History and structure of WPSA
The World's Poultry Science Association (WPSA) celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2012. The International Association of Poultry Instructors was founded at a meeting in London in July 1912, and my home country of Australia was represented at that meeting. The organization later became known as the World's Poultry Science Association in 1928 but it was not until 1946 that national branches (UK and USA) were formed. My local Australian branch was formed in 1956. There are now 80 country branches, with an additional four countries presently in the process of forming a branch, and more than 7500 members of the Association.
There are two regional Federations of the Association viz. the European Federation and the Asian Pacific Federation. One of the important activities of the Federations has been the development of working groups in specific discipline areas. The European Federation has 11 working groups viz. Economics and Marketing, Nutrition, Breeding and Genetics, Egg Quality, Poultry Meat Quality, Reproduction, Hygiene and Pathology, Poultry Welfare and Management, Turkeys, Education and Information, and Physiology, and the more recently formed Asian Pacific Federation has three working groups viz. Small-Scale Family Poultry Farming, Water Fowl, and Ratites. All of these working groups organize periodic symposia.
The motto of the Association is ‘Working together to feed the world’ and its main focus is the promotion of poultry science through the dissemination of information under the pillars of Research, Education and Organization. To this end, country branches organize local, regional and national meetings on a wide variety of topics and for different participant groupings according to topic and level of presentation. Federation working groups organize symposia, usually every two or four years, and the Federations organize their multi-disciplinary regional poultry conferences every four years. The most recent of these were the European Poultry Conference in Tours, France in September 2010 and the Asian Pacific Poultry Conference in Taipei, Taiwan in March 2011.
The flagship meetings of the Association are the multidisciplinary World's Poultry Congresses (WPC), held every four years. In addition to the large and comprehensive technical programme, WPCs include a major poultry trade exposition. Country branches bid for the right to host these meetings at the WPC staged eight years prior to the subject WPC. The Australian branch hosted the 12th WPC in Sydney in 1962 and, following its successful bid at the 2000 Montreal WPC, the Australian branch hosted its second WPC (23rd) in Brisbane in July 2008. The next WPC (24th) will be held in Salvador, Brazil in August 2012.
The association produces a quarterly journal viz. The World's Poultry Science Journal (WPSJ), which publishes review articles covering a wide variety of discipline areas associated with poultry production. The journal, which does not publish original research papers, is highly regarded by the poultry industry and research community as indicated by its high Impact Factor (1.48 in 2010). Members of WPSA receive either a hard or electronic copy of the journal every three months. To reduce costs, WPSA is keen to increase the number of members electing to receive the electronic copy, but is mindful of the need to maintain supply of hard copy to those electing this in developing countries where Internet access is problematic. In addition to WPSJ, WPSA produces an electronic quarterly Newsletter which can be accessed on the WPSA website www.wpsa.com.
WPSA programmes and awards
WPSA has developed a number of programmes and awards in keeping with its mandate of facilitating poultry research and education globally.
The Travel Grants Scheme is set up to provide support for young researchers, students and others to attend WPSA-sponsored meetings in other countries. The awardees must be aged 40 or under and to have been a member of WPSA for a specified period. The award is open to applicants from all countries. Details of the award and application procedures are provided on the WPSA website www.wpsa.com.
The Speakers Bureau Scheme has been set up to provide funding to cover travel costs of speakers at meetings organized by WPSA branches in developing countries. The airfares of the approved speakers (up to two speakers per meeting), is covered under the scheme. At its annual meeting in Cesme, Turkey in November 2011, the WPSA Board voted to extend the scheme to include meetings in ‘developed’ countries. The revised guidelines for the scheme and application procedures will shortly be included on the WPSA website.
There are a number of awards established by WPSA which recognise exceptional contribution to the organization, poultry science and/or the world-wide poultry industry. These include: the MacDougall Medal, induction into the WPSA International Poultry Hall of Fame, and the Research, Education and Industry/Organization awards made by the Foundation for Promoting Poultry Science of the Netherlands branch of WPSA. Details of these awards are included on the WPSA website. The winners of the Netherlands branch awards and the inductees into the International Poultry Hall of Fame, are announced at each World's Poultry Congress.
Support for poultry production in developing countries
The majority of the projected large increase in global poultry meat and egg production and consumption over the next 20 or more years will take place in developing countries (Farrell, Reference FARRELL2008). It is thus appropriate that WPSA's focus should be on facilitating efficient and sustainable poultry production in these countries. This was the subject of an earlier paper published at the Australian Poultry Science Symposium (APSS) (Pym, Reference PYM2010).
In considering the facilitation of efficient, sustainable and socially equitable poultry production in developing countries, it would seem sensible to define the poultry production systems in use in the these countries, the present impact of these on the people, the sustainability of the systems and the nature and drivers of transition from one system to another. For purposes of this discussion, the FAO classification that was originally developed for categorising the different biosecurity systems (and later lost importance for this purpose) is used here. Applying a similar classification on the husbandry and feeding aspects rather than biosecurity, sector 1 is large scale commercial production (‘improved’ genotypes, large scale, sophisticated facilities and equipment with automated systems and feeding with compounded diets); sector 2 medium scale commercial (similar to sector 1 but smaller and somewhat less sophisticated, less automation); sector 3 small-scale commercial (small flocks of ‘improved’ genotypes mostly local materials in facilities, no automation but provision of compounded diets often formulated from local materials); and sector 4 (small semi-scavenging flocks of indigenous birds, typically given household scraps and a small amount of grain daily).
