March 27, 2009

The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has engaged pig industry specialist, Trish Holyoak, to improve productivity of the state's pig industry.

Holyoake was the senior lecturer in pig health and pig production in the University of Sydney.

Her previous experience includes working for Australia's largest piggery, as a consultant to a 25,000 sow piggery in Indonesia and as a lecturer at the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Primary Industries.

NSW chief veterinary officer, Bruce Christie said studies undertaken by Holyoake include a PhD on gastro intestinal diseases of pigs and a Post Doctoral Scholarship funded by the Australian Pig Research and Development Corporation to study pig diseases at the University of Minnesota.

Holyoake has more than twenty years experience working in the pig industry on pig health and she will provide specialist technical advice in pig production and pig health to the NSW pig industry.

A key purpose of her position is to help the NSW pig industry remain competitive through the adoption of innovative production and biosecurity technologies, strategies and policies, which involves working with industry and government on their development, enhancing market access through targeted programs and responding to emergency biosecurity threats.

In her program to rejuvenate the NSW pig industry, she will outline how to stay on top of pig health, productivity and profitability in a series of pork workshops, focusing on long-term profit and sustainability to give pork producers the skills to take their enterprises solidly into the future.