FOOD INDUSTRIES

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GRAINS INDUSTRY

HOW MUCH GRAIN DOES SYDNEY CONSUME IN ONE DAY?

LETS FIND OUT TOGETHER - HOVER YOUR MOUSE OVER THE BANNER BELOW TO REVEAL THE STATISTICS!

AUSTRALIAN GRAINS INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

PRODUCTION FACTS

• On average, around 26.0 million hectares of Crops are sown in Australia each year.
• Grain crops includes: cereal crops (wheat, barley, oats, millet and rye), pulses and legumes (peas, faba/broad beans, lentils, lupins, vetch, chickpeas and soybeans) and oilseeds (canola, sunflower, safflower and linseed).
• The gross value of these Australian crops is about $25 billion per year.
• The largest crop grown throughout Australia is wheat - Australian farmers grow almost 28 million tonnes each year. Of this, 20% is used nationally to make breads, cereals, pasta, noodles, cakes and biscuits and as stockfeed and around 80% is exported to more than 40 countries.
• The second largest crop grown in Australia is barley. Australian growers produce around 2.5 million tonnes of malting barley and 4.5 million tonnes of feed barley each year!
• Australia makes up over 30% of the world's malting barley trade and approximately 20% of the world's feed barley trade.
• World markets demand Australian grain, due to its high quality, cleanliness and milling/production performance.

SUSTAINABILITY FACTS

• To grow great grains, farmers must protect and manage their land. Growers use many innovative approaches to ensure sustainable land management. For example, many use a no-till cropping system. No-till means that growers do not disturb the soil by ploughing, also called tillage. This is particularly important in countries like Australia where large areas of land used to grow grain have a soil structure that can be damaged by tillage. A no-till system can retain the rows of stubble from last year’s crop and plants the new season’s crop in-between the rows using tractors with autosteer. They are extremely accurate and can plant rows within 2cm of the previous year’s crop. Retaining stubble prevents soil erosion and the new seeds are planted in a furrow which increases the amount of water which filters down to the grain. The stubble eventually rots and returns organic matter in the soil.
• Precision agriculture is a great way to improve on farm sustainability. ‘Autosteer’ is a nifty technology which effectively uses a series of satellites to automatically steer, or guide, the tractor up and down the paddock, creating rows which are perfectly spaced and in perfectly straight lines. This minimises overlapping rows where more seed and fertiliser are sown unnecessarily, reducing waste. This adds up because farms can be 1000’s of acres in size! Precise steering also allows grain farmers to sow this year’s crops in the row between last year’s stubble – providing a ‘shelterbelt’ for the new seedlings. Autosteer can also be used on headers at harvest to remove any overlap when grain is harvested, saving on fuel and reducing operator fatigue. The autosteer also taps into satellites and can pinpoint the yields in exact locations in a paddock. This means growers know which parts of the paddock has the highest and lowest yields and he can make a yield map. Yield maps consider topography and soil types and allow growers to farm their land according to its productivity potential. Essentially, precision ag makes it possible for farmers to better manage their applications of expensive inputs like fertiliser and seed. In fact, inputs can be matched to the productive capability of each square metre!
• The agricultural sector is a great adopters of research. Through adoption of new technologies and farm management practices, the sector has stayed a step ahead of our international competitors – returning average productivity growth of 2.8 percent-a-year over the 30-year period from 1974-75 to 2003-04. A key component of this productivity has been through improved management practices, and structural changes that have seen increased farm size and shifts in enterprise mixes (Australian Government Productivity Commission, Trends in Australian Agriculture 2005)

