Dec. 29, 2009 >> Food Industry News -- Technomic chief outlines five restaurant trends for 2010; By Rita Jane Gabbett
Technomic Information Services President Ron Paul sees five foodservice trends that are likely to play out in 2010. He outlined them as follows in the food industry research firm's Foodservice Digest newsletter:

1. Continued blurring of retail and foodservice. Expect to see even more upscale foodservice offerings from retailers. More supermarkets will open their own restaurants. More c-stores will upgrade equipment and systems to make a play for the foodservice market. Meanwhile, restaurateurs will continue to increase emphasis on takeout and catering. In addition, more restaurants will expand their reach by offering branded retail items.
2. Destination restaurants. Surroundings and ambiance are playing a bigger part in the way consumers weigh the value equation of a restaurant meal. Even limited-service operators from Burger King to McDonald's to Starbucks are creating more elaborate, lounge-like prototypes.
3. Discounts and deals. Just as consumers are learning never to pay full price at the shopping center, they've come to expect deals in restaurants. Restaurants at all price points will offer eye-popping deals and combos, increasingly relying on limited time offers, seasonal specials, flavor enhancers and rotating combos to keep menus fresh.
4. The environment counts. Consumers will increasingly reward restaurants that practice "green" initiatives, treat their employees well and source fair-trade products and humanely sourced proteins.
5. Social media and technology. As restaurants increasingly turn to Facebook and Twitter to build and deepen interactive relationships with their customers, social media will take on a formalized role. Systems that track product yield, purchasing patterns and speed of service will make operations more efficient and reduce waste along with the cost of goods served. Sophisticated point of service (POS) systems will help operators measure the timing and impact of the guest's restaurant experience.

"As I see it, the high expectations of today's more frugal, pickier customers will be met and exceeded by a leaner, stronger, more disciplined restaurant industry," said Paul. "The standards to which diners hold restaurants will never go 'back to normal.' In 2010, we expect Americans will continue to eat out less than they once did, and demand more when they do visit restaurants."

Dec. 14, 2009 >>  Animal Health Starts on the Farm: The Government of Canada Launches Animal Health Awareness Campaign
TORONTO, November. 13, 2009 - The Government of Canada launched a national awareness campaign focused on key farm management practices that will help keep animals healthy and safeguard the Canadian food supply. The announcement was made today by Larry Miller, MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound and Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

"Farmers have a long-standing and successful history of using preventive measures as a means of keeping animals healthy on Canadian farms," said Mr. Miller on behalf of Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. "This campaign will remind farmers that farm-level biosecurity is the best investment they can make to maintain the health of their animals’ and business."

As part of the Animal Health Awareness Campaign, producers across Canada will receive tips and information about biosecurity measures. Producers will be encouraged to revisit their biosecurity plans, continue to observe their animals for signs of illness and regularly consult with their veterinarians on the health of their animals.

"Healthy animals strengthen the viability of Canada’s agriculture sector – increasing food safety protection for consumers and building trust and confidence among trading partners," said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. "Our Government will continue to invest in on-farm biosecurity measures to protect the health of our animals and the industry as a whole."
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has developed this campaign and national biosecurity standards, protocols and strategies for livestock, poultry and aquaculture production in collaboration with producer organizations, provincial/territorial governments and academia.
For more information about protecting animal health, or to order an animal health campaign 2010 calendar, please contact the CFIA by telephone at 1-800-442-2342, or online at www.inspection.gc.ca

For more information, contact:
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Media Relations: 613-773-6600

Dec.7/2009  >>   Don’t blame cows for climate change
By Dairy Herd news source  
Despite oft-repeated claims by sources ranging from the United Nations to music star Paul McCartney, it is simply not true that consuming less meat and dairy products will help stop climate change, says a University of California authority on farming and greenhouse gases.
UC Davis Associate Professor and Air Quality Specialist Frank Mitloehner says that McCartney and the chair of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ignored science last week when they launched a European campaign called "Less Meat = Less Heat." The launch came on the eve of a major international climate summit, which runs Dec. 7 through Dec. 18 in Copenhagen.

McCartney and others, such as the promoters of "meatless Mondays," seem to be well-intentioned but not well-schooled in the complex relationships among human activities, animal digestion, food production and atmospheric chemistry, says Mitloehner.
"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat," Mitloehner said. "Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."

Mitloehner traces much of the public confusion over meat and milk's role in climate change to two sentences in a 2006 United Nations report, titled "Livestock's Long Shadow." Printed only in the report's executive summary and nowhere in the body of the report, the sentences read: "The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents). This is a higher share than transport."
These statements are not accurate, yet their wide distribution through news media have put us on the wrong path toward solutions, Mitloehner says.

"We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk."Rather, in developed countries, we should focus on cutting our use of oil and coal for electricity, heating and vehicle fuels." Mitloehner said leading authorities agree that, in the U.S., raising cattle and pigs for food accounts for about 3 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, while transportation creates an estimated 26 percent.

"In developing countries, we should adopt more efficient, Western-style farming practices, to make more food with less greenhouse gas production," Mitloehner continued. In this he agrees with the conclusion of "Livestock's Long Shadow," which calls for "replacing current suboptimal production with advanced production methods -- at every step from feed production, through livestock production and processing, to distribution and marketing."
"The developed world's efforts should focus not on reducing meat and milk consumption," said Mitloehner, "but rather on increasing efficient meat production in developing countries, where growing populations need more nutritious food."
Source: University of California-Davis

I had heard the U.N. claim that animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Then, upon further review, I found that 18 percent is a world figure, not a U.S. figure. Most countries do not have the efficiencies built into their production systems that we have in the U.S.  Due to higher degrees of technology and efficiency, the U.S. figure is much lower. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has stated that 6 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in this country are from agriculture. And, when you look at just animal agriculture, the figure is 3.4 percent.  It goes to show how the deck can be stacked a certain way by environmental activists.  – Tom Quaife, editor

Published on Wednesday, Dec. 09, 2009 12:00AM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Dec. 09, 2009 6:32AM EST
We're making progress. In an op-ed essay the other day in The New York Times, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond - author of the huge 1997 bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel (with more than 1.5 million copies sold) - publicly retracted his earlier conviction that "big business" was environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and inexorably driven by short-term profits.
"Today," he wrote, "I have more nuanced feelings." Sitting on the boards of the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International and working alongside many business executives, he said, he came to recognize that big business was, in fact, one of the world's strongest forces for environmental sustainability.

He cited three corporate examples: Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Chevron. In a more efficient management of its truck fleet, Wal-Mart eliminated carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to 18,300 cars - and expects to double fuel efficiency by 2015. Coca-Cola worked on huge conservation programs in seven of the world's most important river basins (among them, the Rio Grande, Yangtze, Mekong and Danube basins). Chevron invested heavily in "the most rigorous environmental protection" in the world.

Perhaps Prof. Diamond's conversion wasn't all that improbable. A teacher of geography at the University of California (Los Angeles), Prof. Diamond has argued in his books that history should be considered as science - and big business has indisputably been the principal agent, in the past 200 years, in turning science into history. In The Third Chimpanzee, first published in 1992, he explored the human capacity for environmental degradation. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, he looked at the importance of the domestication of animals in the rise of civilization. In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), he returned to human responsibility for environmental catastrophes.

Put these themes together and you are almost propelled to yet another compelling example of the contribution of big business to human survival: Groupe Danone, the French multinational food products company (especially yogurt). Working quietly, the company has achieved the first statistically significant reduction in the world's No. 2 source of greenhouse gas emissions - in the staggering quantity of methane gas emitted in the eructation of the 1.3 billion domesticated ruminants that humans keep for either milk or meat and emitted mostly in the belching of cows.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has reported that livestock-related GHG emissions produce 18 per cent of "the global-warming effect." More than one-third of these emissions (38 per cent) comes from the bellies of the beasts. Another third (34 per cent) comes from the production of hay, grasses and corn. and soy. The transportation of dairy cows and bovine products causes less than 2 per cent of emissions. All said and done, the belching of cows produces 77 million tons of methane gas emissions a year - almost as much (speaking of food production) as rice fields.

The methane is a product of fermentation. In the cow, this process takes place in the animal's first stomach, which explains why most of the gas is emitted frontward as burps rather than backward as flatulence. In the rice fields of Asia, it takes place when water cuts off the supply of oxygen to highly organic soil. (In the rare South American hoatzin, it takes place in the throat, which explains why the bird is known as the stink bird.)

But back to Danone. Beginning in 2006, the company began a pilot project on 600 French dairy farms to measure the impact of diet on methane emissions of cows - primarily by replacing corn and soy silage with alfalfa, flax and grasses. Encouraged by the results, it rolled out the project to its associated farms in other countries. Five months ago, Stonyfield Farm, a Danone-associated dairy products company based in New Hampshire, reported its revolutionary finding: The revised diet reduced methane emissions by an average of 12 per cent in tests on 15 Vermont farms (with reductions on some farms reaching 18 per cent). At the same time, it increased the omega-3 content of milk by 30 per cent, decreased the level of saturated fats, increased the quantity of milk in absolute terms - and appeared to make the cows more contented than ever.

In its announcement of these achievements, Stonyfield Farm described itself as the first company in North America to decrease the GHG emissions of belching cows by natural means. "This is a watershed moment for the dairy industry," said Stonyfield Farm CEO Gary Hershberg. "By changing the feed we give cows, we simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve milk's nutritional content in a way that may help reduce cardiovascular disease and obesity."

If all dairy farms in the U.S. and Canada produced comparable results, GHG emissions from belching cows would decline by an amount equal to the GHG emissions from perhaps 600,000 cars. Now that's statistically significant. The science of this big-business experiment could indeed make history.

Oct. 27, 2009 >> Noble prize in Economics
This years prize is in very applicable research for our current industry and companies. The natural forests around the world, and perhaps so is the Ontario beef industry, should be viewed as a shared resource, and, creating large private companies is a good idea, even though individuals in such corporations are believed to work in their own best interest, research has shown that they will work in the common good.

Ostrom, 76, and Williamson, 77, shared the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million Canadian) economics prize for work that "advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Ms. Ostrom’s work deals in the concept of “commons” shared by a number of people who earn their living from a common resource and have a stake, therefore, in preserving it. Her most recent research has focused on relatively small forests in undeveloped countries. Groups of people share the right to harvest lumber from a particular forest, and so they have a stake in making sure the forest survives.

“When local users of a forest have a long-term perspective, they are more likely to monitor each other’s use of the land, developing rules for behavior,” Ms. Ostrom said in an interview. “It is an area that standard market theory does not touch.”

According to Williamson's theory "large private corporations exist primarily because they are efficient. They are established because they make owners, workers, suppliers, and customers better off than they would be under alternative institutional arrangements," the academy said.

"When corporations fail to deliver efficiency gains, their existence will be called in question," it added.

Dairy Industry News - Aug. 11, 2009
USDA move could mean $1.80/cwt
Boosting price supports will help, but not stop the bleeding. Full story and editor's commentar.

CWT to remove nearly 87,000 cows
This is the third herd retirement in nine months and the second largest since the Cooperatives Working Together began in 2003. It will pull 1.8 billion pounds of milk from the market. Full story.

Study: Dairy foods lead to longer lives
Research from the United Kingdom suggests dairy has protective qualities. Full story.

Aug. 10, 2009 >> Government urges radical rethink to ensure stable food supply
By Guy Montague-Jones, Related topics: Food prices, Sustainability, Legislation
The UK government has called for a radical rethink of food production to secure sustainable food supplies at reasonable prices. The documents are being published before the government finalises its first rethink of food strategy since the Second World War, due for publication this autumn, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
Environment minister Hilary Benn put forward the argument for a reassessment of food supply in economic, public health and environmental terms.

“Last year the world had a wake-up call with the sudden oil and food price rises,” said Benn. “While we know the price of our food, the full environmental costs and the costs to our health are significant and hidden.”
“We need a radical rethink of how we produce and consume our food.”

Self-sufficiency
In a BBC interview this morning, Benn put this in more concrete terms saying that Britain needed to produce more of the food it consumes and become less reliant on imports.
The minister also encouraged people to ignore best before dates and judge for themselves if food is still good to eat in order to prevent waste. At present the government is still in the ideas phase and is seeking views from all stakeholders in the food supply chain, including industry.

