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Costs and benefits of farm finance package: CSU expert
1 May 2013
Professor of Economics, John Hicks, a Charles Sturt University (CSU) expert in international trade has highlighted the costs and benefits of the farm finance support package announced last weekend by the Federal government.
Read more on CSU News
Chickpea taste test
1 May 2013
PhD student, Ms Soumi Paul Mukhopadhyay (pictured right with Governor-General, Ms Quentin Bryce AC CVO and Associate Professor Chris Blanchard), from CSU’s School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences has been putting chickpeas to the taste test as part of research that aims to develop the export market and diversify the Australian diet.
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Layer hen study contradicts some long held beliefs
9 April 2013
Graham Centre member and Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher Dr Raif Freire has taken a fresh approach in a new study into the welfare of egg-laying hens, finding the chance of a mortality outbreak didn't differ between hens kept in battery cages or alternative systems like barns, furnished cages or free range birds.
Dr Freire, from the School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences at CSU,
collected information from published studies between 1974 and 2011 about the effect of conventional (battery) cages on hen's behaviour, physical condition, physiology and production.
In a quantitative analysis, he then compared those numbers to studies for egg-laying hens in alternative systems such as furnished cages, barns and free range.
"What was most interesting in our study was that the chance of a mortality outbreak may be no greater in alternative systems than in battery cages," Dr Freire said. Read more about Dr Freire's research.
Spread the word on animal welfare in live exports
4 April 2013
An industry funded pilot training program, developed and tested by Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic and Graham Centre member Dr Rebecca Doyle and Schuster Consulting Group to improve the welfare of animals in live exports, has been extended to the Middle East.
The animal physiology and welfare lecturer travelled to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in February to conduct the Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) -funded train-the-trainer style workshops.
The workshops focused on educating people such as local veterinarians and managers from feedlots and abattoirs, UAE and Australian government representatives, Australian exporters and MLA consultants from the Middle East. Read more about this training program.
International eyes on Patterson's Curse
3 April 2013
Researchers from Charles Sturt University (CSU) will go back to where the problem of Paterson's curse began for Australia – in the Mediterranean.
A native to the eastern Mediterranean introduced to Australia in the mid 1800s, Paterson's curse is a noxious weed locally and can be toxic to livestock.
Graham Centre member and CSU's Professor of Plant Biology and Weed Science Leslie Weston and Professor of Applied Ecology Geoff Gurr have secured an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant to investigate how noxious weeds like Paterson's curse become such successful invaders in non-native environments and ways of managing these weeds more effectively. Read more about this research project.
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