INTERESTING FACTS

• On average, each person in Australian’s eat around 50kg of bread each year!
• Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum) is different to bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). It has specific characteristics such as grain hardness, protein, yellow colour and a ‘nutty’ flavour which make it perfect for pasta production.
• A 500g packet of pasta requires approximately 17,400 grains of durum wheat!
• Did you know there are around 16,800 kernels of wheat in one standard loaf of bread!
• Barley malt is an important ingredient in many foods (including treats such as Mars Bars and Milo and even beer!). It provides a great texture and flavour. To make malt the barley grains are soaked in water until they germinate. Then... at a specific point the process is halted by ‘kilning’ the grain or drying it with hot air. Malting allows the development of enzymes that are required to modify the grain starches into sugars (such as glucose, fructose and sucrose).
• Porridge is made from oats – a nutritious cereal crop. Oats are high in beta glucan, an important dietary fibre, which can help lower cholesterol.
• Chickpeas are a legume (along with beans, lentils and peas). Most legumes are low in fat, high in protein, and are a good source of vitamins and minerals including iron, zinc and calcium. Chickpeas make great hommus and felafels - a nutritious and tasty meal!
• While training, Gladiators of the Roman Empire ate barley due to its nutritional reputation for building strength. Barley was so important to the Gladiators that they were known as ‘hordearii’ or ‘barley-men’.
• Look closely at a chickpea grain ... its name comes from the small peak that resembles a chicken’s beak!
• Peas are a legume (pulse) crop. They have the unique ability to improve the amount of nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is essential for plant growth and development. Growing pulse crops is a great way to naturally increase soil nitrogen levels!
• Rolled oats are oat grains that have been rolled flat and steam treated so they are softer and easier to eat and digest.
• Wheat was brought to Australia in 1788 by first fleet colonists and was first planted in experimental plots at the Sydney Botanic Gardens. These varieties performed poorly because they were not adapted to the harsh Australian growing conditions and so the young colony nearly starved.
• Crop rotations are an important part of any farming system. Pulse crops are a great break crop to use, for example a rotation of wheat on year then beans the next. Pulses help to break the cycle of cereal root diseases while increasing soil nitrogen levels. Pulses actually 'fix' nitrogen when growing, meaning the soil and plants have access to this important nutrient reducing the need for fertiliser. Research suggests that when pulse crops are grown in rotation with cereal and oilseed crops yields can be increased by 0.5 to 1 tonne per hectare!
• Plant breeders in Australia work to develop cereal crops with increased tolerance to disease and weather conditions such as drought, frost and low rainfall. They also work to ensure crops are higher yielding and have improved quality.

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RESOURCES

FURTHER INFORMATION

Grains Industry Education Resources for Teachers

Fact Sheet

Resources on the web

Grains Industry Fast Facts

Research
The Future of Food
Nitrogen Use Efficiency
Drought Research – ACPFG

Nutrition
Grains for Health
Grain Foods – Part of a Healthy Diet

Plant Growth and Development
Barley Growth and Development – at the Botanic Gardens
Growing Great Grains – Barley Production in South Australia
Great Grain Harvest in the West

Careers
AgriFood Skills – Agricultural Scientists

poultry industry

HOW MUCH POULTRY DOES SYDNEY CONSUME IN ONE DAY?

LETS FIND OUT TOGETHER - HOVER YOUR MOUSE OVER THE BANNER BELOW TO REVEAL THE STATISTICS!