Consultation
Today it launched an online discussion, Food 2030, to ask farmers, manufacturers, retailers, health providers and consumers what the UK food system should look like in 20 years time.
Food 2030 contains a number of discussion topics on the future of food including climate change, access and affordability, and research and innovation. The deadline for submissions is 16 October.

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF), which represents the UK food industry, welcomed the move. Director of Sustainability and Competitiveness Andrew Kuyk said: “It’s great that the government is waking up to the importance of these debates.”
But Kuyk also urged the government to turn debate into action and to involve industry in the process.

One of the reports published today was the UK Food Security Assessment which gave an upbeat assessment of the UK food system but said challenges are emerging, particularly regarding sustainability and the environment.

Short-termism
The report reflected on the sustainability of the current state of play in various food sectors, and the likely situation in five to ten years time. Here the FDF criticised the government for not looking far enough ahead. “The published food security assessment looks only at the next five to 10 years, which is not sufficient to reflect the longer term risks we already know are out there,” said Kuyk. Alongside the security assessment, DEFRA published a scorecard style assessment of UK food supply to measure progress across several indicators including eco-efficiency, essential resources, and economic performance and resilience.

Progress report
The government also issued a progress update on last year’s Food Matters report, which was a precursor to today’s reports and the food strategy document to be published later this year.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) expressed that a number deadlines had been pushed back.
Food policy director Andrew Opie said: “Today’s government paper admits that a number of projects identified a year ago in Food Matters will not deliver on time. Simply moving the dates, in some instances by years, doesn’t inspire confidence.”

Aug. 9, 2009 >> Greening dairy and the 'cow of the future'
Web Site

The Highs Are Too High, The Lows Are Too Low -- Just over a week ago, USDA announced a temporary increase in dairy price supports. Associated Milk Producers Incorporated CEO Ed Welch appreciates that move, but says the dairy industry needs a long-term fix. "We're still pushing them to do something long-term, we can't live with the volatility in these prices," said Welch, "I still think things are so bad that when things finally do collapse and production comes under control, we're going to over-react the other way and we'll be back with highs too high and lows too low; the dairy industry can't survive that way." The state of Minnesota's livestock industry was highlighted during a Farmfest forum Wednesday.
Holstein USA Promotes Supply Management Plan -- Holstein USA Government Relations Specialist Lucas Sjostrom says this plan provides an incentive for dairy farmers to follow the market. "Right now, our market is so insulated and regulated that these market signals don't make it straight back to the producer; we want a plan that forces producers to make decisions on the micro-economic level that have-macro economic impact." As part of this plan, a panel would be created to forecast supply and demand. Sjostrom, who is a Lafayette, Minnesota native, says the Dairy Price Stabilization Program removes the incentive to produce milk beyond market demands.

Aug. 3, 2009 >> Industry body welcomes US and Asia-Pacific food safety measures
By Caroline Scott-Thomas; Related topics: Food safety, Legislation, Food safety and labeling
At the APEC meeting in Singapore, Robert Brackett of the GMA has applauded the founding of a food safety training network, just days after the organization praised the House for passing a landmark food safety bill.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), of which the US is a member, set up the Partnership Training Institute Network (PTIN) in order to create a network of institutes that can provide training and share resources on international best food safety practices. The PTIN is not a binding agreement: APEC commitments are undertaken on a voluntary basis.
"The PTIN is another example of how the food industry is fully committed to working cooperatively with government and other stakeholders to enhance and modernize the global food safety system," said Brackett, chief science officer of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA).

Meanwhile, there has been growing criticism within the food industry of the US food safety system for being ‘reactionary’ rather than preventative; that is, reacting to foodborne illness outbreaks rather than acting to test and potentially recall products before anyone becomes ill.
Brackett said: "Combined with food safety legislation just passed by the US House of Representatives that places prevention as the cornerstone of our food safety system and increased industry vigilance, the PTIN will help modernize our food safety system and bolster consumer confidence in the safety and security of the food supply globally."
“Restoring public faith”

Following the news that the Food Safety Enhancement Act had passed a vote in the House on Thursday, GMA president and CEO Pamela Bailey said: “This legislation will strengthen our nation’s food safety net by placing prevention as the cornerstone of our nation’s food safety strategy and providing FDA with the resources and authorities it needs to adequately fulfill its food safety mission.”

She urged the Senate to follow suit by passing its food safety legislation as soon as possible.
“Combined with increased industry resources and vigilance, this legislation represents a once in a lifetime opportunity to modernize our food safety system and restore the public’s faith in the safety and security of the food supply,” she said

July 31, 2009 >> Production Industry News

Canada – Traceability Helps Find Markets: McDonald’s Canada has decided that its ground beef from Canadian cull cows will come from Quebec, in part because it has a beef traceability program. A Japanese restaurant chain has also decided to invest in a Quebec facility that will supply product to Japanese consumers based on Quebec’s ability to guarantee the lineage of the meat. Gib Drury, chair of Canada Beef Exporters Federation says that “Traceability isn’t our only selling point but it has been key. It has been a marketing gold mine”. Web Site

Canada – Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) Support Traceability: At the Dairy Farmers of Canada annual meeting in Regina, Susie Miller, Director General with Agriculture Canada’s Food Value Chain Bureau, called traceability a tool to help producers if there’s ever a disease outbreak by allowing them to quickly pinpoint animals that could be affected. It can also prove an animal came from a certain location which can be helpful for trade with certain international markets. Michael Hall, an Ottawa-area producer on DFC’s board of directors said that dairy farmers, who often already record the information needed for full traceability due to the nature of their business, back the initiative. Web Site

EU – Electronic Sheep Tag Rules Eased: Farmers have welcomed and EU agreement to ease newrules on sheep tagging. There had been concern over the cost of the new electronic tagging system but animals will not be scanned at markets or abattoirs, instead of farms. Web Site

Jamaica – Animal Identification System Coming: The government will be turning up the heat on livestock thieves who continue to plague farmers. State Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries JC Hutchinson announced in Parliament that a multi-million dollar contract has been signed to implement the Animal Identification System (AIS) in which a microchip will be used to trace animals. Web Site

Australia – Stock Traceability a Struggle: The Australian sheep industry’s latest attempt to improve traceability of stock is making slow progress. July 1st was touted as the date from which the new electronic system would be used by saleyards, but many have not yet installed the necessary computers. Web Site

US Dairy culling jumps
More than 250,000 cows were removed from the national herd in June. Full story.

Wisconsin's largest dairy still expanding
Rosendale Dairy is on track to double in size. Full story.

Australian Dairy leaders eye the future
WHAT does the future hold for dairy farming in Victoria? Full story.

'Cruel' animal exports blasted; thousands die in agony
NEWS.com.au - Australia
"To get a true picture of animal welfare in the live export trade, we need to see more comprehensive reporting of mortality, injury and illness before, ... Full story.

Dairy for children 'extends life'
BBC News
Children who eat plenty of dairy foods such as milk and cheese can expect to live longer, a study suggests. Some 4374 UK children from a 1930s study were ... Full story.

July 29, 2009 >> Imagining a world where we eat less meat
Related topics: Financial & Industry, Meat, fish and savoury ingredients
Cutting back meat consumption is the new darling cause of pop stars. But if necessary environmental and health goals are to be achieved, the whole supply chain needs to be strumming along in tune. John McCartney, Yoko Ono and Moby stepped out together on the ‘green carpet’ in June to launch the UK’s Meat-free Mondays campaign. Over in Belgium, the city of Ghent has declared that public officials and school kids are to take a one-day holiday from meat eating each week.

Producing one kilogram of beef has the unfortunate side effect of producing 15-25kg of greenhouse gas emissions – not least because (depending on their diet) cows are notoriously windy creatures. If we are serious about meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets, meat production has a big part to play. But the environmental arguments are only half of it. A draft report from the World Wildlife Fund and proposed dietary guidelines from Sweden have pointed out that we simply don’t need to eat as much meat as we do – and meat at every meal has grave health consequences.

Swedes chew through an average of 180g of meat and cured meat products a day, for instance – when just 140 g per day is sufficient to cover their iron and protein needs. Reduce the excess and you’ll reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer, says Sweden’s National Food Administration. Importantly, none of the above campaigns is calling for a wholesale switch to vegetarianism. But they are all calling a change in mindset. In the last 50 years cheap meat and plenty of it means that, in the eyes of many, a meat-free meal is no meal at all.
Breaking the excessive meat addiction is important for our survival as individuals, and for the planet.

How should the industry be reacting?
The meat and the dairy industries are making serious efforts in their own back yards to lighten their hoofprint. The British meat industry is developing a ‘roadmap’ for the whole meat supply chain that will build on developments in reducing energy and water consumption and waste reduction, for instance.

Retailers, too, have been working hard on farm assurance and animal welfare initiatives.
These plans, as far as they go, are highly laudable. But the WWF report points out that red meat and dairy are vital to retailers’ revenue streams in the UK. This makes them “reluctant to reduce consumption amongst their customer base”. So if consumers feel good and green about eating lots of meat, the healthier eating goal falls by the wayside.

Radical it may sound, but if meat cuts were not cut price – if a steak became treat and not every pot had a chicken in it every night of the week – the food system could rear less and farmers still receive fair returns. If the dual goals of environment and health are to be achieved, stakeholders have got to look beyond their own backyard for the greater good. They must work together, talk together, and come up with a cohesive strategy. As I write this, I am finding it hard not to start humming ‘Imagine’. We could achieve a healthier planet, populated by healthier people.

Macca, Yoko and pals – I’m with you on this one. Jess Halliday is editor of award-winning website FoodNavigator.com. Over the past twelve years she has worked in print, broadcast and online media in both Europe and the United States. If you would like to comment on this article, please email jess.halliday@'decisionnews.com

July 16, 2009 >> Wal-Mart asks suppliers 15 questions on sustainability
By Rita Jane Gabbett

It all comes down to 15 questions. Wal-Mart today announced its long-awaited plans to develop a worldwide sustainable product index through a three-step process that starts with 15 questions its top-tier U.S. suppliers will need to answer by Oct. 1.

The questions encompass four aspects of sustainable product production: energy and climate, natural resources, material efficiency and people and community. They include specific questions about water use and solid waste production, as well as purchasing guidelines and investment in community development activities. The index will judge products on their impact over their life span, as well as the environmental cost of producing them.

As a second step, Wal-Mart is funding a consortium of universities that will collaborate with suppliers, retailers, non-governmental organizations and government to develop a global database of information on the life cycle of products — from raw materials to disposal.

The company will also partner with one or more leading technology companies to create an open platform that will power the index. Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas will jointly administer the consortium and additional universities are expected to join. Key to Wal-Mart's plan is to create global standards and measures.

The final step of the index is to provide customers with product information in the form of a rating that will allow them to choose and consume in a more sustainable way. How that information is delivered to consumers is still undetermined, but could take the form of a numeric score, color code or some other type of label. Wal-Mart said the sustainability consortium will help determine the scoring process in the coming months and years.

Cows, eggs and sour cream

In a two-hour meeting webcast from its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, examples of successful sustainability projects were heavy on agricultural products.

Briefly mentioned was a project in the United Kingdom that resulted in beef produced at one-third the carbon footprint of standard beef.

A more elaborate example, also from Britain, detailed a "carbon-neutral egg farm" where hens were raised in mobile, solar-powered hen houses and fed locally-grown wheat, and their manure was returned to the wheat fields as fertilizer.

A video showed how Wal-Mart's private-label sour cream starts on a dairy farm that captures cow manure with a methane digester, separates the gas and converts it to fuel. The voice over on the video stated that methane gas from cows has a greater impact on global warming than all the tailpipes in the planet.

