Our facilities and services

Research staff at Cowra Agricultural Research and Advisory Station

Research

  • Laboratories
  • Greenhouses
  • Library Services
JT Pridham Conference Centre

Community

  • JT Pridham Conference Centre
Aerial image at Cowra Agricultural Research and Advisory Station

Farming

  • 390ha of land
Aerial image of Cowra Agricultural Research & Advisory Station

Education

  • Training Centre

Meat science laboratory

The NSW DPI Meat Science Laboratory provides valuable support to the Meat Science program, conducting a variety of tests to determine meat quality, sensory characteristics, shelf-life and preservative capacities and validate objective on-chain technologies.

The laboratory holds ISO accreditation (ISO 9001:2015) under Quality Management Systems and is regularly audited. The Cowra Meat Science Laboratory has a number of measures in place to ensure the quality control of data produced. These include working with statisticians to determine the number of repetitions performed for tests, the use of coefficient of variations and threshold values (using median data when values go above set standards) as well as the allocation of samples to laboratories. In this area the team has continued to focus on methods used in the lab and this has led to a number of journal papers on the testing of a number of traits.

Conference Centre

The JT Pridham Conference Centre was opened in the station’s centenary year, 2003. This modern 80 seat facility has been developed within the fully restored barn built for local plant breeders in 1907. It provides meeting, workshop, training and conference facilities for local and visiting departmental staff and agricultural related organisations.

In this section