The structure of the poultry industry with regards to sector proportion varies widely between the different developing countries and there is considerable variation between the drivers for transition from one sector to the other. In the poorer developing countries, many families in rural regions have a household flock of indigenous scavenging chickens (sector 4 production system) which are kept to improve their nutrition and livelihoods (Alders and Pym, Reference ALDERS and PYM2009). In some countries these flocks constitute as much as 90% of the country's total poultry population, although due to low productivity, their contribution to national production of poultry meat and eggs, is proportionally much lower (Pym et al., Reference PYM, GUERNE BLEICH and HOFFMANN2006). The poultry meat and eggs produced by their own or their neighbours’ flocks, are the only protein source that the majority of these very poor families ever eat. As they are not dependent upon supplies of poultry feedstuffs or improved genotypes from outside, they are essentially unaffected by changes in the other sectors of production. Very few of them aspire to becoming larger scale commercial producers, and indeed there are limited opportunities to do so. The system is very low input and output, but because the food supplied to the birds is essentially ‘free’, it can be an economically efficient production system, particularly with small cost-effective inputs into management and disease control which reduce chick attrition and bird mortality generally (Henning et al. Reference HENNING, J., PYM, HLA and MEERS2009).
It goes without question that the provision of affordable and good quality poultry meat and eggs for the urban dwellers in developing countries, is dependent upon efficient production systems. In terms of domestic production, this essentially involves the use of ‘improved’ meat or egg genotypes and the provision of compounded feeds. Given that feed accounts for about 70% of the cost of production, a critical element in this is ready access to affordable and high quality feed ingredients, whether they be locally produced or imported. Importation undoubtedly has benefits, but also significant drawbacks in relation to the establishment of a viable and sustainable poultry industry in the country. Due to the effects on global availability and price of animal feedstuffs, of climate change, past unsustainable agricultural practices and urban encroachment through the availability of arable land, combined with increased competition with requirements for human food and the increasing demand for biofuels, there is a very good argument for developing countries to become as self sufficient as possible in the production of these feedstuffs (Hindricks and Steinfeld, Reference HINDRICKS and STEINFELD2008).
In October 2011, I visited a number of southern and eastern African Countries (South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya and Ethiopia) in relation to the establishment of WPSA branches and the development of the African Poultry Network. Most of these countries are presently not self sufficient in poultry feedstuff requirements, but many countries throughout Africa have the potential to be so (Lovell, Reference LOVELL2011), given the incentive and direction combined with technical and financial support from government, NGOs and global funding organizations, at least initially.
Availability of feed ingredients is a fundamental requirement, but to maximise the efficient use of these resources in the form of balanced diets requires technical expertise and good information on feed composition. This is one area where a very significant input is required in many developing countries. Frequently diets are compounded with little information on nutrient composition with the result that performance outcomes are compromised, often quite severely. There is an undoubted role for WPSA in facilitating more effective use of feed resources in developing countries through the establishment of branches and the concommitent focus on information exchange through meetings, workshops etc.
Closely associated with this, in sector 4 semi-scavenging village poultry flocks, the contribution to household food security and poverty alleviation could, in many cases, be dramatically increased if the chicks could be kept alive; mortality to six weeks of age is frequently in excess of 60%. One very important intervention to dramatically reduce mortality is the provision of relatively small amounts of high quality starter diets for about two weeks (preferably in a creep feeder and in concert with protection from predation, disease and the climatic elements). Thus the establishment of feed mills providing good quality balanced diets in these countries, impacts in a meaningful way on both the commercial production of poultry meat and eggs as well as the production of meat and eggs from the indigenous semi-scavenging village birds. I believe this to be a very important challenge to all of us as members of WPSA and particularly to those involved in poultry nutrition and poultry feed manufacture.
Over the past ten years or so, WPSA has been actively involved in supporting poultry science and education in developing countries through: the incorporation of the International Network for Family Poultry Development (INFPD) as a global working group of WPSA; the establishment of the Asian Pacific Federation Working Group on small-scale family poultry farming; the organization at numerous poultry conferences in developing countries of workshops and symposia focussed on defining constraints to development of the national poultry industry; the establishment of the Mediterranean Poultry Network and; more recently, the establishment of the (sub-Saharan) African Poultry Network. The latter network was established at a workshop organized specifically for this purpose immediately following the European Poultry Conference in Tours in September 2010.
Socially equitable and sustainable poultry production
Despite the obvious enormous success of the poultry industry in the efficient production of poultry meat and eggs for the burgeoning global human population, concerns have emerged on a number of fronts. From society and consumers in both developed and developing countries, there have been expressions of concern about health threats from diseases (principally HPAI), food safety and quality, animal welfare and the impact of poultry production on the environment. In more recent times concerns have been expressed about the loss of biodiversity and the marginalisation and disenfranchisement of small-scale commercial producers in developing countries arising from competition with large-scale commercial operations recently established in the country.