The Questions

Here are the 15 questions top-tier suppliers will need to answer by Oct. 1:

Energy and climate: reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions

• Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions?
• Have you opted to report your greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)?
• What is your total annual greenhouse gas emissions reported in the most recent year measured?
• Have you set publicly available greenhouse gas reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Material efficiency: reducing waste and enhancing quality

• If measured, please report the total amount of solid waste generated from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Wal-Mart for the most recent year measured.
• Have you set publicly available solid waste reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?
• If measured, please report total water use from facilities that produce your product(s) for Wal-Mart for the most recent year measured.
• Have you set publicly available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Natural resources: producing high auality, responsibly sourced raw materials

• Have you established publicly available sustainability purchasing guidelines for your direct suppliers that address issues such as environmental compliance, employment practices and product/ingredient safety?
• Have you obtained third-party certifications for any of the products that you sell to Wal-Mart?

People and community: ensuring responsible and ethical production

• Do you know the location of 100 percent of the facilities that produce your product(s)?
• Before beginning a business relationship with a manufacturing facility, do you evaluate the quality of, and capacity for, production?
• Do you have a process for managing social compliance at the manufacturing level?
• Do you work with your supply base to resolve issues found during social compliance evaluations and also document specific corrections and improvements?
• Do you invest in community development activities in the markets you source from and/or operate within?

July 6, 2009 >> Cool Maintenance during E. coli ‘hot season’: what every beef processor can do
By Ann Bagel Storck

Unfortunately for the beef industry, the summer season can mean more than hot days outside — gaps in plant operations can lead to an E. coli O157:H7 "hot day event" inside the processing facility, and that can mean disastrous consequences when it comes to food safety.

However, there are steps every beef processor can take to help prevent serious food safety problems regarding E. coli. James "Bo" Reagan, senior vice president of research, education and innovation for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, shared some of the most important tips for processors to keep in mind.

Obviously many circumstances contribute to avoiding an E. coli hot day event, but what one or two factors are most important for plant operators and workers to consider?

Optimum food safety requires a program that is firing on all cylinders, and operators must ensure that constant attention is being paid to the entire safety program, including employee training, from the holding pens through the cooler. Also it is critical that the antimicrobial interventions being used are effective and that they are functioning at the 100% level at all times.

A "multiple hurdle approach" often is discussed when it comes to combating E. coli in plants. What are the keys to executing that strategy successfully?

Every processing system is different, and operators must implement a system of technologies that not only fits their facility but also results in products that are the safest that can be produced. It must be a system of multiple interventions (both chemical antimicrobial and mechanical treatments, such as thermal steam or washes). These items should be used sequentially throughout the process as there is no one silver bullet.

Also, using published data from peer-reviewed journals and microbiological data collected within the facility, operators can develop and validate a system of interventions and programs that suit their specific needs.

Once that system is in place, however, it is essential to continually monitor the effectiveness of the system.

What are the most critical areas in the plant for processors to monitor to prevent E. coli problems?

Key areas are hygienic slaughter (hide removal and evisceration); general sanitation and cleanliness; clean-to-dirty traffic and airflow movements; and facility design and maintenance.

However, it is critical that every aspect of a facility's safety program is functioning 100 percent effectively. That's why every plant should have a system for continually monitoring the effectiveness of its food safety program so that potential problems can be identified and addressed proactively.

What are the keys to implementing an effective finished product testing program?

If grinders elect to implement a raw material and/or finished product testing program for E. coli O157:H7, then it is important that they notify their suppliers in advance, because the results can impact the supplier's production and distribution of product.

The best practice is to cooperate with the raw material supplier for verification sample testing. For trimmings, 100 percent of the trimmings from the carcass disassembly process must be subjected to robust sampling and testing, "lotting" of trimmings produced must be statistically appropriate for the amount of trim produced and validated lab-testing procedures must be used.

The Beef Industry Food Safety Council has a list of best practices online for processors, but are any of these commonly overlooked or misunderstood?

The science behind beef safety is constantly evolving, and our safety systems must continue to evolve along with the science. So while the implementation of a robust safety system is necessary for every plant, we cannot overlook the importance of maintaining and improving those programs through system monitoring, intervention improvements and adoption and review of new data and knowledge.

It's critical for processors to stay abreast of the new safety enhancements through interaction with colleagues and review of best practices and current systems. Also, BIFSCo Best Practices are general guidance, and effective programs must be much more detailed and specialized to the unique and different designs and operating conditions of each facility and adapted for regional and seasonal variations that exist.

What lessons should processors keep in mind from past E. coli hot seasons?

It comes down to two things: a commitment to constant improvement, and the consistent, rigorous implementation and validation of Good Manufacturing Practices, Standard Operating Procedures and Best Practices that ensure the production of safe, high-quality beef products.

Preventive actions and energies must be continuously focused to minimize or avoid an extraordinary event. However, extraordinary events will occur, even in the best of plants. You must have a rigorous and robust testing strategy in place to pinpoint the incident, and when one occurs, aggressive actions must be taken to prevent contaminated product from entering commerce for raw ground beef productions.

I also encourage operators to interact with their peers. We founded BIFSCo on the principle that safety is a noncompetitive issue for our industry, and there's a wealth of support, knowledge and experience available for operators who are looking to improve their safety systems. The BIFSCo Web site has more information.

June 24, 2009 >> McDonald’s Europe launches sustainable Ag practices showcase

McDonald's Europe has launched a new Flagship Farms program designed to promote sustainable agricultural practices by showcasing exemplary farms in its supply chain.

Developed in conjunction with Food Animal Initiative (FIA), the program is an extension of the McDonald's Agricultural Assurance Program (MAAP) launched in 2001 with a goal of broadcasting ethical, environmental or economic farming practices to other and potential McDonald's suppliers.

The Flagship Farms program showcases seven McDonald's Europe suppliers, including Dempsey beef farm in Ireland, "which has demonstrated economically viable beef production with high standards of animal welfare and good environmental management," according to a media kit on the program, which launched June 18.

McDonald's Europe said about 400,000 farms supply 200,000 tons of beef every year to its 6,600 restaurants in 40 countries.

McDonald's MAAP program enables it to monitor its suppliers in the areas of environmental management, good agricultural practices, animal welfare, animal health, transparency and genetics.

June 17, 2009 >> "Brazil Represents a Real Opportunity for Canada in Several Sectors"
( RealTrade )
The Secretary of Finance for the State of Rio de Janeiro, Joaquim Vieira Ferreira Levy, was in Toronto last Thursday, June 11 participating in a round table to talk about the business opportunities for Canadian companies interested in investing in Brazil
The meeting was organized by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade DFAIT - Ontario Region in conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce Brazil-Canada – Toronto.
For the full story, click here

June 15, 2009 >> Brazil May Be One of First Countries to Come Out of Crisis, Economist Says
( MacauHub )
Brazil may be one of the first countries to come out of the current crisis as it was one of the last to go into recession, according to this week's edition of British magazine, The Economist.
In a report entitled, “Ready to Roll Again” the magazine noted that, despite contraction, the Brazilian economy had had better than expected performance in the first quarter as the Gross Domestic Product had posted a drop of just 0.8 percent as compared with the last quarter of 2008.
For the full story, click here

June 15, 2009 > Other Articles of Interest

California's water worries increase
A federal agency is asking for more action to protect fish, adding more stress to California's water situation. Full story.

The world grows thirstier for milk
Global consumption of fluid dairy products is expected to increase by 2.2 percent annually over the next three years. Full story.

New Economic Analysis Released -- In recent years, many large dairy states have seen cow numbers decline, but Minnesota has had four straight years of growth. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has released an economic analysis of the state's dairy industry, saying annual milk production has grown by an average of two percent. The dairy business is second only to the swine industry for its contribution to the state's livestock cash receipts. Minnesota's dairy production and processing industries have a combined impact of $8.9 billion.

June 9, 2009 >> Put off plan to track U.S. meat; The Denver Post
Web Site
The Obama administration wants to create a federally mandated system of tracking the nation's meat supply, but producers say such a requirement would swell food costs and cut profits.

It's an important debate, but we question its timing. The middle of a recession seems a poor time to implement a system that could raise food prices for shoppers and cuts profits and salaries for American ranchers and their employees. Presently, cattle ranchers, sheepherders and hog farmers voluntarily tag their animals and keep track of the animals' immunizations through a unique identification number. The ID number is recorded at the feedlots, slaughterhouses and within the batch numbers of the boxes of steaks, shanks and slabs of bacon sent to market. The voluntary system has its faults. Some growers don't tag all their animals. And the mostly paper-based recordkeeping greatly slows researchers trying to trace a disease outbreak to its source.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack says the mandatory National Animal Identification System would require all animals — even most chickens — to be tagged, and it would replace the paper records with a computerized database. If implemented, Vilsack argues, finding the source of the next outbreak of such things as mad cow disease, bovine tuberculosis and hoof and mouth disease would be reduced from weeks to a day or two.

Besides wishing to protect public health, Vilsack argues that such a system would be an added selling point to foreign countries like Japan, which aren't buying U.S. meat due to concerns about the integrity of the supply. We agree, and think market-savvy ranchers ought to start implementing computer tracking on their own. We ask Vilsack to wait for better economic times to consider the new regulation, and ask growers to improve their voluntary system enough to negate the need of another regulation.

June 8, 2009>> Exodus of cows leads to milk shortage
BUTWAL,: The Dairy Development Corporation of Butwal has warned that Rupandehi may face a shortage of milk in the coming days because the district lacks milk-producing cows.

In the last nine months, Rupandehi, one of the largest milk-producing districts in Nepal, has seen an exodus of around 1,200 highly-productive dairy- and breeding- cows. These cows were sold to cattle farmers in Gulmi, Syangja, Pyuthan, Baglung, Rukum, Rolpa and Salyan.

Although Rupandehi has always been considered an ideal place to buy cows from, never had the district seen the exiting of so many cows till date. Laxman Ghimire, a livestock development officer at the Rupandehi District Livestock Office, called it the result of the active promotion of livestock farming in various parts of the country.

"Many community livestock-development projects are encouraging farmers to embrace commercial farming of livestock, such as cows, for a living; this has increased their demand throughout the country," Ghimire said. And as the demand is going up, the price of cows is also skyrocketing. According to the available statistics, a healthy cow now fetches Rs 60,000, compared with Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 of the past. That is the main reason that farmers in Rupandehi are selling their cows like never before.

But as more and more cows are leaving the district, the volume of milk produced there is decreasing by the day. Currently, milk production in the district hovers at around 40,000 liters per day, compared with 50,000 liters of the previous years.

If the milk production in the district continues to go down, it may also affect Kathmandu´s milk market, as Rupandehi supplies around 25,000 liters of milk per day to the capital.

June 1, 2009 >> Kerr Farms announces the appointment of Greg Nolan, MBA as Chief Financial Officer of the Company effective June 1, 2009; Greg brings a wealth of beef industry experience to the Kerr Farms Ontario Angus Beef team, and he will be located in the Toronto head office of Kerr Farms, at 10 Shorncliffe Rd, Toronto ( 427 & Dundas) ; Office Phone at 416 767 7322 or Toll Free 1 888 593 1349.

Click here for the Kerr Farms Ontario Angus Beef website.

The Kerr Farms brand was created to bring together farmers who believe in raising natural and traditionally raised food in an animal friendly and environmentally friendly way.Kerr Farms was founded in 2005 by three Ontario farmers and the owner of a local food distribution company. The four founders were united by their shared passion to provide the marketplace with healthy, local food that allowed the farmers involved to remain sustainable and earn a fair income.

In July of 2008, Kerr Farms head office went through some changes that are ongoing and as of June 1, 2009 have initiated a growth strategy plan, including bringing onboard Corinne Sweetin as Kerr Farms Producer Partner Alliance Coordinator, whom will operate the database for providing the finished cattle for harvest based upon customer demand.

At present, the Kerr Farms product line is focused on the Production Protocol of “Traditionally Raised” without the use of added Hormones, Antibiotics or Animal By Products; on cattle containing at least 50% Angus genetics. Payments to Producers are based upon “Traditionally Raised” Production Protocol & the Kerr Farms Value Grid of a combination of a targeted Quality Grade (QG) of AA & AAA & Yield Grade (YG) of Y1 & Y2.

Kerr Farms products are available at all Ontario Sobeys stores under Sobeys’ Compliments .......Just Beef brand, Kerr Farms OAB high value cut such as Tenderloins, Striploins, & Rib steaks, as well as hamburger patties at various retail locations, as well as a complete line to most Foodservice Providers for restaurant and Food service trade. (out)

Please contact the Kerr Farms Ontario Angus Beef office for more information of how you can become part of this Beef Production Value Chain.

