Speakers

Claire Penniceard The Pig Pen Pty Ltd

Profile:

Claire Penniceard is the owner and sole director of The Pig Pen Pty Ltd, a farm that grows out pigs on contract for QAF Meat Industries Pty Ltd, one of Australia's largest meat producers. Claire manages the piggery and provides an elite level of care for the pigs including the use of deep litter housing, allowing the pigs natural movement and free exercise space.

Claire is currently modeling a process in which a hard to manage product (grape marc) from wineries can be adapted as a suitable bedding material for deep litter piggeries, creating an environmentally friendly mulch product, which provides significant water saving opportunities on an industry scale.

Here is an outline of my wider community and industry involvement:

I introduced a new and conventionally unpopular type of enterprise into a conservative rural community and gained acceptance.

I was invited jointly by Unifem, the women's development arm of the United Nations, and the All China Federation of Women, to make an extended personal visit to China to work with them on the future of women on farms in China. This was personal recognition of my industry expertise and my background in supporting women's development. It also helped that I was a grandmother.

My approaches to the management of change and its challenges together with my industry knowledge of emergent needs and challenges gained me appointment to the Victorian Pig Council.

My active engagement with overall farming changes and the strategic implications of them gained me appointment to the Policy Council of the Victorian Farmers Federation. I also have a focus on the particular needs of intensive enterprises and the issues arising from urban/rural pressures.

My interest in the new structures and operations of agricultural enterprises and their changing needs for water, energy and infrastructure have led to my appointment to the Business Customer Consultative Committee of the Essential Services Commission of Victoria, where I am the sole agricultural representative.

My interest and commitment to animal health and bio-security has led me to train and be certified as an Industry Liaison Officer under the Federal AusvetPlan structure for the management of significant animal disease outbreaks.

My own enterprise record in animal welfare and my proactive stance on this in the agriculture sector has led to my appointment to the Victorian Ministerial Advisory Committee on Animal Welfare.

My own enterprise commitment to R&D and to the strategic placement of research projects to maximize industry integration and avoid duplication has led to my appointment to the Victorian Ministerial Swine Industry Projects Advisory Committee.

My passion for the need for management and support strategies to allow communities to better handle change in industry, landscape and resources in their communities and their people has rewarded me with a role in the very significant 4 year Irrigation futures of the Goulburn Broken Catchment Project.

My interest and commitment to the wider industry and commerce scene with a focus on giving and gaining support for women and their achievements has been reflected in my long-term membership of the International Women's Confederation of Commerce and Industry. (IWFCI)

I have developed a good relationship with the Animal Welfare Science Research Centre in Victoria, and am regularly invited to their seminars as an active participant. It is a great synergy. They can research the science of aspects of animal behaviour: I manage it in a production context and have the benefit of many thousands of animals to observe in serially repeated settlings and stages. The final findings are significantly more valuable because they carry both scientific and industry endorsement.

I have recently been asked by a worldwide Animal Welfare organisation if I will be a keynote speaker at a major Australian conference they are planning for later on this year. They are interested in my assistance in revamping some of their published materials, especially those they hope to see used in schools.

I am currently the invited Victorian representative of the pig industry in a national working group preparing the pig industry sections of the new National Livestock Transport Code.

I have been asked by the Australian taxation office to be part of a major project determining Effective Life schedules for piggery assets.

I have been asked by ChemCert Victoria to be the guest speaker at the Annual conference of the Trainers who deliver the ChemCert Chemical Training program for all agricultural and veterinary chemical use across Victoria. In particular. They want to learn about the way I maintain QA compliance programs to secure market access.