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Sustainability Improvements in the Victorian Chicken Meat Industry (Phase 1)
by James Smith, James Smith
Consulting Pty Ltd
May 2003
RIRDC Publication No 03/035
RIRDC Project No JSC-1A
The project was carried out in the eighteen-month period to April 2002 and built on previous work by the Victorian chicken meat industry to improve environmental performance and to address broad community concerns. This project was aimed at identifying best practices in environmental, health, safety and community liaison, establishing an ongoing process to address key community concerns and identifying research or farm trials needed where implementation of known best practices would not fully resolve community concerns. Effective processes for dialogue with processors, VFF leaders, external stakeholders and industry workgroups were established that allowed the three major objectives and 95% of the thirty detailed project outputs to be accomplished.
Broad community concerns were established from grower anecdotal reports, from twenty meetings with community, regulator and other stakeholders and by establishing a formal independent Community Advisory Panel (CCAP) for the industry. CCAP met three times, established its charter and had a significant, constructive influence on the industry. The fifteen main changes that CCAP requested are listed. Of these, 60% have been fully implemented and work on the remaining 40% is planned for 2002 and 2003. As experienced in other industries, dialogue has lead to improved trust in most cases and several cooperative programs (training courses, an Odour Workshop and a protocol for farm environmental improvement) have been developed with the regulatory authorities. The first of this project.s eleven recommendations is to continue with the CCAP meeting process and other interactions with stakeholders.
Dialogue on the industry environmental initiatives was held with over 500 people at 20 meetings or events during the project period. Details of these meetings with community groups, local councils, State government agencies and industry personnel are provided. The latter included three highly rated industry-training workshops on environmental issues and best practices at which several improvements to the scope and content of this training activity were identified. The report recommends continuation of these workshops to brief the remaining 45% of the industry growers in Victoria and to promote the newly developed tools. These tools should also be maintained and widely available on the VFF website.
Although the Chicken Care Best Practices Model was adopted in September 2000 prior to this project, nine major areas for its improvement have been identified in the report and recommended by both CCA and CCSC to be incorporated into a now planned 2003 update to the model. The key recommendations were for the introduction of an external verification process and for more integration of the model with biosecurity, animal welfare and other recently developed standards. The 2001 survey of model implementation was carried out and its findings are detailed in the report. Forty-one farms (a 37% response rate) provided data that indicated overall implementation of 58% of the Best Practice Model requirements. Considerable scope (especially in problem prevention, performance reporting, employee safety and community partnership) exists for improving performance where needed, by implementation of the known best practices. The report also recommends increased focus on training and other assistance in areas of identified common weaknesses by grower branch groups and industry-wide programs. It further recommends that the existing survey be repeated in 2002 and updated for use in 2003.
Nineteen key performance indicators (KPI) were identified and defined in a successful process involving a small workgroup, CCAP and CCSC. The parameters were collected and returned by 22 farms (an 11% response rate) for the period from July to December 2001. Although limited by the low initial response level, the survey characterised a typical grower (for use in farm benchmarking) as one planting 184 trees, spending $12,000 and 15% of his time on environmental improvements, having two potential environment incidents, four potential neighbour annoyance events and no neighbour complaints or farm staff injuries each year. The report recommends that the survey be repeated in 2002 and that efforts be made to promote the rationale for and benefits from KPI collection and the Best Practices Implementation Survey in order to increase their response rates and the reliability of trend comparisons.
Thirteen possible areas for the development of a Guidance Note for growers were identified by growers at training courses, through CCAP and CCSC requests and by analysis of the above surveys. Tools are now completed and published on five areas (40%), are drafted/available on four others (30%) and planned for work in 2002 on the remaining 30%. Guidance Notes are provided in the report appendices on nine topics including Dead Birds, Contingency Actions, Legal Obligations, Major Mortality Events, Key Performance Indicators, Key Grower Skills, Temporary Litter Stockpiles, Chicken Feed Information and Odour Generation and Controls. The report recommends completion of the remaining (and any priority newly identified) Guidance Notes in 2002 and 2003.
Two methods were used to identify areas where future research or farm trials were needed to address community concerns. The methods were, firstly, a review and prioritisation by CCAP and CCSC of the suggestions from growers and external stakeholders and, secondly, the generation of recommendations by a joint industry and EPA Victoria Workshop on Odour Control Options. The methods identified five key priorities covering waste litter management, feed manipulation, more rigorous odour control trials, odour level testing and multi-variable odour impact studies. The report recommends further meetings between industry, RIRDC, EPA Victoria, the VCBF Code Committee and others to coordinate, arrange and fund appropriate work in the above areas.
 
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