Eugene Miniota, President
Kerr Farms Sales (Chatham) Ltd.
(416) 767-7322
888-593-1349
Fax 416-767-4466
Email: Treeline@bellnet.ca
www.kerrfarms.ca

April 21, 2009 >> Antibiotic Use in Livestock Questioned
CVMA Letter to the Editor - Globe & Mail

On April 11, 2009, the Globe & Mail reported on an article released by the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) which stated that Canadian farmers may be putting public health at risk through the widespread practice of importing unapproved and untested antibiotics for use in livestock. According to the Journal, a loophole in federal law allows meat producers to import about $100-million worth of medications into Canada each year with little oversight.

In response to this Globe & Mail article, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) wrote a letter to the Editor to reassure the public that the safety of our food supply remains a priority of the veterinary profession and to confirm CVMA support for the introduction of new legislation to close the current 'own use importation' regulatory loophole.

April 17, 2009 > China's dairy industry seeks bailout
The Chinese dairy industry, still reeling from the melamine scandal that broke last September, is seeking a government bailout. Full story.

April 15, 2009 >> Fonterra optimistic over milk price rises; by Neil Merrett,
Related topics: Commodity pricing, Financial, Ingredients and additives

Fonterra says it has recorded a second consecutive monthly rise in the prices being paid to its member farmers for their milk, reflecting possible stabilization in the supply chain.
The New Zealand-based cooperative said that at the conclusion of its April trading event for the globalDairyTrade sales platform, the price per tonne for Whole Milk Powder (WMP) was up 3.5 per cent on the previous month.

Kelvin Wickham, Fonterra’s managing director of global trade, said the increase was a sign of more balanced supply and demand for milk at a time when farmers around the globe call for more price support to meet costs. “It’s encouraging to see some stability in the market and while some economic risks remain, we are positive about the medium-term outlook,” he stated. According to the group’s globalDairyTrade service, prices ranged between US$2,110(€1,576) to US$2,400 (€1,793) per tonne FAS.

Other markets
The trading event reflects similar rises in markets like the UK. Last month, the United Dairy Farmers (UDF) auction resulted in an average milk price in pence per litre (PPL) of 18.83ppl, an increase of 5.7 per cent over February.

According to the DairyCo Milk Market Update, an increase in average global prices for WMP of 13.5 per cent to $2,100/tonne was thought to have influenced the auction. “Reasons for the increase in the price of WMP include the amount of uncommitted product available from New Zealand falling between February and March; there is also a renewed interest from buyers,” stated the update.

The UDF March auction price was still said to be down by 3.78 ppl compared to the average price a year ago, reflecting a decline of 16.7 per cent. Some farmer groups such as the European Milk Board (EMB) continue to call for greater support from retailers and other industry stakeholders to help ensure prices that can ensure its members can meet milk production costs.

European Milk Board (EMB) continue to call for greater support from retailers and other industry stakeholders to help ensure prices that can ensure its members can meet milk production costs.

April 6, 2009 >> Dairy herd retirement to boost beef slaughter this summer
By Janie Gabbett

Cooperatives Working Together on Wednesday launched it latest herd retirement program, which analysts predict could boost cow slaughter by as much as 15,000 dairy cows per week this summer. Given the dramatic downturn in dairy economics in the past six months, CWT is anticipating a large number of bids, according to Jerry Kozak, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, which manages CTW.

CWT has set no target for the volume of milk or the number of cows to be removed from the market in this round of the retirement program. Recent retirement programs have removed some 50,000-60,000 head, according to the CME Group's Daily Livestock report.

"Given the depth of the current crisis, we will likely see even more dairy cows go to slaughter, maybe as many as 150,000 to 200,000 head, implying an additional 12,000 to 15,000 dairy cows per week this summer," livestock analysts Steve Meyer and Len Steiner wrote in the report.

April 6, 2009 >> Could clones be hiding out in ice-cream?
Ben & Jerry’s campaign to ensure produce from clones is detectable in the food chain shows that bundling biotech in with conventional produce remains unacceptable – but lessons from GM do not seem to have been learned. Last week the Unilever-owned ice-cream brand revealed that a website purporting to sell ‘perfect milk from perfect [cloned] cows’ was an April Fools’ prank – but a prank with a serious message.

It was intended to raise awareness that produce from the progeny of cloned animals may be in the food chain – but no-one, manufacturer nor consumer, can tell it from conventional produce. The FDA gave its scientific conclusion in January 2008 that meat and milk from cloned cows, pigs and goats and their offspring are safe. Since the FDA acts as both risk assessor and risk manager, in the US (unlike in Europe) there is no separate legal process to herald the advent of cloned food.

The presence of such milk and meat in the food chain is, for now, an assumption made by the Center for Food Safety (Ben & Jerry’s campaign partner) based on the fact that semen from cloned bulls is being sold, including semen from dairy breeds.

But according to the Center for Food Safety, cloning companies have only agreed that live animals will wear RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags. Dairy and meat products derived from them will be utterly undistinguishable from ordinary dairy and meat.
The issue rekindles questions that hung over the regulation of GM produce in the 1990s: Whether it is the process or the final product that should be regulated; and how consumers can possibly avoid a biotech diet if they chose to.

Regulatory structures tend to take a product-based view of GM, rather than a process based view. A GM soy bean is still a soy bean, no matter how it came into being.
Current thinking seems to be that milk is milk, whether or not a parent of the cow it came from has a hundred identical counterparts.

Biotech opponents do not swallow this. They argue that we still don’t know the long-term implications of playing with a plant’s genes, either for human health or for the environment.
Campaigners are similarly unconvinced about the sense of copying a cow. They say that small imbalances in clones have hidden food safety consequence for milk or meat, and the novelty of the technology means no long-term studies have been done.

This article does not – cannot – answer the ethical and environmental debates buzzing around biotech and cloning. But consumer views are inevitably influenced by public debate, and Ben & Jerry’s is not the only company taking consumer wariness onboard and pledging their food will not come from animals with clones in the family tree.

But without proper traceability, how can they possibly keep to this promise?
In the 1990s UK supermarket Iceland led the charge towards GM traceability, using polymerised chain reaction technology to test for GM DNA in its soy products. And since that was not always reliable, it then audited its entire supply chain – from the field, through processing and manufacturing, right up to the point where they put it on the shelves.
Only that way could it assure consumers that its foods were non-GM.

Food from the progeny of clones may not be the US food chain now. It may never be. But the wider industry and the consumers they serve do not know, and they cannot know unless proper traceability is in place. When it comes to food, ignorance is not bliss. It is deeply disturbing.

Jess Halliday is editor of award-winning website FoodNavigator.com. Over the past twelve years she has worked in print, broadcast and online media in both Europe and the United States. If you would like to comment on this article, please email jess.halliday@decisionnews.com

Mar. 26, 2009 >> Macedonian milk investment sours, as Swedish milk factory Swedmilk, despite a promising investment in Macedonia, went bankrupt and was sold to an American-Israeli company, Phoenix Energy. However, 3m euros in debts remain. By Goran Trajkov for Southeast European Times in Skopje -- 26/03/09

Swedmilk owes more than 3m euros to milk producers in Macedonia. [Macedonian government]

The Swedish milk factory Swedmilk is the biggest foreign investor in Macedonia's milk industry. Despite a promising start, it has amassed big debts to employees and the Macedonian farmers who supply it with milk. It owes 2,500 farmers nearly 3.5m euros. Swedmilk manager Roger Oscarson blames the efforts of a shareholder -- M&A Beverage -- to take over his firm. M&A Beverage owns 37% of Swedmilk's stock.

Oscarson says that he was unaware of the deteriorating situation until November 4th 2008, when he met with M&A Beverage representatives. "They have told me their company is very weak financially and it would be difficult to save it," Oscarson said. He and partner Josif Sarzoski proposed selling their shares to M&A Beverage at a very low price, a move that a third shareholder, Swedfond, would have supported and joined. The idea fell through, however, amid revelations that M&A had been planning a takeover for months.

Swedmilk, he insists, has been purchasing all of its milk from domestic producers. Last July, the company arranged sales in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and other countries, together with an M&A Beverage partner. However, Oscarson claims, the partner broke the agreement and the milk was not exported, causing Swedmilk serious economic problems. Pece Shambevski, a Macedonian milk producer, says Swedmilk owes him more than 100,000 euros. "I make my living from producing milk and do not want the factory to go bankrupt. That way we will get nothing and only the creditors will benefit."

Once Swedmilk entered Macedonia, farmers were encouraged to take credits to produce milk. Farmers are now completely bankrupt because they "cannot pay out our credits to the banks", says Shambevski. Good news appeared to be in store after a US-Israeli company, Phoenix Energy, decided to purchase Swedmilk for 1m euros, following intensive negotiations -- with Macedonian government assistance. Part of the deal included extending bank credits to farmers in order to reprogramme their debts.

Farmers were initially optimistic. "We were promised that we will get the money and we [still] expect that plan to materialize," Nadmi Kezimi from the Macedonian Farmer Federation said.
So far, though, the money has not been forthcoming. Having exhausted the available means, the farmers have taken to the street. They organized protests in front of government buildings and have blocked main roads and highways, while asking police to arrest Moshe Baum, the new owner of the milk factory. They say he has broken his promises.

A particularly dissatisfied group of protesters wanted to take over the milk factory, but police prevented that. According to the farmers, they have greater rights to the factory than a "false investor" who they say is turning a profit without paying its bills.
This content was commissioned for SETimes.com

March 25, 2009 >> "From the farm to the fork- Global Standard" ; OIE Press Release

Buenos Aires - The OIE and its Members move forward on the global implementation of animal identification and product traceability "from the farm to the fork" at the close of the OIE International Conference on Animal Identification and Traceability held in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 23 to 25 March 2009.

"Discrepancies between national identification of live animals and traceability systems of animal products make it difficult to trace products of animal origin throughout the food chain at world level; developing countries risk losing out on market access because of trade barriers that sometimes are put in place as a result of these discrepancies. The best way to prevent this is for all countries to progressively implement international standards, such as those of the OIE and Codex", Dr Bernard Vallat, OIE Director General, explained at the Conference.

Participants also confirmed the need for strengthening the bridge between identification and traceability of live animals and of products of animal origin. "We should aim at establishing traceability throughout the whole food chain from primary production down to consumers. The public health goal can be achieved by seamlessly applying the standards and principles established by the OIE - at the farm level - and by the Codex Alimentarius Commission - at the food processing and distribution level," Dr Kazuaki Miyagishima, Secretary for the Codex Alimentarius Commission insisted .

But identification and traceability systems recommended and used by the public and the private sector can be based on very different requirements, which complicates the conditions of trade in live animals and products of animal origin. "We encourage the stakeholders to comply with the official standards of the OIE and Codex Alimentarius Commission and not to establish unilateral standards that conflict with the official standards and jeopardize the importation of animal products from developing countries," Dr Vallat said.


Full text

Mar. 23, 2009 >> Industry News

Tag Costs can Outweigh Benefits: On a purely economic basis, electronic identification (EID) tags in sheep and cattle can cost more than they return, research has shown. Research found that there were gains when used in trading cattle but costs when used in ewes and breeding cows. Web Link

Ear Tag Traceable from Space: The Wandering Shepherd ear tag, developed by Edmonton’s iFind Systems, will provide the traceability demanded by Alberta beef customers around the world. The tag automatically delivers GPS co-ordinates and other information to the satellite, which forwards it to rancher and government databases. It also allows agencies to trace the origin of disease-infected livestock within minutes, and even animals as they have been in contact with. Web Link

Alberta Sets Traceability Target Date: Alberta has set June 1, 2010, as its target date for tracking cattle movement in the province. Web Link

New Delhi Slaughterhouse Plans to Tag Animals: With the number of animals being brought to the Ghazipur slaughterhouse likely to increase in coming months, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi plans to microchip the animals using tags. An RFID will be used and it will help in avoiding a mix up between halal and jhatka goats, while ensuring that owners get back their own animals. The RFID, which will be tagged to the front leg of the goat or sheep, will have details about the animals, their owners and if the animal is meant for halal or jhatka slaughter. Web Link

US Dairy Industry Seeks Mandatory NAIS: At a recent Congressional hearing, the dairy industry renewed calls for a mandatory NAIS to serve as a collective insurance policy in the event of an animal disease emergency. Web Link

Mar. 20, 2009 >> Processors quiet but concerned as COOL becomes final By Janie Gabbett

When asked at last week's Annual Meat Conference in Denver about mandatory country of origin labeling rules that became final on Monday, the most typical response from meat processors and retailers was, "Are we off the record?"

