National People Development: Membership of PIEFA to support and encourage the teaching and learning in Australian schools of information related to the Australian Fishing Industry
The disconnect between Australia's population and the production of our food and fibre is ever increasing. In a PIEFA survey it was revealed that 75% of students believed cotton was and animal product, 25% believed yoghurt was a vegetable product while only 27% of students were able to identify Salmon as a farmed product. In addition, 40% believed primary production (including fishing) damaged the environment, 43% of students did not link science to production and 55% did not believe the industry was innovative.
Only 26% of teachers surveyed said that they were unfamiliar with any issues related to the fishing industry.
Despite this 100% of primary school teachers and 91% of secondary teachers believed it was important to teach students about food and fibre production.
Therefore it is critical that FRDC support a whole of industry programme that supports teachers to embed food and fibre resources within their teaching and learning.
Final report
PIEFA was established in 2007 with bipartisan government support following an extensive series of roundtables and working party meetings supported by the federal Minister of Agriculture.
PIEFA became operational in April 2010 with support from the government, education and industry sectors. The intent of PIEFA was to provide national coordination and leadership to the fragmented primary industries education sector.
PIEFA operates as a national not for profit company, with minimal overheads, governed by a skills-based board of directors with membership from the government, industry and education sectors.
The majority of PIEFAs operational funding comes from the Rural Research and Development Corporations, with 10 RDCs as members currently.
PIEFA has enjoyed strong bipartisan support at a government level with the federal Department of Agriculture and Water Resources a member and the Labor opposition has recently announced a pre-election commitment of a continued four years membership, if re-elected.
A 2012 survey commissioned by PIEFA and undertaken by the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER) revealed;
- 75% of year 6 students though cotton socks were an animal product
- 27% of year 10 students thought yoghurt was a plant product
- 45% of students could not identify that bread, cheese and bananas all originate from farmed products
- 73% of students did not identify that Salmon were a farmed product
- 40% of year 10 students thought farming damaged the environment
- 43% of students did not link science to primary production
- 55% of students did not link innovation to primary production
PIEFAs core vision is an Australian community that understands and values its primary industries sector.
PIEFAs Mission is to engage and inform students, teachers and the broader community about the role and importance of primary industries in the Australia economy, environment and wider community, and the career opportunities available within the food and fibre supply chain.
PIEFA provides national leadership and coordination of initiatives to encourage food and fibre education in schools through a partnership between industry, government and educators.
Specifically, PIEFA operates in the following domains; maintenance of a national tripartite network; Federal and State Policy; ease of access to resources for teachers; teacher professional learning; career information for teachers and students.
Aquatic Animal Health and Biosecurity Subprogram: Perkinsus olseni in abalone - development of fit-for-purpose tools to support its management
Abalone are economically important species of molluscs, ranking fourth nationally and worth $190 million. These species have strong potential for future farming and ranching production development. However, with industry increasingly exploring live trade and developing new market access, infections with the parasite Perkinsus olseni can be a barrier for jurisdictions that have previously reported detection of Perkinsus sp. Overseas, Taiwan recently implemented a ban on live imports of abalone from Perkinsus-infected areas and this may be adopted by other countries in the future.
Perkinsus spp. have caused significant mortalities in commercially important mollusc species worldwide. Of these, the OIE listed pathogen, P. olseni, is the only species known to infect abalone in Australia. P. olseni has been reported from molluscs in NSW, VIC, SA, and WA. This parasite has been associated with mass mortality events and subsequent demise of blacklip abalone fisheries in NSW since the early 1990¶s (FRDC Project No. 2004/084). Recent investigations in greenlip abalone populations in Western Australia have revealed up to 80% prevalence and highly variable intensities of infection.
However, the investigation of the parasite dynamics and the associated risk factor(s) requires access to effective and efficient detection tools to measure the intensity of infection in an individual abalone and the prevalence of infection in large population surveys. These recent investigations have revealed severe analytical and diagnostic sensitivity and specificity deficiencies within the current protocols including the OIE one, and the various P. olseni strains present in Australia. The industry has highlighted the need for a reliable, rapid and specific method to detect this parasite at the species level (to date, 3 Perkinsus species have been described in Australia) in abalone tissues as well as in haemolymph, and water samples. This will lead to a better understanding of the prevalence and intensity of P. olseni infections on farm and in the wild, which will lead to the implementation of management measures. This lack of effective diagnostic tools is currently severely limiting Australia¶s capabilities to develop effective management
Report
A complete reference genome for P. olseni from South Australia was generated as well as other P. olseni genomes for different geographical isolates and for P. chesapeaki from Queensland. This was the first time that the genomes of these two parasites were sequenced and they will provide invaluable insights into the physiology and origin of this parasite. They will also boost studies investigating host/parasite interactions and pathogenicity. The genomic data categorised the isolates into two groups based on their level of heterozygosity and gene content, with the Oceanian isolates (Australia and New Zealand) having a lower level of heterozygosity than the Eurasian isolates (Japan and Spain). With respect to the diagnostic methods, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region that is used for diagnostic tests worldwide, is repeated between 91 and 410 times in the P. olseni genome, which makes it a suitable region for presence/absence testing but unsuitable for quantification using qPCR to determine infection load of the parasite.
Two surface proteins classified as moonlighting proteins: an uncharacterised yet conserved hypothetical protein and a putative 60S ribosomal subunit protein L4, were common to all the P. olseni geographical isolates and were retained as candidates for antibody targets. Therefore, synthetic peptides from these proteins were produced and mice were immunised with these peptides. Mice were also immunised with whole P. olseni cells of the South Australian isolate. The immunisation process was repeated with three batches of mice over a two-year period resulting in the production of several antibodies specific to P. olseni, including different life stages of the parasite.