tattoo, the success rate was 86% – this result is very interesting and exciting! Further work in this area will be required to validate these algorithms and the accuracy by which tracing an unknown liver sample back to the property of origin, using the raw pork data, can be accurately undertaken.

Extending the use of Physi-Trace

Take home messages: • Cauterisation of piglets’ tails is the preferred

method of tail docking • Administer meloxicam 60 minutes prior to tail

docking

Good animal welfare practices are fundamental to the sustainability and productivity of the Australian pork industry. Australian Pork Limited proactively invests in animal welfare research with outcomes introduced into a system of continuous animal welfare improvement. The Australian pork industry’s ability to maintain high welfare standards is further supported through the adoption of research outcomes that address the needs of the animals and are in keeping with the expectations of both the consumer and the community.

Developing welfare biomarkers to quantify the welfare state of a pig

temperature are not always straightforward, as they are just as likely to indicate excitement and positive welfare as pain or compromised welfare.

To reduce this confusion, APL and the South Austra-lian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) are investigating the use of multiple welfare biomarkers to assess pain or stress. Dr Cameron Ralph is the lead investigator in this project which will identify practices and environments which help create a positive welfare state over the lifetime of the pig.

CO2 stunning standards

On-farm welfare assessment of pigs

If we could ask a pig how it is feeling and perhaps what it likes we may truly be able to target their needs. Unfortunately, this is impossible. If we could quantifi-ably assess the welfare of our pigs and, possibly their pain, we could greatly improve animal welfare research and rapidly assess welfare on-farm.

One of the most commonly used biomarkers in welfare research is cortisol. However, it is not always an accu-rate measure as there can be both false positive and false negative results. Further, behaviour and physio-logical parameters such as body weight, heart rate and

Despite the wide acceptance of the use of CO2 as a humane and safe method for stunning pigs, concerns remain about its potential impacts on the welfare of the pig. This concern is being addressed in a research proj-ect conducted in conjunction with the pig export pro-cessors. It aims to scientifically determine the factors that contribute to the variation in pigs’ reaction to CO2 stunning under commercial conditions as well as provide benchmarking data regarding the effectiveness of CO2 stunning in Australian pork abattoirs. The outcomes of this project will assist in defining operating standards for CO2 stunning systems that safeguard animal welfare outcomes and allay community concerns.

APL has funded the development of practical welfare benchmarking measures for the Austra-lian industry. These have been trialed extensively on one large farm and to a lesser extent on other farms across Australia. APL is supporting industry uptake of on-farm welfare assessment by encour-aging a number of producers across Australia to trial benchmarking and share their experiences and learnings before delivering the package to the wider industry. Having a tool that can be incor-porated into day to day management practices to enable producers to measure welfare, both within and between farms, will provide enormous value to the industry – not only in potentially improving welfare but also in demonstrating that the industry is proactively monitoring and managing welfare on-farm. Simply put, if you don’t measure it, how will you know if it’s changing?

Cauterising is the best method of tail docking To avoid issues with tail biting when pigs are older, tail docking is usually performed within the first few days of a piglet’s life. However, tail docking can cause a temporary pain response which industry is trying to address.

A recent study led by Dr Rebecca Morrison, from Rivalea, investigated the long-term welfare impli-cations of tail docking methods to try and reduce the pain response. Tail docking with both the clip-per and cauterisation methods resulted in a higher proportion of tails that developed a thickening of the nerve endings at the edge of the stump com-pared to no tail docking. Pigs with entire tails had a higher amount of tail damage caused by other pigs biting the tail in the time leading up to slaughter. Of the two methods studied, the piglets in the clipper treatment had a higher proportion of nerve end thickening and exhibited more pain related be-haviour post docking than the cauterisation method. Injectable meloxicam (an anti-inflammatory) admin-istered 60 minutes prior to tail docking appeared to alleviate the stress response. Further research is underway to understand the causative factors leading to tail biting to be able to reduce the need to tail dock.

Welfare R&D: key highlights

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Issue 2 Autumn 2017

Student profile: Dr Phillip GurmanMicrobes and Manure: Manure as a soil improver

Increase in the numbers of disease suppression, N & P mineralising genes

Increase in the levels of microbial resilience and stress tolerance

Increase in the population size, including beneficial root colonising microbes

Organiccarbon

Bacteria

Fungi

Australian pork has been assumed to have a low risk of causing human Salmonellosis from the con-sumption of Salmonella-contaminated pork, though this has not been verified scientifically. My PhD project, under the guidance of Dr Tom Ross from the University of Tasmania and Dr Andreas Kier-meier and supported by Australian Pork Limited, aimed to estimate the probability of human illness associated with the consumption of Australian pork products. Two pork products were investigated: pork burgers and moisture infused pork, with quan-titative risk assessment models created to estimate the risk of illness from consumption of each prod-uct. These models were also used to investigate the areas of the pork supply chain between retail and consumption that could cause the largest impact to this risk, positive or negative.

Due to a lack of data in the scientific literature on the death of Salmonella in pork burgers during cooking, data was obtained experimentally. Pork burger patties were artificially contaminated with Salmonella spp. and cooked on a skillet to various temperatures. Salmonella survivors were counted. Similar data on the growth of Salmonella in moisture infused pork was also collected experimentally by injecting pork steaks with a brine solution artificially contaminated with Salmonella, slicing each steak into pieces and incubating these at various temperatures. Salmonella counts were then determined. Results from both of these experiments were used as inputs into the risk assessment models that were con-structed.