In his keynote address ‘Emerging boundaries for poultry production: Challenges, opportunities and dangers’ at the 23rd World's Poultry Congress in Brisbane in July 2008, Dr John Hodges challenged the poultry industry to examine its practices from sustainability and social equity perspectives (Hodges, Reference HODGES2009). The challenge was taken up and a think-tank meeting to discuss sustainability and social equity issues relating to developments in global poultry production, was organized in Freising, Germany in June 2009, with representation from WPSA and FAO and from a number of the global poultry breeding companies.
An important driver for industry participation in the think tank, was the acknowledged need by industry to identify genuine areas of societal concern that require to be addressed or rectified. There is a generally recognised need by industry for better and more open communication with consumers, ideally through a mechanism that is perceived generally by society as being authoritative and objective, for providing the public with accurate information about industry practices, to publicise positive features and developments within the industry as well as measures taken to overcome problems, and to de-bunk misinformation.
At the think tank, participants were initially asked to list their own and perceived societal ‘concerns’ about poultry production. From the responses, the main focus would appear to be directed towards large-scale poultry production systems in both developed and developing countries, as these are seen as the main contributors to production of poultry meat and eggs globally and as the ‘models’ adopted by the industry in developing countries. There was good evidence for societal concern about the impact of replacement of existing production systems in developing countries and about practices in all production systems.
The following specific concerns were listed: (1) diseases and food safety, (2) welfare of animals, (3) environmental impact, (4) loss of biodiversity, (5) the impact of Intellectual Property Rights and patents, (6) impact on small producers, and (7) concentration of ownership. This was followed by an in depth discussion of the reasons for the concerns expressed by society. It was generally accepted that, irrespective of the objectivity of the reasoning behind such expressions of concern, the industry needed to deal with these issues. It was noted and acknowledged that significant improvements have been made over the years and continue to be made by the poultry industry in many of the areas, e.g. in bird health and welfare, environmental impact and in product safety, but these are all still areas of ongoing societal concern. The challenge here is to address and rectify the areas that require attention, and to counter unwarranted criticism and complaint with objective and reasoned argument.
One of the outcomes from the think tank was a recognition of the need for input from a much wider array of stakeholders than present at Freising. The FAO representatives at the meeting undertook the task of arranging this and organized a special one-day session at the European Poultry Conference in Tours, France in August 2010, entitled ‘Guidance for the poultry sector-issues and options’.
This process is continuing with involvement from WPSA. There is a current proposal for WPSA and the Global Challenges Forum (GCF) to co-sponsor a global summit where the business leaders in the worldwide poultry industry would be invited to participate and address current and emerging issues related to equity and sustainability. The GCF is committed to exploring challenges jointly with the leaders of significant worldwide activities with the aim of promoting sustainability and ethics for all stakeholders. Discussions are presently underway between GCF and WPSA.
Relationship with WVPA
Over the past four or more years, there has been ongoing dialogue between WPSA and WVPA about bringing the Associations closer together. It was felt by some that there would be considerable merit in running joint meetings, even joint world congresses. A particular benefit of this would be the opportunity to run multidisciplinary sessions focussed on multifactorial problems.
One of the particular constraints for combining the world congresses of the two organizations is the inherent structure within each organization associated with the determination of the country and venue of forthcoming meetings. In WPSA, a very significant section of the Constitution and By-laws deal with the processes associated with the selection and election of the host country of forthcoming Congresses.
There are, however, good examples from here in Australia, of how the organizations can work together to achieve desirable outcomes. At WPC2008 in Brisbane, the poultry health and disease stream of the Congress was organized by the Australian Veterinary Poultry Association (AVPA) in the form of the 6th Asia Pacific Poultry Health Conference. This ran concurrently with the other streams of the Congress. The other example of such collaboration is the shared session with AVPA on the third day of APSS, where multidisciplinary health and disease issues and problems are usually discussed.
Issues relating to poultry health are not the exclusive province of WVPA. Most health issues and problems are multi-factorial and WPSA historically has demonstrated a keen interest and involvement in promoting discussion of these problems. The involvement of poultry health professionals is, of course, fundamental to this. In many developing countries, the issue which stimulates producers and others to seek assistance and advice is frequently related to bird health problems. This collective action often results in the formation of a branch of either WVPA or WPSA in the country. This argues for close collaboration and cooperation between the two Associations.
In northern Africa, WVPA is relatively well represented in the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, whereas apart from Egypt, WPSA is not. One of the aims of establishing the Mediterranean Poultry Network within WPSA, was to facilitate the development of WPSA branches in that region through collaboration with WVPA. This has been somewhat interrupted by recent developments there with the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings.
There are other ways in which the two organizations can interact and collaborate and I look forward to discussions with my good friend and colleague, Dr Trevor Bagust, the recently appointed President of AVPA, to explore opportunities for a closer relationship between the two organizations.
