Popular Pig

Robert van Barneveld is Group CEO and Managing Director of the Sunpork Group of Companies which includes SunPork Farms (farming approximately 51,000 sows across Australia and 3,000 sows in New Zealand), PIC Australia, Swickers Kingaroy Bacon Factory and SunPork Fresh Foods. Collectively the Group produces approximately 18% of Australia’s pork.

In addition to his work with SunPork, Dr van Barneveld is also a Director of the Australasian Pig Research Institute Ltd, Chairman of the Autism CRC Ltd and is a Non-Executive Director of the ASX-listed Ridley Corporation (Australia’s largest stockfeed manufacturer). He was formerly a Director of Australian Pork Ltd and Porkscan Pty Ltd. 

In addition to his corporate roles, Robert has extensive experience as a scientist and nutritionist for pigs and poultry in Australia and overseas and specializes in the characterization and understanding of feed ingredients. He has worked widely with feedmills and livestock producers in Asia over the past 30 years and has a PhD in amino acid nutrition of monogastrics. 

Robert is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Fellow of the Australasian Pig Science Association, a Life Member of Autism Queensland, is a Registered Animal Nutritionist and is an Adjunct Professor within the School of Environmental and Rural Science at the University of New England and the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences at the University of Queensland.

A seasoned AgTech Entrepreneur Terry grew up on a dairy farm. After studying engineering he spent 9 years working for blue chip companies worldwide on cloud computing projects. In 2004 he applied this knowledge to the livestock industry founding FarmWizard.com the world’s first SaaS for managing livestock. He grew that business over 10 years selling it in 2015 to Wheatsheaf. Terry believes that recent advances in Machine Vision powered by Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence now creates an opportunity to develop CattleEye, a truly Autonomous Livestock Monitoring solution.

Dr. Márcio Gonçalves graduated in Veterinary Medicine from a leading university in Brazil. After working in commercial swine production, he pursued his Ph.D. from Kansas State University in Applied Swine Nutrition. Upon graduation, he worked as a global swine nutritionist for a major swine genetic company, working with producers from over 20 countries, and has conducted 120 swine-related experiments to date. Currently, Márcio is the founder and CEO at Swine it, with a mission to positively impact 300,000 swine professionals through knowledge dissemination by the end of 2023.

Steve Lerch is a former Google executive, a consultant, and an award-winning international public speaker. He spent nearly a decade at Google designing the digital strategies and marketing campaigns of well known brands like GoPro, federal government agencies like the US Census, and national checkoff programs like the National Pork Board and Avocados From Mexico. Steve also served as a strategic thought leader at Google’s headquarters, where he taught thousands of Googler’s about the culture, processes, and philosophy that helped make Google one of the World’s most innovative companies. For the last three years Steve has served as the President and Founder of Story Arc Consulting, where he gives speeches, leads team workshops on strategic planning and innovations, and serves as a digital strategy and marketing consultant. Steve works across many industries, with a primary focus in food and agriculture.

SwineTech provides pork producers with workforce and swine management solutions that increase the quality of care for pigs everywhere. We are committed to helping pork producers navigate labor and survivability challenges within their operations. We accomplish this by providing production employees with a workforce and swine management platform that immediately improves workplace organization and communication. This ensures that people are less stressed and more aware of where they need to be, when they need to be there, and how they should take action. This has led to a significant reduction in labor needs, as well as stillborns and mortalities.

For more information please visit www.PigFlow.com.

Jeff Kayser has 40 years of swine operations experience working with independent and integrated pork producers. Including business development through facility acquisitions, new construction, renovation and expansion of swine facilities and contract grower procurement. Coordinating transportation and truck wash operations, animal movements and marketing activities. Directing information services activities in reproduction and grow-finish record keeping and biological versus financial KPI benchmarking. Directing the activities of genetic multiplication and commercial farrow to finish production systems as a Senior Regional Production Manager via various production models; ESF, ABF, filtered ventilation, crated and pen gestation and with all major swine genetic lines. Currently serves as the Technical Production Specialist for Fast Genetics.

John Paul Engel is the Founder of Knowledge Capital Consulting and Secure Bin Labs. John has worked in a dozen countries advising the senior management of some of the largest companies in the world. He has helped dozens of companies go from idea to a high growth company. John’s advice has appeared in INC, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, and over 250 publications. He has been invited to guest lecture at University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon, The University of Iowa, and Oxford University.

Aidan is President of AgriTech Capital, a resource for new and established companies working at the interface of agriculture and technology. Prior to this Aidan was CEO at Cainthus and CIO at Alltech among other senior roles in a 25 year plus career at that company.  He is also a non-executive director at Origin Enterprises, the leading crop inputs company in Northern Europe. AgriTech Capital has aided governments, fortune 500 food companies and large agri-businesses on their AgTech strategy. Aidan adds the innovative thinking and capital investment needed to go from possibility to reality.  He has a strategic understanding of the marketplace and the regulatory parameters that set the environment. Aidan has worked in over 100 countries and speaks five languages.  He has worked in political associations, with state and national governments in the US, China, Europe and Brazil, international organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations. Aidan also contributes to a wide range of publications in agriculture and business, including Forbes.

Joseph Kerns, President of Partners for Production Agriculture, has thirty years’ experience working with producers, suppliers, and mills to support agricultural operations. He leads a team of professionals with the purpose of understanding the financial parameters around agricultural markets so that those that he works with can thrive and prosper.

Levi C. Maaia is the director of “Pathways to Invention” a documentary on Lemelson-MIT award-winning inventors. He was in Iowa City recently filming at SwineTech for the film. Levi began his media career in FM radio, cable television and broadband where he became fascinated by the potential for technology to educate, and open a window on the world. He earned a Ph.D. studying Maker culture and STEM education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He later started Maaia Mark Productions with his business partner Noah Mark in order to explore the intersections of culture and technology through film. Levi is a private, instrument-rated, land and seaplane pilot serving on the Santa Barbara Airport Commission, a licensed amateur radio operator and avid photographer. He also tinkers with his 1966 Mustang to keep it running.

“Pathways to Invention” is expected to premiere at film festivals this summer.

More info at www.pathwaystoinvention.com.