AUSTRALIAN EGG/POULTRY INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

FUN FACTS ABOUT chooks

• There are 19 billion chickens in the world.
• ‘Chook’ is Australian slang for Chicken.
• Egg-laying chooks descended from the Asian red jungle fowl (Gallus Gallus Spadiceus) and are thought to have been domesticated around 8-10 thousand years ago.
• Chickens are the closest living relative to the T-Rex.
• China has the most chickens in the world with around 4 billion.
• There are more chickens on earth than humans! In fact it is estimated that there are twice as many chickens than humans!
• There are at least 200 different varieties or breeds of chickens.
• Different breeds of chickens produce different coloured eggs- white, brown , blue, blue-green, red and speckled eggs are not uncommon.
• A young hen is call a pullet until it begins laying. For commercial egg breeds of chickens this is around 16-20 weeks of age.
• A hen can lay between 250-325 eggs per year.
• A chicken’s heart beats 4 to 5 times faster than a human’s, at approximately 300 beats per minute.
• A rooster is the name given to a male chicken while hen is for female chickens.
• Roosters are necessary to fertilize eggs. However, hens will lay eggs regardless if a rooster is present or not. Eggs sold in Australia are unfertilised.
• Alektrophobia is a fear of chickens.
• Chickens establish a social hierarchy which is where the term pecking order came from.
• Chickens can recognise each other’s faces and will avoid chickens they don’t know.
• Chickens have distinct calls to communicate messages such as food or predators. There are even separate alarm calls. depending if the predator is above them or at ground level.
• A spent hen refers to a chicken which is no longer used for egg production. Typically, this is around 76 weeks of age in Australia.

Egg-cellent facts

• Fresh eggs sink in water while stale eggs will float. As the egg ages it will lose moisture and will shrink inside the shell meaning that the larger air pockets will cause the egg to float.
• All eggs float in salt water.
• If you put eggs in vinegar, the acetic acid dissolves calcium carbonate crystals and the egg will become transparent and floppy.
• Eggs before being packaged are passed over a bright light to check for shell cracks and internal defects. This is known as “candling”.
• The eggshell accounts for about 12% of an egg’s weight and its strength is influenced by the hen’s diet and age.
• The average Australian consumes 231 eggs per person each year and the number is growing.
• The surface of an eggshell can contains as many as 17,000 tiny pores. This means that gases and water vapour can pass through the shell!
• Eggs have their own day known as the “World egg day” which is the second Friday of every October.
• The diet of the hen influences the colour of the yolk. The more yellow or orange the feed the darker the egg yolk colour. Australian consumers prefer dark yellow to orange yolks.
• The yolk accounts for 33% of the eggs liquid weight and contains approximately 59 calories.
• The record for the most yolks found in one egg is nine!
• The scientific name for an egg white is the “albumen”.
• It is possible for a hen to lay an eggs with no yolk at all!
• No hormones are feed to chickens in Australia!

Egg production in Australia

• 459.2 Million Dozen eggs were produced in Australia in 2017.
• The total number of pullets and layer hens in Australia at 30 June 2017 was 27,501,724. This included 19,321,567 layer hens.

There are three main types of egg production systems. These are cage, barn, and free range. All systems have different strengths and challenges as shown below.

• CAGE
  • Modern caged systems are housed in controlled environment sheds with computerised microclimatic control.
  • Feeding, manure removal and egg collection are automated in many modern caged systems.
  • This system of has the lowest level of disease risk, mortality and antibiotic use. 58% of the Australian layers are in cages. Lower mortalities and disease can be attributed to the higher biosecurity measures implemented on cage farm.
  • Cage based production is the most efficient and productive system and produces eggs at the least cost. With price remaining a key consideration for consumers, this has been the dominant production system used by the industry.
• BARN
  • Barn production is a system where birds are free to move within a shed, but not outside.
  • Shed sizes are generally approximately 10,000 hens.
  • Being inside the shed eliminates the risks of predators and climate extremes, while allowing birds to nest and perch.
  • Allowing birds to move around results in a greater proportion of the birds suffering bone fractures and feather pecking.
  • Birds in barn systems have direct contact with faecal material which increases the risk of contracting a communal disease. The can lead to a higher usage of antibiotics than in cage systems.
  • Barn & cage systems also reduces biosecurity risks associated with the transfer of diseases from wild birds to the layers.
• FREE RANGE
  • Free range commercial sheds range from 2,000 to 10,000 birds.
  • Free range production systems provide birds with the ability to range or move around in both indoor and outdoor areas.
  • The semi-commercial industry has shed sizes from 100 to 2000 birds.
  • Birds can nest, graze, dust bathe, perch and move freely.
  • Birds are exposed to weather conditions, predators and wild birds.
  • Birds are also exposed to both natural and artificial lighting making egg production in this system more variable throughout the year.
  • Free range production is more costly for a number of reasons including the greater area of land, labour and feed required per bird.

