Program overview

Background and Long-Term Strategy

ABARE estimates the current GVP of the poultry meat industry to be $1.714 billion. In 2008, the industry produced approximately 811,660 tonnes of chicken meat from slaughterings of 466 million birds.

Chicken meat production in Australia is dominated by a small number of vertically integrated, privately owned enterprises. These companies typically own hatcheries, feed mills, breeding farms and processing plants, and contract out the growing of their chickens to independent 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 areas of market research and product development, processing technologies, quality control procedures, distribution and packaging. Genetic stocks, processing and housing technology tends to be imported. Feeding, health management and bird husbandry programs often require significant adaptation to suit Australian conditions and feed ingredients.

The real price of chicken has declined over the past 50 years. No doubt partly due to its increasing affordability, domestic consumption of chicken meat has grown steadily over the same period. The average annual consumption of chicken meat is now approximately 36.1 kg per person.

Productivity improvements are a key to maintaining the competitiveness of chicken meat. Significant improvements in growth rate have been made over the last 40 years, but opportunities for continued productivity enhancements, through the adoption of improved technologies on-farm (in areas such as bird health, husbandry, nutrition and feed management) and elsewhere remain and are key components of the RIRDC program. These improvements will need to be made in the face of increasing challenges posed by increasingly stringent food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards. However, the industry also has the opportunity to capitalise upon opportunities associated with chicken meat's modest environmental footprint relative to other protein sources.

Key long-term strategies

A new five-year plan for 2009-2014 has been prepared following a review of the Chicken Meat Program. Key long term strategies expounded in the new Plan include:

• research the full suite of litter management options to provide tailored solutions for individual growers
• undertake research to fill the knowledge and data gaps identified by users of chicken litter as fertiliser which present an impediment to them using the product to a greater extent
• complete a lifecycle analysis of Australian chicken meat, using a common methodology which is applicable to a range of Australian agricultural industries, and then invest in energy use efficiency, energy generation from waste, water recycling, and litter management/reuse initiatives
• develop and invest in R&D that addresses the potential impacts of chicken meat production on the industry's neighbours, including dust, odour and noise, and develop tools which may objectively analyse impacts and consequently help develop mitigation strategies
• follow-up the industry's initiatives with EMS to ensure implementation and effective outcomes in relation to impacts on or emissions to land, air and water
• assist industry to develop and adopt improved disease prevention, management and diagnostic techniques for endemic, emerging and emergency poultry diseases, and undertake R&D to further reduce the industry's use and reliance on antibiotics for managing disease
• develop objective measures and standards for animal welfare in the chicken meat industry and facilitate their adoption through training, including the promotion of participation in such training opportunities by smaller underperforming industry operations with the greatest scope for improving industry welfare outcomes
• address husbandry, nutrition and physiology issues that constrain production and or result in adverse animal welfare outcomes
• undertake ongoing R&D to improve feed conversion rates in meat chickens, including the evaluation of the nutritional value of existing and new feed grain varieties, the development and evaluation of techniques for rapidly assessing or predicting the nutritional value of feed ingredients, and exploring opportunities for enhancing feed ingredient utilisation
• assist industry to monitor and improve its control of key food safety pathogens, including the development of additional through-chain control strategies and provision of training and workshops to extend current research knowledge
• undertake research to understand customer and consumer requirements and trends and investigate strategies to help reposition chicken as a quality product in addition to being a low cost protein
• encourage capacity building to address succession planning for all parts of the industry, and develop training programs that meet the ongoing needs of industry.