This year’s annual meeting of the Poultry Science Association (PSA) will showcase an unprecedentedly wide-ranging assortment of papers and discussions focused on present and future challenges facing the poultry industry. The meeting will be held July 9-12 at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.

“Poultry production has always been an exciting and rewarding, but also an extremely challenging business,” said Dr. Mike Wineland, PSA president and professor of poultry science at North Carolina State University. “The pressures arising from today’s rapidly changing social and political environment have combined to make it even more so and have made the need to stay abreast of the latest technologies and advancements more important than ever. To that end, Dr. Ken Macklin and his program committee have put together what we believe is an important and highly informative slate of symposia and speakers for this year’s event. We strongly encourage representatives from the industry, as well as related members of academia, to attend.”

The annual meeting will feature the following 11 symposia:

• Keynote Symposium: “Tomorrow’s Poultry: Sustainability and Safety” (Chair: Dr. Gita Cherian, Oregon State University) – Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from and interact with an internationally recognized group of speakers who are pursuing novel strategies for increasing the sustainability and safety of U.S. poultry production and products.

• Informal Nutrition Symposium: “Metabolic Responses to Nutrition and Modifiers” (Chair: Dr. Mamduh Sifri, ADM Alliance Nutrition) – The symposium will provide an effective forum for poultry scientists and experts from the poultry industry, universities, suppliers and research institutions to review critical research and help determine future research needs in the variety of scientific disciplines impacting the poultry industry.

• National Extension Workshop: “Change and Challenge: What Lies Ahead for the Poultry Industry?” (Chair: Dr. Patricia A. Curtis, Auburn University) – An examination of the changes and challenges that lie ahead for the poultry industry. Experts will address an array of topics including land issues facing poultry farmers and the changing landscape of animal production practices. The symposium will also feature a review of the AVMA’s updated guidelines on animal euthanasia.

• Symposium: “Issues Concerning Food Safety in Poultry and Egg Production” (Chair: Dr. Manpreet Singh, Auburn University) – Salmonella and Campylobacter remain two of the most common pathogens linked to human illness worldwide. This symposium will focus on the history of Campylobacter and Salmonella, their epidemiology on the farm, during processing, and at retail, as well as control measures at various levels of production in order to prevent foodborne outbreaks and improve public health.

• Symposium: “Soybean Meal: The Past & Future” (Chair: Mr. Gregory L. Engelke, Cornerstone Resources LLC) – An update on what is happening in the world of soybeans. Discussion will range from the field production of soybeans and their nutrient contributions to soybean processing and the measurement and growth of birds in response to the intake of soybeans in their feed.

• Symposium: “Next Generation Sequencing Tools: Applications for Food Safety and Poultry Production” (Chair: Dr. Irene Hanning, University of Tennessee) - Experts will discuss how these tools will enable scientists to examine how intervention measures that target foodborne pathogens in mechanistically distinct ways can be combined to effectively reduce contamination. Additional applications include identification of sources and other epidemiological applications, as well as how these new technologies can be used to improve production performance to produce healthier animals.

• Student Symposium: “Next Generation Poultry Science & Production” (Chair: Mr. James Tyus II, Tennessee State University) – This symposium will provide insight to the current and future landscape of the poultry sciences and related industries with an emphasis on career options for students and recent graduates.

• Symposium: “Feed Enzymes: Benefits on Performance, Health and Welfare” (Chair: Dr. Greg F. Mathis, Southern Poultry Research Inc.) – Speakers will examine past benefits and new discoveries relating to phytase, which has been shown to lower feed costs and reduce the use of inorganic phosphorus. The symposium will also look at the potential nutritional and economic benefits of NSP enzymes and proteases as feed ingredients.

• WPSA Lectureship: “Eggless in Seattle? Hen Housing Concerns & the Future of Egg Production” (Chair: Dr. Sarge Bilgili, Auburn University) – Dr. Joy Mench of the University of California, Davis, will discuss the history and impact of the major changes the North American egg industry is undergoing – including the move away from conventional cages, the forces driving these changes, and how they will affect the future of egg production.

• Symposium: “Experimental Design for Poultry Production and Genomics Research” (Chair: Dr. Gene M. Pesti, University of Georgia) – Participants will look at the theoretical and practical aspects of choosing and evaluating experimental designs, and how experimental results may be related to poultry production through modeling. Additionally, recent advances in genomics selection, genome wide association studies as well as the opportunities and challenges of using genomic information in the poultry industry will be presented and discussed.

• Symposium: “2030 Vision: Poultry Production & Processing for the Future” (Chair: Dr. Douglas F. Britton, Georgia Tech Research Institute) – What should poultry production and processing look like in 2030? How would we produce and process poultry if we could start from scratch today? How could a systems-based approach drive innovation? Speakers will address these and other questions relating to the future of poultry production and processing. Keynote addresses will be given by Jim Perdue, Chairman of Perdue Farms, Prof. Farrokh Mistree, Director of the Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering School at the Univ. of Oklahoma, and Paul Helgeson, Sustainability Manager of Gold’n Plump Company.

Registration and additional information about the 2012 PSA Annual Meeting is available at www.poultryscience.org. The deadline for early registration is June 13.

Source: PSA