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Climate and Environmental Impacts

• Egg producers are committed to ensuring their businesses are efficient and their production systems do not affect the land and waterways that surround them and the catchment system they are part of.
• Egg producers minimise the effects of egg production on neighbours by planting trees as screens, locating noisy activities as far away from neighbours as possible, restricting loud activities to daylight hours, keeping manure dry, reducing the potential for odour and fly breeding.
• Eggs are a very efficient production system from the carbon footprint of the product. Carbon inputs are energy inputs, transport, feed, and anything that else that goes into the system.
• More intensive systems produce a lower carbon footprint and this is due to the efficiency of converting feed into eggs.
• Australian egg production systems performed similar or better for carbon footprint compared to other countries around the world. This is due to low impact grain production and modern shed designs.

How do egg producers manage waste?

• Waste management is an important part of any egg production system.
• Egg producers manage waste to reduce the effects of odour, disease and contamination of neighbouring land or water resources.
• Manure and litter waste from egg farms can be used by nurseries, home gardeners, landscape gardeners and other farmers as fertiliser.
• To avoid excessive odour and flies egg producers dry fresh manure to a moisture content of 25% or less (fresh excrete manure has a moisture content of about 70%).

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Biosecurity

• Biosecurity refers to the practical measures egg producers can take to limit the spread of infectious diseases and pests, both within the farm and from one farm to another.
• Diseases and pests can be introduced to an egg farm by movement of eggs, hens, people, vehicles and equipment between farms, and by water, feed, litter, wild birds, biting insects and rodents.
• On farm biosecurity programs reduce the risk of disease spread and can improve overall flock health, cut the costs of disease treatment, reduce deaths and improve farm profitability.
• Staff are trained to recognise and report signs of disease and any unexplained deaths. Death and disease records must be kept. If anything, unusual occurs and infectious diseases are expected poultry producers seek the advice of a poultry veterinarian.

Good biosecurity practices on egg farms can include the following and more:

• all farm boundaries are secure to prevent access of unauthorized visitors or animals.
• visitors, vehicles or equipment are not allowed onto the farm if they have been in contact with other poultry within 24 hours. If access is necessary, vehicles and equipment are cleaned and disinfected prior to entry. Clean clothes/overclothes and footwear are provided for visitors.
• shed equipment (including internal surfaces of sheds, especially brooding sheds, at batch depletion) are disinfected.
• vehicles that need to enter or closely approach sheds are disinfected by an approved method.
• poultry, feed and litter is purchased from approved suppliers with quality assurance programs that meet industry standards and your requirements.
• access of wild birds (particularly water fowl, pigeons and psittacines), animals and rodents to sheds is minimized by:
  • maintenance of fencing and shedding;
  • control of feed sources;
  • pest control programs; and
  • keeping areas around birds clean and clear.
• access of outdoor range birds to unsanitised surface water is prevented. Surface water includes water sourced from dams, open tanks, streams and open drains.
• replacement pullets are vaccinated against endemic pathogens or emergency diseases (if vaccination is permitted) that threaten your farm.
• other birds, poultry or pigs are not keep on a poultry farm.
• manure, dead birds and reject eggs are disposed of in an approved manner.
• steps are taken to minimise aerosols entering sheds from other sheds on the farm, other poultry farms, processing plants, manure stockpiles, and other birds or pigs.

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Why should you eat eggs?