The final rules were not the subject of their concern. Rather, it was the letter that Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack issued last month asking them to go beyond the legal requirements in how they label meat products.

"We don't know if he is trying to pick a fight or what," said one meat industry executive who asked not to be named.

The debate continues

The Vilsack letter furthers a debate about how USDA implements the country of origin labeling requirements mandated in the 2008 Farm Bill and whether or not the USDA rules as currently written are consistent with congressional intent.

"The Department of Agriculture will be closely reviewing industry compliance with the regulation and its performance in relation to these suggestions for voluntary action," Vilsack stated in the letter, adding, "Depending on this performance, I will carefully consider whether modifications to the rule will be necessary to achieve the intent of Congress."

In the letter, Vilsack asked processors to label separately the countries an animal was born, raised and slaughtered in; to label some further-processed meat products excluded by the law; and to narrow a label change window on ground meat to 10 days from the 60 days allowed by law.

In response, the American Meat Institute was neutral and other meat industry organizations were silent.

"To the extent that companies are able and elect to go beyond these federal labeling requirements, as requested by Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, [that] is an individual company decision, which will have to be made in collaboration with a company's retail grocery customers, which ultimately are the entities that provide country of origin information to their consumers," American Meat Institute President and CEO J. Patrick Boyle said in a statement.

Cargill sticking to the law

Cargill Meat Solutions plans to use the law, not the letter, to guide its labeling decisions, according to John Niemann, vice president for beef pricing, sales and business.

"We will follow the law," he told Meatingplace, adding, "If the law doesn't make sense, then change the law. But don't make recommendations to not follow the law. That's just not how we operate."

Mar. 19, 2009 >> Asia vital to global milk ingredient stabilization By Neil Merrett, Related topics: Commodity pricing, Industry & markets, Ingredients and additives A supply and demand imbalance within the global milk ingredient market is expected to stabilize in the next few years on the back of strengthening demand in Asia, suggests a new report. In looking at the market’s prospects from 2008 up until 2011, analyst group 3A says that milk ingredient prices are proving to be volatile on the back of concerns regarding milk commodities.

However, the group said that it expected stability to be driven for growing global demand for dairy products, particularly in the fields of nutrition and well being. While sales volumes for products like skimmed milk powder and casein are expected to maintain annual growth of about three per cent, market value was found to have fallen significantly in recent years, stated the analyst as part of a new report. The group conceded that products such as protein isolates and hydrolysates had not proven as volatile compared to products like whole and skimmed milk powders, casein and caseinates. According to 3A, the global value of the milk ingredient market, currently estimated at $19bn (€14bn), has fallen alongside dairy commodity prices that have almost halved since mid-2007.

Opportunities Despite declines on the commodity market, the analyst suggested opportunities remained long-term in the market. “The world’s population continues to grow, living standards in the long-term are improving [and] dairy consumption is increasing especially in the Asian-Pacific nations,” stated the report. “Consumers are increasingly being motivated to buy products from a health and wellness perspective."

Asia was highlighted by the report to be the single most dairy market in the world currently, with market value in the region estimated at $7bn (€5.1bn) in 2008. The potential of dairy demand in the region has also created huge opportunities as an import market, with 30 per cent, or 1.1 million metric tonnes, of all milk ingredients traded worldwide found their way onto Asian markets, said 3A

By comparison, the markets of Oceania – New Zealand and Australia – the EU and the US remain the largest suppliers of milk ingredients, exporting 1,300,000 MT, 680,000 MT and 430,000 MT respectively, according to the report.

“In the long term, the winners of the current economic downturn will be those organizations that can track and anticipate the challenges and opportunities in the milk ingredients market industry,” stated 3A. “The information and analysis contained within this report provide dairy and other food ingredient companies with an important navigational.”

Mar. 18, 2009 >> FDA to delay enhanced feed ban rule
By Tom Johnston
The Food and Drug Administration will extend by 60 days the April 27 effective date of the agency's enhanced ban on high-risk cattle material in feed for all animals, according to industry sources.

The decision comes as the Obama administration reviews rules not yet in effect and considers extending the implementation dates by 60 days. In such cases, agencies also are directed to allow for an additional 30 days for public comment.

FDA will soon publish a notice in the Federal Register.

Packers and renderers, among others in the food chain, have been pressing FDA to delay implementing the enhanced feed ban and allow for additional public comment in light of hardships they already have begun to incur in the run-up to the rule's implementation. To view the final rule, click here.

Primary among the challenges, they say, is disposal of banned materials such as spinal cords and brains from cattle older than 30 months of age. Some renderers, for example, already have been refusing to take such materials or older dead stock off of packers' hands, forcing them to find other methods of disposal that can be costly and problematic.

March 17, 2009 >> A Facebook rallying cry By Dairy Herd news source | Dino Giacomazzi, dairy producer from Hanford, Calif., uses the social-networking tool Facebook to rally California dairymen. He has started “Save California’s Milk Supply” and says the motivation comes from “extremist lawyers who have authored legislation to force our local dairies out of California. California deserves a local milk supply and California dairy families employ the safest and most humane animal practices.” Giacomazzi says he started the cause to learn more about the many social-networking tools that Facebook offers and the number of supporters has exploded in just a few short weeks to more 1,300. If you are interested in joining the cause, click here. Source: Western United Dairymen

Mar. 16, 2009 >> CANADIAN dairy industry looks to the Future on food safety Web Site Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC), the Dairy Processors Association of Canada (DPAC) and the Canadian National Committee of the International Dairy Federation (FIL/IDF-Canada) held a conference on managing food safety in the dairy industry and the food chain on March 11 and 12, 2009. "We eat everyday. Food is essential to life and must be treated with respect," Don Jarvis, CEO of Dairy Processors Association of Canada told participants at the beginning of the conference. "Outbreaks, though infrequent, are highly publicized and remind all of us in the food industry that we must remain diligent in managing risks. In the dairy industry, all partners realize that Canadians deserve safe food and that we must do all we can to deserve and earn consumer confidence."

Canadian food is safe. Incidents are few and far between. This very fact means they will attract attention and can undermine consumer confidence in the food industry. The food industry is very conscious of the need to show consumers we do everything we can do enhance food safety. In Canada, the food industry has adopted a HACCP-based system for food safety. Food producers and processors identify hazards and train their staff to be vigilant and manage hazards to keep food as safe as possible as it is handled, processed and distributed to consumers.

"We have a food safety system in place that controls the risks we face in Canada and it has been fairly effective overall," said Richard Doyle, Executive Director of Dairy Farmers of Canada. "However, during this conference, we have learned how science has evolved and given us new tools, new approaches to help us in growing forward." "The purpose of the conference was to develop a better understanding, by industry and government, of the new 'metrics' approach to food safety using an integrated chain management for food safety," explained Mr. Doyle. "This approach is widely discussed around the world and Conference participants had the opportunity to hear experts talk about its application to food safety both in Canada and beyond its borders."

The field of metrics measurement is fairly young. It is based on risk management and helps quantify the hazards identified with the HACCP food safety system. The conference helped the dairy industry better understand the advances in science and the direction food safety technology and regulation are moving. With this information, the Canadian food chain will be able to better address food safety issues at times of crisis but more importantly in the development of programs, procedures and regulations. All the presentations from the conference are available at: Web Site

Mar. 15, 2009 >> Companies cut synthetic hormone from dairy products USA Today; Bruce Horovitz Web Site Got RbST? That's not the latest space critter in a George Lucas film. It's a synthetic growth hormone (recombinant bovine somatotropin) used to spur cows to produce more milk. Many dairies and retailers — including General Mills (GIS), Dannon and Wal-Mart (WMT) — are nixing it from dairy products in a world of rising food fears.

Even in a sick economy, low price isn't the only hot sales tool for foods. There's also marketing value in telling consumers about some ingredients not in foods. "Companies do bow to the will of consumers," says Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm, which has never used synthetic hormones.

In a nation of food worriers, the move by the $110 billion dairy industry is overdue, nutrition guru Marion Nestle says. "Why screw around with milk, of all things?" asks the author of What to Eat.

The move away from rbST comes at a time consumer concern about food quality is on the rise. Since last year's salmonella outbreak, 45% of Americans say they are even more concerned about food safety, according to a survey of 1,000 consumers by researcher TNS Global. While the Food and Drug Administration says there are no health risks to humans from rbST, there are studies that indicate the synthetic may harm dairy cows. (All cows produce natural bST hormone.) Monsanto, which had made rbST, sold the business to Eli Lilly last year. "RbST has been used safely for 15 years and has contributed to the affordability of dairy products worldwide," Lilly spokeswoman Joan Todd says. She says its effects reduce the carbon footprint for the dairy cow by about 9%.

5 myths about pandemic panic 15.mar.09, Washington Post, Philip Alcabes Web Site Philip Alcabes, a professor of urban public health at Hunter College of the City University of New York and the author of the forthcoming "Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to Avian Flu," writes in this op-ed that the threat of pandemics is being hyped.

1. Infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever. The World Health Organization made this claim in a 2007 report. But even before the advent of commercial air travel, diseases had no trouble moving from place to place. In the 1490s, syphilis rode Spanish ships across the Atlantic (whether from the New World to the Old or vice versa is subject to debate) in a matter of weeks, then made its way through Europe and Asia. In the 1820s, military and merchant ships carried cholera from India to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. At the end of World War I, the "Spanish flu" virus crossed the ocean on troop ships, ravaged the forces fighting in Europe and then spread around the world to produce the 1918 pandemic. The death toll topped 40 million. In 2003, SARS showed that although air travel can introduce a disease to a new location, it won't necessarily cause the illness to spiral out of control. Because public officials quickly contained the few SARS outbreaks caused by infected people on planes, the 774 deaths were concentrated in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada. Germs do fly, but outbreaks don't go global that much more readily than they did before. And we can handle most of them by monitoring infectious people and distributing medicine quickly -- precautions that have been in place for years and even centuries.
2. To learn how to prevent a pandemic, look to the past. We always seem to be preparing for the last war. But the worst calamities erupt precisely because they are unprecedented and unimaginable. When the Black Death arrived in Europe in the 1340s, wiping out at least a quarter of the population, the region had been plague-free for six centuries. In the 1830s and '40s, cholera, never before seen in the West, killed up to 1 percent of the populations of several British and American cities in a few weeks. The influenza of 1918 was unlike any before or since (see Myth No. 3). Then came yet another unheard-of illness: AIDS. Like those before it, the next killer will be one that we've never imagined -- or prepared for.
3. We should brace ourselves for another Spanish flu. Fortunately, we'll never see another flu outbreak of that sort. During World War I, the movement of troops and refugees -- many of whom were too young to have acquired flu immunities during the epidemics of the 19th century -- created a unique breeding ground for the virus and probably allowed more virulent strains to develop.
4. The annual flu season is nothing compared to a pandemic. Preparedness warriors try to frighten people by using the word "pandemic." But such strains of the influenza virus -- new ones to which humans have not developed resistance -- aren't necessarily more virulent than the ordinary ones we see each winter. Only two flu pandemics have occurred since 1918, one in 1957 and the other in 1968. In both cases, global mortality was a fraction of what it was in 1918. And in the United States, as a recent study showed, the number of deaths directly attributable to influenza during the two pandemics was no higher than during typical flu seasons.
5. There's no such thing as being too prepared. Actually, we run the risk of doing more harm than good by overreacting to the threat of a pandemic. In 1976, swine flu, a strain of influenza similar to the one from 1918, was diagnosed in a small number of soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., one of whom died. That prompted medical experts to warn that the United States faced a crisis reminiscent of the Spanish flu. President Gerald R. Ford authorized a mass inoculation program, and 45 million Americans -- more than 20 percent of the population -- were vaccinated. But the plan crashed. A disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome, which causes the immune system to attack the body's nerves, began appearing in patients who had received the flu shots. About 500 cases were linked to the vaccine; 32 of those people died. The federal government ended up settling wrongful death and damage claims for millions of dollars. But there was no swine flu epidemic, just a handful of cases.

