APSS 2013 Proceedings - The University of Sydney

Aust. Poult. Sci. Symp. 2013.....24
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE POULTRY INDUSTRY
HON. J. KERIN
The advent of the personal computer and search engines of varying degrees of sophistication
enable computer troglodytes, such as I am, to amass data for re-gurgitation. This enables one
to give a quantitative picture of an industry. What is more important are the qualitative
aspects of an industry; its contribution to our well being.
So, what are the characteristics of the poultry industry that mark it out as outstanding?
Farmers, as with many if not most groupings in our society, resist change. There is always
comfort in known certainties and they die hard. The poultry industry is one of adaptation,
competition and change.
Industries in Australian live within regulated environments. To gain policy change, to
adapt to new technologies and to adjust to the times we are in, nationally and internationally,
requires a change in the regulatory map- imposed by either the private or public sector or
both.
I lived on and worked on a poultry farm until I was 33, leaving it in 1971. When I left
school in 1952 there were 34,000 registered egg producers in NSW. These were registered
with the NSW Egg Marketing Board, when the egg producers and major political parties had
a belief in ‘organised marketing’. To be registered one had to have over 19 laying hens, so
one assumes that number of commercial farms was in the mid thousands, say 5-6000. In the
village I grew up in, there were 7 commercial farms and some part time producers; today
there are none. In NSW today, there would be only a few over 200 commercial farms. All
States had similar arrangements and Queensland, the home of rural socialism, at one stage
had three egg producing zones. It was prohibited to trade in eggs between the zones. The
organic, barn laid etc move has meant that numbers of egg producers is rising again and I
understand that ,Australia wide, we now have about 2,000 producers but with the largest
three producing over 50% of total egg production. The industry is both scaling up and down!
In the post WW2 agricultural commodity exporting boom years, we exported eggs at a lower
than the domestic price to England. The British and Europeans were starving. We poultry
farmers were buying wheat at a higher price than what it was being sold for on the export
market under an International Wheat Agreement, which did not expire until the early 1970s.
From the late 1950s and into the 1960s we started to enter a period of over-production and an
end to any notion of an export bonanza. There was sense in the overall policy because
Australia needed export income so as to afford imports and to enhance our standard of living
and to gain foreign exchange for investment. The Commonwealth Government’s policy was
‘protection all round’ until at least 1969.
Although difficult, the egg industry became a model for, near autonomous, structural
adjustment. It went through profound change, not the gradual change that occurs in broadscale
farming. It adapted. How did this come about?
The broiler industry commenced as a vertically integrated industry in the 1960s.
Grower associations came into being but the dominant hatchery and processing firms were
the main drivers of the industry. There are about 800 chicken producers in Australia but
Baiada and Inghams produce more than 70% of all production. Scaling up continues; the
market at work. Again, the poultry industry became a model for structural adjustment with
fierce competition, at all levels. It adapted. How did this come about?
Australians mainly live in cities. We are a highly urbanised society. Diets and
lifestyles in our cities have changed. We now do not all go to work ‘on an egg’, but our
consumption is relatively high. We are more likely to eat at a quick food outlet, with over
fried chicken, than cook one at home, but our consumption is high. Again the industry has
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