The Australian poultry sector is one of the most sophisticated and efficient in the world, having successfully embraced digital innovation, technology, genetics, and market organisation models to rival most advanced economies.
However, the local industry faces challenges from increasing cost of feed, energy and labour, static product prices, and expanding compliance requirements and retail market power.
Maintaining chicken’s place as the most affordable and popular meat in the domestic market will require leveraging existing strengths, capitalising on the untapped opportunities of existing data, and exploring new ways to collect and use data across the supply chain.
The study leveraged networks, knowledge and industry insight from AgriFutures Australia’s Chicken Meat Program to explore the potential for digital innovation.
The recommendations provide a roadmap for change to achieve the digital outcomes identified by the chicken meat industry.
The development of technologies and services is expected to enhance decision making through improved animal health monitoring, nutrition management, shed monitoring, labour and product marketing.
Industry consultation identified the top three ranked technologies that could be used in the chicken meat industry:
· automatic weighing of birds
· cameras
· sensors for shed environmental conditions
The study also developed a set of decision support tools for digital transformation and technology evaluation.
Opportunities for advances in data use have been established including predictive technologies, networked systems which integrate data and analytics to support or automate decisions.
The research also identified that data sharing, trust and governance of data systems are key issues that need to be addressed to drive the development of digital services in chicken meat supply chains.
Download and read the final report.
For more information, please contact Project Lead Professor Derek Baker at derek.baker@une.edu.au or on 02 6773 2627.