March 12, 2009 >> A super majority By Dairy Herd news source | Cooperatives Working Together announced Wednesday that it has reached its goal of signing up a supermajority of the nation’s milk supply for two years, which will enable the self-help program to focus on reducing the current devastating imbalance in milk supply and demand. According to CWT officials, 67 percent of the nation’s milk supply has now committed to pay the 10 cent per hundredweight membership assessment for a full two years, from January 2009 through December 2010, and more memberships are still being received that will further boost that figure. This membership investment will allow the farmer-run program to take actions to reduce dairy supplies. March is shaping up to be one of the toughest months ever for America’s dairy farmers, given the painfully low milk price, combined with elevated input costs, says Jerry Kozak, president and CEO of National Milk Producers Federation, which manages CWT. “But the good news is that CWT will continue to be engaged in efforts to improve the difficult economic situation that dairy producers are facing.” Kozak says he’s also optimistic that CWT membership will expand, as farmers recognize the program’s importance to the dairy business. Kozak adds that both cooperatives and individual dairy farmers still may join CWT with a 24-month membership commitment, retroactive to January. Membership participation is required if a farmer wishes to participate in future herd retirement programs, he said. Kozak notes that CWT will not, consistent with its long-standing policy, disclose the precise dates when it will initiate future herd retirement activities, or any targets that the organization may have for how much milk or how many cows it will remove. For more information, go to: www.cwt.coop Source: Cooperatives Working Together

JAPAN: High food hygiene costs choking export growth 13.mar.09, The Japan Times, Mariko Kato Web Site Strict hygiene criteria in importing countries and the high cost food producers have to shoulder to meet such requirements are limiting the export of Japanese food, experts said at a recent symposium set up by the Organization to Promote Japanese Restaurants Abroad, or JRO.

"Our biggest concern is that our exports are not being accepted by target countries," said Yuji Kudo, a deputy general manager at the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations, which exports Japanese beef.

Only four factories nationwide match the food management standards set by recipient countries to handle Japanese beef, and it can cost ¥30 million to equip a factory appropriately, Kudo told the March 9 symposium attended by some 700 people. Export of beef, among the most popular of Japanese foods overseas, is further restrained by import bans imposed since the first case of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was discovered in 2001. Only the United States, Canada and Hong Kong have since lifted the ban, although demand comes from restaurants in Taiwan, Mexico and elsewhere, Kudo said.

Policy restrictions also trouble dealers in other products. According to JRO, only 21 companies that handle processed marine products, including frozen tuna, dried bonito shavings and scallops, are authorized to export to the European Union, as they do not comply with the EU's Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system. For others, the cost of meeting the system's standards would not offset profits, since many products are only sent in small quantities and have to be shipped by air.

Mar 12, 2009 >> New Russian Minister of Agriculture appointed. Today Mrs. Elena Skrynnik, president of RosaAgro Leasing was appointed a Minister of Agriculture of the Federation of Russia. The past Minister, Mr. Gordeyez was recently elected Governor of Voronezh region, where his territory will develop animal husbandry.

Nikolay Demin, President of Exima; with the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation H.E. Alexei Gordeyez, and Greg Nolan, Agro Ex & Igor Anisimkin at the dinner hosted by the Canadian Minister of Agriculture & Agri-Food in March 2007..

What drove the cow mad? Lessons from a tiny fish

March 9, 2009 >> Public Library of Science Sally Hubbard Web Link For over twenty years, scientists have known that a normal protein in the brain, PrP, or prion protein, can turn harmful and cause deadly illnesses like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle. What they could not explain is why large amounts of this normal protein are produced by our bodies in the first place. In a new study published in this week's PLoS Biology, researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany reveal that PrP indeed plays a beneficial role for the organism – PrP helps cells communicate with one another during embryonic development.

In prion diseases, what transforms the normal PrP protein into a life-threatening substance is the abnormal alteration of its chemical structure. Moreover, prions have the treacherous ability to replicate by imprinting their abnormal structure into healthy PrPs, thereby generating new pathogenic particles. While this "conversion" process explains how prions are disseminated, "An abnormal function of the prion protein is considered to be one of the reasons for neuronal degeneration," explains Dr. Edward Málaga-Trillo, leader of the study in Konstanz. However, the normal function of PrP has remained an unsolved mystery for many years. Until now, all previous experiments in genetically modified mice had failed to provide conclusive evidence, as these animals lacking PrP seemed perfectly healthy. A dead end?

By no means. The scientists from Konstanz were able to show that the lack of PrP can cause clear physiological abnormalities in a living animal and the trick was to use the tiny zebrafish as a model. When the researchers from Konstanz microinjected zebrafish eggs with morpholinos, DNA-like molecules that prevent the normal production of PrP, the treated zebrafish embryos were unable to develop normally and eventually died. The proteins in the fish embryos normally found at cell-to-cell contact sites disappeared, rendering these cells unable to communicate and carry out the differentiation program that shapes the major structures of the body, including the nervous system.

"We were then able to prove that PrP serves as a glue element, bringing cells together and keeping them in contact," explains co-author Dr. Gonzalo Solis, member of the team at the laboratory of Prof. Claudia Stürmer. "When two neighboring cells make contact, they become able to exchange important signals that affect the function of a tissue in the body."

Although the work by Málaga-Trillo, Solis, and colleagues does not offer an immediate cure for CJD or BSE, the team from Konstanz has fit together the first pieces of a complex puzzle, which may widen our understanding of prion diseases and provide hope for their effective treatment. Citation: Málaga-Trillo E, Solis GP, Schrock Y, Geiss C, Luncz L, et al. (2009) Regulation of embryonic cell adhesion by the prion protein. PLoS Biol 7(3): e1000055. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000055

LINK TO THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT PRESS ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE RELATED Primer

ARGENTINA: Beef farming drying up on plains 09.mar.09 New Zealand Herald Richard Reynolds Web Link Ranchers are being forced to sell their cattle as a drought converts much of the Argentinian pampas into a dry and desolate wasteland. The sweeping grasslands are a key part of Argentinian identity, stretching for one million sq km. It was once one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. But as a result of the drought an estimated 1.5 million cattle have died. Many farmers are simply giving up on cattle altogether and switching to growing wheat or soy. "I've sold my entire herd," said Hector Gomez, a sixth-generation cattle farmer. "Next year I will plant soy."

US Dairy News >> Little stimulation for US dairy industry If you're looking to the recently passed federal stimulus package for a dairy bailout, don't. Full story.

Hang in there The Class III milk futures market is optimistic that prices will improve, particularly in the second half of the year. Full story.

Things should improve next year That, according to the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, provides a ray of hope for struggling US dairy farmers. Full story.

Mar. 5, 2009 >> US Dairy Industry News US Dairy Profitability index reaches new low The milk-feed ratio, a measure of profitability, slipped again in February. Full story.

Class III sinks below $10 February Class III price is lowest price in nearly six years. Full story.

Extremists step up attacks on food chain Attacks on the global food chain from animal-rights and environmental extremists jumped by an incredible amount last year. Full story.

Mar 5 , 2009 >> International dairy prices may have bottomed out ; By ANDREW JANES Fonterra's latest online dairy auction is being taken as a sign that international dairy prices may have found a floor after being in freefall since late 2007. The monthly auction achieved an average price for whole milk powder of US$2158 (NZ$4348) a tonne 16.6 per cent up on the previous month."I think the market has bottomed out," Agri-fax dairy analyst Susan Kilsby said. Buying inquiries had increased in the past month and prices had started to nudge up around a fortnight ago.

"There's an awareness in the market that prices won't stay at this low level forever, and it's pretty damn cheap at the moment," she said."We've been forecasting the market to bottom out for a while, so it's a relief to see it happening." Commonwealth Bank of Australia's New Zealand economist, Chris Tennent-Brown, agreed. "It does look like they [prices] have found a base." But he was concerned that when the large quantities of milk powder being stockpiled in the Northern Hemisphere were released on to the market, they could force prices down again. ANZ National Bank chief economist Cameron Bagrie said he was not sure prices had bottomed out and that he expected them to be volatile through 2009."The earliest I can see a recovery happening is 2010."

Fonterra's managing director of global trade, Kelvin Wickham, said the co-op believed prices were now in a trough at the bottom of the cycle but would continue to move around a bit. "But we don't see ourselves climbing out of it all of a sudden." There had yet to be big increases in consumer demand and Fonterra was still uncertain about what the European Union would do with its export subsidies, Mr Wickham said. The trough was likely to last at least through this year. Large dairy stockpiles, particularly in North America and Europe also look set to slow down a recovery in dairy prices.

"The big stockpiles will not force the prices down but will slow the rise," Ms Kilsby said. "I think prices are going to be relatively flat for the next six months." Prices might keep falling for non-powder dairy products such as cheese and butter."Powders tend to be the price leaders in the market. There's quite a lot of butter floating around the EU that we expect will hit world markets pretty soon so butter prices could continue to fall." Given that the product sold in the latest auction has a delivery time between May and December, the turnaround in prices would not affect Fonterra's current forecast payout of $5.10 a kilogram of milksolids for the 2008-09 season. But it could help support payout levels next season, Mr Wickham said.

February 28, 2009 >> US Dairy Industry News US Milk Output Edged Higher in January -- Despite the plunging milk prices, production continued to increase in January. Production in the 23 major dairy states was up one percent from one year ago. Cow numbers were up 58,000 head from 2008 levels. In Minnesota, milk output increased 2.4 percent. Texas had the biggest increase, up 13 percent. Wisconsin production was up one percent; California milk production dropped nearly 1.5 percent. US Over-produced -- Farm milk prices are 50 percent below the levels seen one year ago. While the milk check is smaller, AMPI Senior Vice President Donn Develder says the costs associated with producing milk remain high. Export demand pushed milk prices higher a year ago "and that raised milk prices and, of course, milk production followed along with it." At one point, the United States was exporting about ten percent of its dairy production. "We geared up to meet that demand; our concern last fall was that as the dollar started to strengthen, if we lost those exports; all of a sudden, we would be anywhere from to five to eight percent overproduced in the United States; unfortunately, that's exactly what has happened."

CWT Manages Supply -- Cooperatives Working Together has finished the farm audits for its sixth herd retirement round, removing more than 50,000 cows from production. The largest majority of the cows removed from the national dairy herd came from western dairies. Klobuchar Seeks Help for US Dairy Farmers -- Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is again asking USDA to take action to help stabilize dairy prices. At a meeting in Mora Wednesday, Klobuchar heard from dairy farmers hurt by the sudden drop in milk prices. Earlier this month, Klobuchar urged USDA to more effectively implement the Dairy Product Price Support Program, consider more purchases of dairy products for USDA nutrition programs and utilize the Dairy Export Incentive Program.

Feb. 26, 2009 >> FAO success in dairying in Afghanistan. Dear list members, attached hereunder a link to the latest story on FAO success in dairying in Afghanistan. Web Link Anthony Bennett Dairy and Meat Officer Animal Production Service Animal Production and Health Division Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Milk making the difference Dairy development in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a traditional livestock country and was in the past self-sufficient in livestock products. Afghan consumers prefer mainly yoghurt, doogh (fermented milk drink), fresh milk, Chhaka (quarg), Paneer (soft cheese) and other dairy products. Cream is also highly appreciated, particularly in the freezing winter months. Milk and dairy products are mainly consumed in the morning and at lunchtime.

