May 26, 2020

Australia's Westpork wants to build artificial insemination, feed facilities in Bullsbrook

Australian pork producer Westpork is proposing to build a boar artificial insemination centre and a new feed mill at a 60-hectare site in Bullsbrook, which is part of the City of Swan in Western Australia, Farm Weekly reported.

The artificial insemination centre will have a stud shed accommodating up to 188 boars at any one time. It will also have 20 quarantine pens, four semen collection pens, a laboratory for packaging and quality control, and a wet room, among others.

The proposed facility will accordingly collect and distribute boar semen to piggeries around Australia.

The proposed feed mill, on the other hand, will consist of two separate processing lines operating in parallel, with a combined capacity of 40 tonnes per hour, as per report.

One line will produce 20 tonnes of feed for the non-ruminant (monogastric) market and the other 20 tonne for the ruminant market.

According to the environmental assessment of the proposal carried out by Aurora Environmental, Westpork "is an experienced operator in the pork production industry, owning or managing eight pig production facilities at various locations around Western Australia". It is one of West Australia's largest pork producers.

The City of Swan is now in the process of gathering comments from the public with regards to the Westpork proposal.