The real business of the 24th World Poultry Congress started in earnest yesterday, 6th August, with six concurrent conferences sessions covering a variety of topics from poultry health and nutrition to welfare/environment, slaughtering and genetics. There is also a substantial exhibition area featuring exhibits and stands from local and global suppliers to the poultry industry.

At an event organised by Novus entitled ‘The Future of the Poultry Industry: Are you Ready?’, the president of the WPSA branch hosting the Congress, Dr da Silva, expressed his hopes and priorities for the next four years, a period in which he will be president of the global WPSA if he is elected later this week.

The first conference was held in 1912, in London, and the World’s Poultry Science Association now has almost 8,000 members of 81 national branches around the world.

Dr da Silva stressed how much the poultry industry has developed over that time and so too has the WPSA.

If he is elected president, he wants to develop closer links of the WPSA with African countries, taking expertise from his country and others to help grow poultry production to meet the demands of an ever increasing human population. Salvador is the top African city outside Africa, he explained, and Brazil can offer that continent the benefits of its research and expertise.

He is also keen to propose more frequent, regional meetings of WPSA in conjunction with other events, such as exhibitions, to explore new topics in a regional content, while aiming o keep the meetings free of commercial bias.

One of the most positive aspects of the present Congress, said Dr da Silva, was a Student Programme arranged by WPSA for 33 students to meet in Sao Paulo and spend one week, travelling around Brazil and getting to know all the aspects of the poultry industry while also providing the participants with the opportunity to get to know each other and to network.

Another Congress development of which Dr da Silva is proud is the large area for posters, conveniently placed between the Congress sessions, exhibition area and food court, offering plenty of opportunity for visitors to find out more about the very many one-year research projects presented there. The posters are set to remain in place throughout the Congress.

Finally, Dr da Silva congratulated Novus on organising a satellite meeting that addressed the real issues facing the industry today, including the opportunities and challenges in the global poultry market and the future of poultry nutrition in the context of high and volatile feed ingredient prices.

Following on Dr da Silva’s commitment to the African continent, the executive director of Novus in Latin America, Luis Azevedo, said his company, together with the government of Chad and other partners including Globoaves, are setting up a model poultry production project, Poulet Koundoul in the central African country. Chad has a population of over 11 million and an annual rate of population increase of 3.6 per cent. The project aims to transfer technology in the form of a whole poultry production chain from hatchery and feed mill, through growing the broilers and to a modern processing facility.

The aims of the project, explained Mr Azevedo, are to increase food security in the country, improve food safety, build production capacity and transfer technology, with an output of 20,000 broilers per day, providing 1,500 jobs and offering 15 different poultry products.