FAO started dairy development activities in Afghanistan in 1998 with the support of the Government of the United Kingdom and the United Nations Development Programme followed by the Government of Germany in 2002. The interest for the development of the dairy sector came from both consumers and producers. The integrated dairy scheme approach

• Initially the fodder resources were developed and improved to feed dairy cows.
• Farmers were organized initially as milk producers groups.
• Farmers, their groups and local service providers were trained in improved animal husbandry and animal health practices.
• Milk producers’ co-operatives were then set up to formalize the enterprises and enable the groups to be more visible and trade more effectively.
• At the same time milk processing and marketing centres (known as ‘window shops’) were set up in urban and peri urban areas to provide direct access to consumers.
• A milk processing plant was established by an FAO project in Kabul, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) and the Kabul Dairy Union.
• The producer co-operatives were then organized into regional bodies as Milk Unions in Kabul, Mazar I Sharif and Kunduz and now represents over 1600 dairy farmers and their families (10400 beneficiaries).
• The milk production and collection networks have grown gradually as a high level of pervading insecurity and related investment risks still affect its expansion.

The government and the development community have tasked FAO to advise and guide the development of a national dairy development policy and strategy to ensure a sustainable future with continuing benefits and participation by Afghan farmers and their families. A national dairy development committee has been established since June 2005 to formulate the national dairy policy and strategy for Afghanistan. The General Director of Livestock Production and Animal Health Dept of MAIL chairs the committee in which the new Afghan Dairy Union is also represented. FAO provides support and advice to the committee. The national policy is currently being developed through a series of stakeholder workshops and will be finalized by mid 2009. Results

• An increased level of household food security and increased income for other food at village level (Annual income of each farmer has increased from 160US$ to 545 US$ from selling surplus milk production (2003- 2007)
• Women are the main beneficiaries of the project and receive over 90% of income earned from the milk produced
• Increased milk availability in urban centres and increased incomes flows from urban to rural areas
• t the farm level milk production per animal has more than doubled and income levels for participating farmers and their families have also risen substantially - typically each farmer now markets the surplus milk per cow and earns approx. 80 Afa (US$1.6) per animal per day for their milk as well as having the benefit of milk available to meet their household needs
• The provision of a new yoghurt processing and packaging line in Kabul has also greatly improved the marketability of products for the milk co-operatives

Conclusion The gradual but progressive approach to dairy development has been recognized as successful by independent partners and agencies and has formed the basis for future dairy development activities by other agencies in Afghanistan. The success of the project has stimulated the World Bank, the Government of Italy and the International Fund for Agricultural Development to substantially invest in dairy development in Afghanistan in collaboration with MAIL. Challenges for the future

• To increase market access and improve the image of safe, quality national products.
• To improve the capacity of co-operatives to progressively contract their own service and inputs providers to meet producer demands and improved dairy enterprise operations and profits.
• To progressively hand more of the strategic planning and decision making over to the dairy union management (Kabul, Mazar and Kunduz) and dairy policy development to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock.
• To provide strategic and operational support to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock in dairy development activities in Afghanistan.
• Face competition from dairy imports of dubious quality.
• Increasing occurrence of drought and extremely harsh winter cold.
• Change from socially-oriented to enterprise mode within co-operatives and unions.

More at: Web Link

February 20, 2009>> USDA to meat industry: Give shoppers more details By MARY CLARE JALONICK, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration has asked the meat industry to voluntarily give the public more information about where their food comes from. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told consumer groups, farm groups and meat industry leaders earlier this week that the administration would call for stricter labels on fresh meat and other foods that would show where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered.

The action comes after President Barack Obama returned from Canada, which has joined Mexico in protesting the so-called "country of origin" labels in a complaint to the World Trade Organization. The Agriculture Department abruptly canceled a scheduled announcement of the decision Wednesday morning, with little explanation, a day before Obama's trip. The department announced the changes Friday afternoon, after Obama's return, and Vilsack sent a letter to the meat industry detailing the requests."The Department of Agriculture will be closely reviewing industry compliance," Vilsack said in the letter, dated Friday. In calling for the stricter guidelines, the Obama administration is breaking from rules announced by the department shortly before President George W. Bush left office. The labeling law was enacted in a wide-ranging farm bill last year, but much of it was left up to interpretation by the Department of Agriculture.

Supporters of the labeling law were not happy with the Bush administration's version of the rules, which they said allowed meat companies to be vague about where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered. The Bush administration rule, which won praise from Canada, still takes effect next month. Vilsack told stakeholders the administration will write new rules if the meat industry does not comply with the voluntary standards. Besides the more detailed labels, Vilsack also said the law should cover more foods that are defined as "processed." For example, roasted peanuts and cured bacon are exempt from the law because they are considered processed.

The labeling requirements, which would apply to fresh meats and some perishable fruits and vegetables, have long been debated in Congress. The meat industry and retailers responsible for the labels have protested the changes, saying they are burdensome and could lead to higher prices. But consumer groups and northern state ranchers who compete with the Canadian beef industry favor them.

Some of the law's leading opponents have been grocery stores and large meatpacking companies, many of which mix U.S. and Mexican beef, and other businesses involved in getting products to supermarkets.

February 19, 2009 >> Global Financial Crisis; The global economy is in the grip of a major downturn, dimming the outlook for growth around the world, including Asia. Coming straight after the food and fuel price shock in 2008, the financial crisis could also significantly set back the fight against poverty.

ADB forecasts for 2009 that GDP growth will be 3 percentage points lower than in 2007 and 1 percentage point lower than in 2008. Each 1 percent drop in growth could trap another 21 million in poverty. Learn more in AEM 2008 and Special Note: Developing Asia's Prospects. These complex economic challenges require coordinated action at the global, regional, and country levels.

The international community and G-20 countries have urged multilateral development banks to play their part in restoring financial stability and ensuring there are adequate resources to meet the challenges ahead.

ADB's Role ADB plans to help developing Asia cushion the social impact of the economic crisis. It will also complement the work of other international financing institutions. This would include supporting:

• Public Investment Programs in infrastructure and social sectors
• Trade financing facilitation
• Providing advice on policies and support to address weaknesses in financial systems, in the places it is already engaged in the financial sector.
• Participate in emergency response programs, as needed
• Strengthen monitoring and support for regional approaches to the crisis.

Direct support will be provided through policy dialogue and ADB operations, funded by the Asian Development Fund and Ordinary Capital Resources (OCR). ADB proposes to increase OCR lending in 2009 by about $2 billion to replace funding shortfalls or provide quick release assistance to help stabilize economies. It would also expand its guarantee program to about $2.1 billion to support trade financing and promote nonsovereign financial flows. ADB would also seek to attract cofinancing to leverage at least $1 billion-$2 billion from development partners and commercial sources.

February 24, 2009 >> Canada’s Agriculture Ministers Focus on Economy and Uphold Commitment to a Competitive and Profitable Sector: “Ministers concurred that Canada’s food safety and traceability systems are linked and are a key part of improving the competitiveness and profitability for the sector. Concerted government effort will continue on implementing a national agriculture and food traceability system for emergency management and market access purposes, building on existing initiatives, and with priority on livestock and poultry. Ministers directed their officials to return in July with an action plan on food safety and a progress report on traceability. Web Link

Overwhelming Majority Age Verify 2008 Calf Crop in Alberta: More than 83% of the 2008 calf crop in Alberta has been age verified. This is a significant achievement under the Alberta Livestock and Meat Strategy, which was announced in June 2008, and represents about 1.5 million calves. Web Link

February 5, 2009 > Livestock producers advised to connect with consumers on emotional level Farmscape ; Bruce Cochrane Web Link A Washington based communications strategist is encouraging livestock producers to harness some of the same strategies used by animal rights activists to get their message out. Production agriculture has increasingly become the target of animals rights activists who have been extremely successful in bringing about legislative restrictions on livestock producers.

Dan Murphy, a communications specialist with Outsource Marketing, told those on hand for the 2009 Manitoba Swine Seminar livestock producers need to take a page out of their book and adopt some of the same game plan these opponents of agriculture are so gifted at using.

Clip-Dan Murphy-Outsource Marketing They are very skilled at finding the hot buttons to press, whether it's pictures of a poor little puppy abused in some puppy mill or whether it's a baby pig trying to squeeze through the bars of his metal cage.

These groups are very good at knowing how to connect emotionally with things people get upset about and things people care about in terms of animal welfare and in terms of environmental protection. What I would suggest is that producers find ways to take some of these issues that matter to people, whether it's the environment, whether it's food safety, whether it's economic viability for the rural parts of this country and the States as well and find ways to talk about how their business contributes in a positive way to those issues that people are concerned about.

You care about the environment, you need to understand how livestock producers can be stewards not just of the animals but of the land, the water shed, the soil, things that ultimately contribute to a positive impact on the environment that the average consumer feels very strongly about. Murphy stresses the livestock industry needs to connect with the public on an emotional level and then talk about the science and the research. He says, until you make that emotional connection, the science won’t make a difference. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

In 2008, Russia increased meat and milk production, while egg production was down insignificantly compared to 2007. As Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported on Tuesday, slaughter livestock and poultry production was up 6.5% year-on-year to 9.3 million tons. Milk production grew by 1.1% to 32.4 million tons. At the same time, egg production dropped 0.3% to 37.8 billion pcs. In December, livestock and poultry production was up 17.4% to 1.3 million tons, milk production increased 1.5% to 2 million tons), egg production grew by 4.8% to 3.1 billion pcs). Pursuant to Rosstat data, as of the end of December 2008 cattle stock in farms of all agricultural producers amounted to 21.1 million heads (down 2.6% compared to the same period in 2007). Cow stock totalled to 9.2 million heads (down 1.3%). Pig numbers totalled to 16.3 million heads (up 1.2%), sheep and goat herd was up 2.7% to 21.6 million heads. In livestock structure, farm population represented the following rates: 47.5% of cattle livestock, 38.8% of pigs, and 52.1% of sheep and goats (as of the end of December 2007 – 46.9%, 42.6% and 51.8%, respectively). According to Rosstat information, in 2008 agricultural product manufacturing value in farms of all grades (in current prices) totaled to 2 trillion 602.7 billion rubles, up 10.8% from 2007. In December the production grew by 4.5% to 104.9 billion rubles.

Nikolay Demin, the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation H.E. Alexei Gordeyez, Greg Nolan, Agro Ex & Igor Anisimkin at the dinner hosted by the Canadian Minister of Agriculture & Agri-Food, The Honourable Chuck Strahl in March 2007.

Start of implementation of Program on Meat Livestock Breeding Development in Russia in 2009 won’t be postponed notwithstanding some difficulties caused by world economic crisis, as Aleksey Gordeyez, the Head of Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, said today at the meeting on issues of meat livestock breeding development. This program will afford increase cattle livestock of special breeds 1.8-fold, and high quality beef production output will increase 4.5-fold. Apart from that, young breeding stock distribution volume will grow two-fold.

Jan. 30, 2009 >> Brazil- Canada Trade Partnership Event; February 11th, 2009 for the I.E. Canada/ BCCC Brazil Canada Trade Partnership event. Topic of discussion will include: • Trade opportunities and challenges in Brazil and Canada • What's in store to enhance the relationship • What services are available to support trade and investment Date: February 11, 2009 Time: 8:30 A.M. - 12:00 P.M. Location: Marriott Chateau Champlain, Montreal, Canada For more details on the event, please click here

Jan. 30, 2009 >> PRESS RELEASE

1st GLOBLADIV WORKSHOP A global view of livestock biodiversity and conservation University of Technology and Life Sciences Bydgoszcz, Poland 18-19 March 2009

EU invested substantial effort in the investigation of livestock biodiversity, becoming a world leader in this sector. Now, European scientists carry the responsibility of disseminating this knowledge to an international audience.

GLOBALDIV is a 3 years project funded by the European Commission on AGRI-GEN RES Programme that started on March 1st, 2007. It aims at promoting the formation of international interdisciplinary groups of experts in characterization and conservation of Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR) from many different European and non-European countries.

GLOBALDIV organizes open Workshops in 2009 and 2010, to update the scientific community and discuss topics related to new challenges, new technologies and new approaches to characterize and conserve genetic diversity in farm animal species.

