Program overview

Background and Long-Term Strategy

• The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) estimates the 2008-09 gross value of production (GVP) of the poultry meat industry to be $1.730 billion. The GVP of the industry has grown nearly 70 per cent over the past decade
• The industry produced approximately 820,000 tonnes of chicken meat in 2008-09, almost all of which (> 95 per cent) is consumed domestically
• Australians consume approximately 37.5 kg of chicken meat per person each year, and consumption is expected to continue to grow modestly over the next few years
• Production is dominated by a small number of quite large, vertically integrated, privately owned enterprises. These companies typically own hatcheries, feed mills, breeding farms and processing plants, in the case of two such companies, across a number of states. They usually contract out the growing of their meat chickens to independent contract chicken growers, of which there are approximately 800 nationally
• Each of the major companies operating in the industry invests significant funds into in-house R&D, particularly in the areas of product development, marketing and market development, processing technologies, quality control procedures, distribution and packaging
• Further consolidation of the industry occurred during 2009-10, with the takeover of the business of what was previously the second largest company by the previously third and fourth largest chicken producers
• The industry is relatively mature, and has a history of rapid adoption of new technology. This has resulted allowed the industry to achieve significant productivity improvements over the past fifty years
• Genetic stocks, processing and housing technology is largely imported, and this situation is likely to continue into the future. There has been significant investment by growers in recent years in upgraded housing systems
• Feeding, health management and bird husbandry programs usually require significant adaptation to suit Australian conditions, and this needs to be supported by R&D to optimise flock performance, efficiency and industry productivity. Continued productivity improvements will be required over the coming five years if chicken meat is to retain its favourable positioning as the most affordable meat, which in turn will drive its increasing popularity with consumers
• Opportunities for continued productivity enhancements, through the adoption of improved technology on-farm (in areas such as bird health and welfare, husbandry, nutrition and feed management) and elsewhere are key components of the RIRDC program
• These productivity improvements will need to be achieved in the face of increasingly stringent food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards
• On the other hand, the industry has many opportunities to capitalise upon opportunities associated with chicken meat's modest environmental footprint relative to alternative animal protein sources, and also to further reduce its environmental impacts and emissions.

Key long-term strategies

The Program's 2009-14 R&D Plan identifies a range of strategies, including the following key ones:

• Undertake ongoing R&D to improve feed conversion rates in meat chickens and develop nutritional strategies to improve nutrient utilisation through the optimisation of gut health and manipulation of nutrient constituents, including water
• Conduct research to identify new and cost effective feed sources for the Australian chicken meat industry
• Develop additional, more efficient and / or lower cost disease control techniques for endemic, emerging infectious and non-infectious poultry diseases, including strategies which further reduce the industry's use and reliance on antibiotics for production
• Investigate nutrition issues linked to improved animal welfare outcomes and address husbandry and physiology issues that constrain production and / or result in adverse animal welfare outcomes
• Develop objective measures and standards for animal welfare in the chicken meat industry and facilitate the adoption of objective standards for animal welfare in the chicken meat industry through support for training and workshops and the linking of standards to QA and other programs, particularly promoting attendance at training and workshops by smaller underperforming industry operations with the greatest scope for improving industry welfare outcomes
• Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of food safety programs and plans in place in Australian chicken meat production and processing plants
• Develop additional through-chain strategies for control of Campylobacter and other food safety pathogens
• Ensure that industry and relevant research groups remain up to date with international developments in Campylobacter research and intervention strategies for Campylobacter, and provide opportunities (e.g. training and workshops) to extend current research knowledge on micro-organisms such as Campylobacter and Salmonella into the wider industry, including the industry's supply chain
• Initiate further research to measure and understand the chicken meat industry's environmental footprint and invest in energy use efficiency, energy generation from waste, resource recycling, and litter management/reuse initiatives
• Undertake research to evaluate the full suite of litter management options to provide tailored solutions for individual growers
• Develop tools to assist industry to achieve favourable local government planning outcomes, including tools which assist in the objective analysis of impacts on neighbours and consequent mitigation strategies
• Assist industry to understand customer market and consumer requirements and trends and provide information and develop strategies to help the industry reposition chicken as a quality product in addition to being a low cost protein
• Gather and disseminate intelligence to inform industry decision making, including understanding developments in relation to animal welfare, OH&S, food security, food safety and import risk assessment
• Encourage capacity building to address succession planning for all parts of the industry and work with committed research providers to ensure that research infrastructure and capacity is ‘fit for purpose'
• Develop training programs that meet the ongoing needs of industry (e.g. OH&S support) and encourage training and development by all stakeholders to address both skills and labour shortages in all sectors.