Ministerial visit and education funding for Poultry Hub Australia
Last month Poultry Hub Australia (PHA) was able to meet with the Australian Agricultural Minister the Hon. David Littleproud.
It was a great opportunity to discuss PHA’s plans for the future and how we are implementing a training and education program for the poultry industry. The minister was impressed when presented with the statistics of how much chicken meat and eggs are consumed in Australia and across the world and the projections for future increases. Our plan to have an onsite commercial educational poultry farm in conjunction with the University of New England’s Smart Farm was of great interest. There was a great deal of discussion around how we can work towards helping Australians understand where their food comes from and also how we can work towards better measures of animal welfare.
These initiatives will be strengthened through specialised education funding that PHA has been awarded recently. This funding will be instrumental in employing an education officer that will continue to build the educational resources and programs begun by the Poultry CRC. Of particular importance will be the development of school-farm interactions and education programs aimed at year 9 and 10 students, with the overall aim to build future capacity for industry.
In addition, we have begun to scope out an industry training package. PHA will endeavour over time to provide a suite of training packages that can be accessed predominately online and will measure levels of competency in employees. We will be holding workshops over the coming months to gauge industry training needs and how best to deliver training. If you are interested in attending one of these sessions please get in touch at poultryhub@une.edu.au.