The 2009 Workshop is held on 18-19 March 2009 in Bydgoszcz, Poland. It is organized in four sessions. The first is dedicated to the review of EU present and future initiatives in Farm animal genetic resources (FAnGR) conservation, the second to the discussion of new challenges to be faced by the livestock sector in the near future, the third on the present state of the art of technologies and strategies for FAnGR characterization and conservation, the fourth on novel and forthcoming technical opportunities. Large space is left to group discussion in parallel sessions, devoted to analyze key topics in FAnGR conservation.

The event is free of charge but subscription is needed since the number of available places is limited. Applications are available at the Globaldiv website (URL) and should be e-mailed to elena.murelli@unicatt.it Subscriptions are opened and will close on March 1st, 2009. information can be found at: www.globaldiv.eu

January 29, 2009 >>Nature's perfect food isn't perfect, JAN SARGEANT From Thursday's Globe and Mail I'm sure the irony is quite unintentional. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but chuckle at the notice for the International Raw Milk Symposium: From Production to Consumption taking place in Toronto on Jan. 31. You see, "consumption" is a commonly used term for tuberculosis, and pasteurization of milk was mandated to help fight it and other diseases that can be transmitted from animals to people. These diseases, also called zoonotic diseases, have caused enormous human suffering through the centuries. Although not all tuberculosis was transmitted through cattle, historically about 10 per cent of human tuberculosis cases were related to cattle and raw milk consumption via zoonotic tuberculosis and brucellosis.

Zoonotic diseases pose an enormous and growing challenge to public health. It's estimated that 60 per cent of human pathogens - and more than 75 per cent of new, emerging infectious diseases of humans - come from animals or their products. Zoonotic food-borne diseases will affect one in four individuals annually in developed countries.

Pasteurization is a process that heats a product - milk in this case - for a predetermined time at a predetermined temperature to kill bacteria, and pasteurization of milk has been mandatory in Ontario since 1938. It is also used for other products, such as cheese, cider and fruit juices. So with a safe alternative available, and in fact mandated by law, why would anyone want to drink raw milk? Proponents cite a number of potential health benefits, such as decreased risk of lactose intolerance and allergic reactions. They also say that pasteurized milk is "clean" but lacks natural, beneficial milk components that are lost through the process. However, these claims are generally not substantiated by the scientific literature.

While we are fortunate that bovine tuberculosis has been eradicated in domestic cattle in Canada, there are still public-health risks associated with the consumption of raw milk. These risks include campylobacter, salmonella, listeria, E. coli O157 and others. And these risks are not uncommon - as seen by the current peanut butter recall here and in the United States, and the Canadian listeriosis outbreak of late 2008.

The opportunities to pass disease from cattle to humans are many. The cattle may directly shed bacteria in the milk or, more commonly, in their feces. Even in a clean environment, there is the potential for cattle udders to become contaminated with feces, which can result in contaminated milk.

Of particular concern is that these bacteria may be present in cattle intestinal tracts or milk without causing apparent disease in the cattle and are found in cattle under a variety of farm management types. For instance, E. coli O157:H7, which can cause serious and even fatal disease in humans, is carried in the feces of healthy cattle of all ages and from cattle on a variety of diets, including pasture and hay-fed.

While unpasteurized products pose health risks to all, pregnant women face additional risks from the consumption of raw milk. For example, listeria can cause miscarriages or fetal death. Dairy farmers strive to produce a safe and nutritious product for consumption by all Canadians, particularly children. Pasteurization is an important part of the milk production system and is performed for the safety of the public.

Dr. Jan Sargeant, a veterinarian, holds a national applied public health chair from the Canadian Institutes of Health. She is director of the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph.

Jan. 28, 2009 >> World facing lowest growth since WWII, says IMF report So far, the IMF has lent $47.9bn to countries whose finances have been jeopardized by the current crisis ANDREW WILLIS World growth is to slow to its lowest level in 60 years according to an International Monetary Fund report released Wednesday (28 January). In an update to its World Economic Outlook series, the fund predicts world growth will fall to just 0.5 per cent in 2009, before rebounding to 3 per cent in 2010. • Print • Comment article "We now expect the global economy to come to a virtual halt," said IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard in prepared remarks for a press briefing. IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said a restructuring of the banking sector to allow credit to start flowing again was an essential first step if growth figures are to improve. The report says advanced economies will be hit hardest, with the US forecast to contract by 1.6 per cent, the euro area by 2 per cent and Japan by 2.6 percent. Developing nations fair slightly better but forecasts are still severely down on the IMF's November update.

The current report predicts Chinese growth will fall to 6.75 in 2009. Speaking at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday however, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said the Chinese economy would grow by 8 per cent in 2009. Increased uncertainty and difficulties attaining credit have resulted in reduced consumer demand says the report. This in turn resulted in a fall in global output and trade in the last few months of 2008. So far the IMF has lent $47.9bn to countries whose finances have been jeopardized by the current crisis. These include EU member states Hungary and Latvia as well as Belarus, Iceland, Pakistan, Serbia and Ukraine. The fund also announced a loan for El Salvador this month and is in negotiations with Turkey.

Criticism of EU farm subsidies Against this economic backdrop, the European commission this month re-introduced export subsidies for milk, butter and cheese as short-term measures to support the EU dairy sector where milk prices have fallen dramatically. On Wednesday the Cairns group of developing nations demanded that Brussels reverse this step, calling it protectionist. The group of 19 countries that includes Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, South Africa and Brazil, said export subsidies would likely drive world market prices down further and prolong the economic downturn. "Increasing trade distorting measures and protectionism in a time of a crisis carries a very high price," they said in a joint statement issued to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

January 27, 2009 >> Identifying Economically Important Traits in Animal Genomes By Stacy Kish ; CSREES News Release The livestock industry accounts for almost $100 billion of the annual agricultural gross domestic product. Scientists now believe a new tool, called a "snip chip," may revolutionize the livestock industry and help farmers and ranchers produce even more. With funding from USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and industry partners, a team of scientists in Missouri and Maryland developed the snip chip to identify DNA markers for economically important traits in livestock, including disease susceptibility, milk production, reproduction, and growth. All living organisms contain DNA, the blueprint of life. Within the DNA are chromosomes that house neatly packaged genes. Each gene encodes a protein that performs the functions necessary to support life. The genome of an organism is the complete assemblage of all of the chromosomes found in that organism. Variations within a gene produce variations in agriculturally important traits. On the positive side, those variations can lead to plants that produce larger fruit or increased productivity, as well as cattle that produce more milk; on the negative side, it can mean susceptibility to pathogens. These variations are often caused by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) - a snip. A snip is a change in a single location in the DNA structure. Each SNP provides an indirect measure of the nearby genetic variants. Full text: http://tinyurl.com/cbjeok

Jan. 20, 2009 >> ‘Fair Trade’ milk soon a euro reality, says farmers’ group Web Site

USDA Press Secretary Keith Williams told Meatingplace that Washington has been rejecting the same phased-in deal because it is not based on sound science.

Under the new deal, Hong Kong initially will allow Canada to ship ribs cuts and most bone-in product from cattle younger than 30 months of age.

If the four-month phase-in period goes well, Hong Kong will begin to permit Canadian rib cuts, boneless beef and offal from Canadian cattle of all ages. If Canada meets Hong Kong's remaining requirements by the end of this calendar year, Hong Kong will allow all remaining Canadian beef exports from cattle younger than thirty months of age.

"We've seen this before," Williams said of Hong Kong's deal with Canada. "We've seen it for what it is." But, according to Canadian media reports, Ottawa is calling the deal a breakthrough that could double current exports.

Hong Kong currently limits imports of U.S. beef to boneless cuts from cattle younger than 30 months of age on fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy stemming back to an outbreak in late 2003. Washington wants full access to the Hong Kong market.

"People think of beef as steak cuts, but there are a lot of beef products other than that, some that we [in Canada] don't even eat," he said. In addition to there being no domestic market for some cuts, there are also other products, such as beef tongue, that are eaten at home but that fetch a much higher price in Asia - as much as $22 rather than $1.50 for tongue in Canada.

In all, if Canadian farmers could sell in Asia some products that might otherwise be tossed away or into the grinder, it would add another $100 or 10% to the value of each animal, Mr. Wildeman estimates.

The challenge is that Asian markets have been closed or severely restricted to Canadian beef since BSE, or mad cow disease, was detected in Canada's cattle in 2003. Korea and China still refuse to accept Canadian beef, while Japan takes product that meets certain stringent requirements, even though the Canadian industry now exceeds international guidelines.

For U.S. dairy farmers, it is important that China’s confidence in milk products be restored. China/Hong Kong is one of the largest export markets for U.S. dairy products. (In 2007, it was the fourth largest export market.)

Besides being the most populous nation on Earth, with a fast-growing economy, China’s leadership is encouraging more dairy consumption. In 2007, the government released a new set of nutritional guidelines that encourage citizens to consume 300 grams of dairy per day — nearly a five-fold increase over current consumption in the urban areas.

In 2006, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited a dairy farm in the Sichuan Province and proclaimed he had a dream to provide all Chinese, especially children, with approximately 18 ounces of milk per day. If his dream is realized, it will boost consumption by seven and one-half times the current amount.

Former federal agriculture minister Eugene Whelan remembers the days in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when Canada sent dairy cattle and genetics to Cuba to help it improve its milk production. "Fidel Castro had a goal that every Cuban kid would have milk every day," Whelan reminisced in a late December interview. "We were helping." Now, the Canadian government has decided to launch another project to try to help the Cuban dairy industry.

In mid-December, Ottawa announced it is funding a Care Canada project aimed at exporting Canadian dairy expertise to the island nation. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is providing $420,000 to fund the three year project that ends in December 2011.

Care Canada communications director Kieran Green said his non-governmental organization will provide staff and office support worth $30,000 in addition to the CIDA funding. As well, a Cuban organization with financial support from its government will contribute services worth $300,000.

According to Care, the project is aimed at helping Cuban dairy farmers improve their operations and increase supplies of milk available to Cuba's poor. It said Canadian dairy farmers will provide technical advice, but Dairy Farmers of Canada is not yet officially involved in the project. Care said the greatest weakness in the Cuban dairy industry is the collection and storage of milk produced on farms.

One part of the project will be to organize pilot projects to improve management, collection, storage and milk quality analysis capacity in two areas of the country. Care said Canada also will teach by example by outlining ways issues are tackled in the Canadian industry.

A Quebec-based network of co-operatives will lead the project on the ground, sending Quebec producers and dairy industry officials to Cuba to offer advice.

In a statement issued by Care, international operations vice-president Bogdan Dumitru said it is a chance for Canada to export its dairy expertise in the cause of alleviating poverty and hunger. "Care is very pleased now to be able to employ that expertise in our work fighting global poverty," he said. "With this program, Care will boost incomes and nutrition levels for the neediest individuals in Cuba."

In November, milk production in the 23 major dairy states topped year-ago levels by 1.4 percent, according to the USDA’s Dec. 18 “Milk Production” report. That rate of growth is down from October, which saw a 1.6-percent gain in milk production versus a year ago. Milk production has increased every month (when that month is compared to the same month in 2007) so far this year.

In November, the 23-state cow herd totaled 8.47 million head. That is a gain of 99,000 head, or 1.2 percent, versus a year ago. That also is 6,000 head more than October.

Meanwhile, milk per cow in the 23 select states grew just 0.2 percent, or 3 pounds more than a year ago. Monthly production per cow averaged 1,657 pounds in November.

More than half of the top 23 states saw gains in milk production in November. Kansas led the way with a year-over-year gain of 14.7 percent. Texas followed with a gain of 11.3 percent. Pennsylvania saw the greatest year-over-year decline at -4.8 percent. Indiana, down 3.6 percent, saw the next largest year-over-year decline. For more from the report, click here.

A Japanese food safety commission is expected to acknowledge the safety of meat from cloned cattle and swine, a step toward Tokyo allowing cloned meat to enter the market, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Tuesday, citing government sources. A subcommittee of experts has concluded and will report to the food safety panel, which is under the jurisdiction of the Cabinet Office, that meat from cloned animals is as safe as that from ordinary livestock. The official announcement is expected to pave the way for distribution of beef from cloned cows in the market, the sources told the Yomiuri Shimbum. The food safety panel is expected to submit a report on the safety of cloned animals to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry by the end of the year, the sources reportedly said. The central government will make the final decision.