Eggs are a nutrient dense food and can provide you with a large number of essential vitamins and minerals for the whole family. In one serve of eggs you can get:

• PROTEIN
  Essential for nearly every phiological process that occurs within our bodies- cell growth, maintenance and repair, metabolism, digestion, antibody production, and transport of nutrient and oxygen in our bloodstream.
• FAT AND OMEGA 3
  Fat is a major source of energy, key component of cell membranes and assist in hormone synthesis and absorption of fat soluble vitamins. Omega 3 is essential for the body as it plays a role in regulating blood pressure, blood clotting, brain and spinal cord function.
• VITAMIN A
  Vitamin A is needed for healthy skin and eyes and for a strong immune system.
• VITAMIN D
  Vitamin D assists with the enhancement of calcium and phosphorus absorption, development and maintenance of healthy bones and teeth and to maintain a healthy nervous and immune system.
• VITAMIN E
  Vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin which acts as an antioxidant and helps protect cells from the damage caused by free radicals.
• FOLATE
  Folate helps to develop the nervous system.
• THIAMINE
  Thiamine is essential for the functioning of the heart, muscles, and nervous system and helps the body cells to convert carbohydrates to energy.
• RIBOFLAVIN
  Riboflavin assists in the release of energy from carbohydrates, protein and fat as well as assisting in cell respiration.
• VITAMIN B5
  Vitamin B5 assists with the synthesis of amino acids, fatty acids, sterols, steroid hormones and vitamin D. It also aids the formation of red blood cells.
• IRON
  Iron is an important component of haemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells that carries oxygen from your lungs to transport it throughout your body.
• ZINC
  Zinc plays a role in cell division, cell growth, wound healing and the breakdown of carbohydrates.
• SELENIUM
  Selenium helps your body make special proteins known as enzymes.
• IODINE
  Iodine is a mineral essential for normal thyroid function and production of thyroid hormones, which are involved in regulating metabolism and development and differentiation of cells.
• CHOLINE
  Choline helps cholesterol and fat metabolism, and transports fat from the liver. It also helps in the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is involve in nerve and brain functioning and memory.
• ANTIOXIDANTS
  Eggs contain the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin. Increased intakes of these antioxidants have been associated with eye health and may provide protection against age related eye disease. Furthermore, the bioavailability of lutein and zeaxanthin is higher from eggs than from other plant sources. Eggs also contain the amino acids tyrosine and tryptophan which have antioxidant properties.

SO if you’re a kid why should you eat eggs??

• Eggs are a nutritious food for children, fitting well within the Dietary Guidelines for Children and Adolescents.
• Eggs improve the nutrient content of children’s diets.
• One serve of eggs provides around a third of the recommended dietary intake of folate for children. Folate is essential for the growth and maintenance of healthy cells.
• One serve of eggs provides around half the recommended dietary intake of vitamin A for children. Vitamin A is essential for growth and eye health.
• Eggs are a valuable source of omega-3 fatty acids which are commonly lacking in the diets of Australian children.
• PLUS THEY TASTE REALLY GOOD!!!!

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Web Resources

The Egg: a little bundle of affordable nutrition

The low carbon footprint of egg production

Australian Egg- Production Systems

Chicken Embryo Development

It all starts with an egg

Unscrambling the myths about eggs and cholesterol

Cage eggs or free range?

Your eggs, Your choice – Consumers have their say

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: John Rohde. (Free Range)

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: Rob Peffer. (Bain Laid)

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: Gill Bourke. (Cage)

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: Lachlan Green (Free Range)

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: Racheal Wilson (Free Range)

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: Danyel Ahmed (Cage)

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: Brian Ahmed (Cage)

Australian Egg Farmer Profile: Dion Andary

National Film and Sound Archive (2010) Australian Eggs

Poultry Cooperative Research Corporation Video Resources for Schools

Poultry Cooperative Research Corporation Poultry Hub. Housing and environment

Poultry Cooperative Research Corporation Poultry Hub. The principles of poultry husbandry

Department of Primary Industries. Good Management Practices for Egg Producers

Farm biosecurity. Chickens

Poultry Hub. Layer Industry Structure

Australian Eggs. Annual Reports

Are Free Range Eggs Ethical?

Please sign my petition to go cage free

Australia has eggs by the millions

Media

How Australia fell head over heels in love with chicken