From this, it was estimated that the risk to con-

sumers from Australian pork is low, with one illness predicted per 65 million servings of pork burgers consumed nationally and one illness per 24.3 million servings consumed for moisture infused pork. These low risk estimates were considered to be due to both the low levels of Salmonella contamination on Australian pork at retail and the preference of typ-ical Australian consumers for pork cooked to high internal temperatures (i.e. well done pork).

Since completing my PhD, I have joined the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit at the University of New England where I am applying my statistical modelling skills in animal genetic programs.

Who would have thought that knowing which bugs lived where could tell us so much about the benefits and risks of using pig manure as a fertiliser and soil improver.

Dr Sasha Jenkins from the University of Western Aus-tralia (WA) used molecular methods to quantify the key components of soil microbial community and related them to conventional soil quality measures and envi-ronmental parameters. Dr Jenkins commented that “A shortcoming of traditional indicators of soil quality is that they tend to ignore the soil biota. For millennia, farm-ers have been harnessing the activities of soil organisms to provide society with food and fibre. Soil microbial communities play a key role in the cycling of nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus and, as they grow, helping to develop soil structure by producing exudates and transforming organic matter”.

Some interesting findings from the project conducted on Western Australian soils were:

was minimal for the majority of manure types ap-plied in the WA trial.

• Piggery by-products contain a range of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) present in different forms that could improve soil fertility, im-prove plant growth, capture carbon and reduce the reliance on synthetic fertilisers. Application rates should match crop demands to avoid potential run-off or leaching.

• Manure application to soil may lead to improved soil structure, soil fertility and beneficial microbial function (especially phosphorus cycling and disease function). Increased productivity and profit may result due to improved fertiliser and fungicide use efficiency as well as grain yield and quality.

• Short term manure inputs at higher application rates

(10T/ha) had similar crop yield and performance to the synthetic fertiliser treatment whether applied singly or in combination with a ‘starter’ fertiliser.

• Composting and pelletising pig manure, followed by stockpiling for at least 12 months, were the best storage methods for manure in terms of promoting soil structure and health, disease suppression and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

From this study, minimal risks with the re-use of pig-gery by-products were identified. Overall, the appli-cation of piggery by-products had positive effects on soil structure, water holding capacity and soil fertili-ty. However, care is needed during storage and land application to minimise greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient leaching.

• Reuse of manure improves crop performance, nutrient supply, diversity of beneficial microbes and microbial resilience to stress (heat and drought).

• The number of genes involved in plant growth pro-motion, nutrient acquisition and disease suppression were increased in manure amended soils.

• Adding organic amendments, such as compost and manure stockpiles, can promote the microbes that suppress crop diseases, in particular Rhizoctonia (which costs $77 million in lost grain yield per year). These results suggest that manure amended soils have a greater capacity for the biocontrol of com-mon fungal pathogens.

• The risk of contamination with heavy metals and pathogens or leaching of nitrates and phosphates

Addition of manure to soil

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Issue 2 Autumn 2017Pigs to Pork

Each year the APIQü® Standards and Performance Indi-cators are reviewed by stakeholders, including produc-ers of all sizes and types of production. Opportunities for improvement are identified and changes drafted for industry review. Once the review process is completed and proposed changes have been approved by the APL Board, they’re presented to industry Delegates before being released to industry. APIQ Management (APIQM) thanks all stakeholders that participated in the recently completed review process. The revised and approved Standards Manual (Version 4.2 1/2017) was presented to producers at the close of 2016 along with a Standards Amendment table for Ver-sion 4.2 1/2017. Both documents are available publically on the APIQü® website www.apiq.com.au. The table highlights significant changes, reasons for change and how to comply. As per APIQü® Policy, minor changes that improve the language, but don’t change the intent of a Standard or Performance Indicator, have been made but are not shown in the table. Version 4.2 1/2017 takes effect on 1 April 2017 and Auditors will audit to Version 4.2 1/2017 from this date. The delayed compliance date gives producers time to become familiar with the changes and to assess and undertake modi-fications to their systems, if or where needed. APIQM is continuing to review Standard 6.1, regarding licences and/or permits to operate, in consultation with the APIQü® Panel. We will let industry know how it will be dealt with once improvements have been identified and approved. Suffice to say, industry generally believes that having a licence to operate and complying with local regulatory requirements is important. We just need to find a way to assist producers with the process without placing them and their busi-nesses under undue risk. APL continues to work hard in this space. APIQü® Auditing A proposal was put to industry delegates in No-vember 2016 to move 100 per cent to auditing of piggeries by an Independent Third Party. This is seen by many stakeholders as a significant, but necessary, improvement to the program to increase both credibility and the value of APIQü® to indus-

Review of APIQü® Standards and Performance Indicators under way

try. The majority of delegates present agreed with the proposal and after extensive discussion, APIQM was instructed to provide delegates with information that they could take to their constituents for discussion. APIQM put together a brochure answering a few key questions that delegates raised and which producers are also considered to have. This brochure went out to certified producers at the close of 2016 and at the time of this Autumn edition of ‘Pigs to Pork’ going to print, feedback is being gathered from all stakeholders to al-low both the delegates and the APL Board to decide on a way forward in May 2017.

The brochure is available on the APIQü® website www.apiq.com.au and all stakeholders are welcome to provide feedback by contacting the APIQü® Business Manager, Tony Abel on 0419 978 775 or at tony.abel@australianpork.com.au.