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UWA MBA students are set on doubling the value of Western Australia’s pork exports by 2025.

Completing an industry project for the Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA), a team of four MBA students last year investigated the international agri-food market.

Catherine Lyons, the A/Director of Strategy and Governance at DAFWA, said the MBA team provided new insights into the future of the pork industry.

“With DAFWA’s role in enabling the agriculture and food sector to double its value by 2025, we were excited to have such an energetic and driven team to focus on one of the State’s livestock industries,” Ms Lyons said.

“The team’s analysis of export-led growth in the WA pork sector provided insights into global competiveness and market analysis. Staff and industry members appreciated their methodology for asking and answering the tough questions: ‘What does the solution look like? What does it NOT look like? What role should Government play? And, can we develop a transferable framework for analysis?’”

Cameron Levitzke, one of the MBA students who worked on the project, was excited to contribute to the diversification of the State’s economy.

“Growing up in a farming community, I have always had a strong connection with agriculture so the opportunity to complete a project in this area was very exciting,” Cameron said.

“As a project that contributes to the overall vision of doubling agri-food by 2025, it is also of vital importance for the State’s future prosperity. This, along with the freedom DAFWA provided us to define our own scope whilst still being very supportive, created an opportunity where we felt our project could make a meaningful difference.”

Completing the project in just seven weeks, the MBA students spoke to a wide range of industry experts, before narrowing their focus to China and Asia, where an emerging middle class is driving a huge appetite for safer and higher quality foods.

So what did the students learn from their consulting project?

“Aside from the best way to cook pork, the project really reinforced the importance of strong communication and setting a clear direction,” Cameron said. “These are not new lessons but for me the importance has never been so pronounced as when working on a project where no-one in the group has any knowledge of the industry or what the answer might look like.

“Overall, we were proud of our output and the way in which we delivered this to both the DAFWA executive team and then via conference to the rest of DAFWA.”

UWA MBA students have also completed projects for a range of other organisations, including government departments and private companies.

Media references

Karen Della Torre (UWA Business School)                                          (+61 8) 6488 8538
Verity Chia (UWA Business School)                                                    (+61 8) 6488 1346