- Author: John M Harper
APHIS outlined its forthcoming animal disease traceability proposal to Secretary Tom Vilsack’s Advisory Committee on Animal Health. The animal traceability proposal is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register in April 2011. A Final Rule is expected in April of 2012. According to the draft proposal, cattle and bison traceability would be implemented in three stages:
Stage 1 – to take effect next year, would require official identification of all sexually intact cattle and bison 18 months of age or older moved in interstate commerce; dairy cattle of any age; cattle and bison of any age used for rodeo or recreational events; and cattle and bison of any aged used for shows or exhibitions.
Beef cattle under 18 months would be temporarily exempted from the requirement.
Stage 2 – scheduled for 2014, would access Stage 1 in order to determine implementation plan in Stage 3 for cattle under 18 months of age. APHIS expects a 70 percent compliance rate with the official identification requirements for all cattle eligible under Stage 1.
Stage 3 – at a future date to be arranged, would require identification of all cattle, including feeder cattle under 18 months old. The draft animal traceability proposal and a transcript of the advisory committee meeting are expected to be posted on the APHIS website at www.aphis.usda.gov, as reported by Food Chemical News.
- Author: John M Harper
Attention Horse Owners!
Manna Pro Products, LLC is voluntarily recalling a single lot (1006) of Family Farm Complete Horse 10 horse feed, UPC 0 95668 90151 6, packaged in 40 lb. bags because it may contain monensin sodium (Rumensin). Monensin sodium is a medication approved for use in some livestock and poultry species, but can be fatal to horses if fed at sufficiently high levels.
- Product: Family Farm Complete Horse 10 horse feed
- Distributed: To retailers in California, Nevada, and Oregon
- Why: It may contain monensin sodium (Rumensin), which can be fatal to horses if fed at sufficiently high levels
- Illnesses reported: None
- Author: John M Harper
On November 30th, the U.S. Senate approved the Food Safety Modernization Act by a vote of 73 to 25. The following information was prepared by Dani Friedland and appeared on the MeatingPlace.com web site. I think it is important information for livestock producers and others involved in the food industry and that’s why I’ve reposted here.
The legislation gives the Food and Drug Administration more authority, including the power to compel the mandatory recall of a contaminated food product and suspend a facility’s registration if a reasonable probability exists that the food it produces could cause serious health consequences or death.
It also increases the number of FDA inspections at food facilities and enhances surveillance systems for food-borne illness outbreaks. The bill also calls for the creation of a pilot project to test methods for quickly tracking and tracing food during food-borne illness outbreaks.
The bill also increases funding for the FDA, requires importers to verify the safety of imported food and calls for a national strategy to protect the food supply from terrorism.
Producers who sell directly to consumers and have less than $500,000 in annual sales will be exempted from some of the new regulations. These producers would still be subject to local and state food safety regulation, and the FDA would be able to withdraw the exemption if the farm or facility was associated with an outbreak of food-borne illness.
“For too long, we’ve allowed trips to the grocery store to be a gamble for American families,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement. “The bipartisan bill passed by the Senate today will give our citizens some long-overdue peace of mind in the supermarket aisles, establishing tough new protections against contaminated food.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said in debate earlier this month that the last substantial change to FDA food law was made in 1938.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced the legislation on March 3, 2009. The House of Representatives passed similar legislation in July 2009. (See “House passes food safety bill” on Meatingplace, July 31, 2009.)
Now the Senate and House must reconcile their versions of the food safety reforms by the end of the session. Some Democrats in the House would consider passing the Senate version to speed up the process, according to The New York Times.
The meat industry has been watching this legislation with great interest. Even though most of its regulation comes from USDA, some meat industry lobbyists believe the passage of these sweeping changes to FDA regulation could spawn calls for similar reforms at USDA.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack praised the Senate action, saying, “As a co-chair of President Obama’s Food Safety Working Group, I commend the Senate on today’s passage of the food safety bill. There is no more fundamental function of government than protecting consumers from harm, which is why food safety is one of USDA’s top priorities. The bill addresses longstanding challenges in the food safety and defense system by promoting a prevention-oriented approach and providing the Federal Government with appropriate tools to prevent foodborne illness.”
- Author: John M Harper
It was developed by Laurel Marcus in 1999 and sponsored for its first five years by the Sotoyome Resource Conservation District. Much of it was patterned after the UCCE Rangeland Water Quality Planning shortcourses. It focused initially on grapegrowers, and will now expand to grazed rangelands in the North Bay counties. A colleague of mine, Dr. Larry Ford, is a scientific advisor for development and implementation of the new program. For more information, go to http://www.fishfriendlyfarming.org/index.html.
- Author: John M Harper
The USDA’s Market News Service reports on four classes of cull cows, which are divided primarily on fatness. The highest conditioned cull cows are reported as "Breakers.” These are quite fleshy and generally have excellent dressing percentages. Body condition score 7 and above is required to be "Breakers.” Note: If you don’t know about Body Condition Scoring (BCS) in cattle check out the following web site for good definitions and pictures of the various BCS’s: http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/beef/as1026w.htm.
The next class is a more moderate conditioned group of cows called "Boners" or "Boning Utility.” These cows usually fall in the body condition score grades of 5-7. Many well-nourished commercial beef cows would be graded "Boners.”
The last two grades are the "Leans" and "Lights.” These cows are very thin (body condition scores 1-4). In general, these are expected to be lower in dressing percentage than fleshier cows and more easily bruised in transport than cows in better body condition. "Lights" are thin cows that are very small and would have very low hot carcass weights.
Leans and Lights are nearly always lower in price per pound than are the Boners and the Breakers. "Lights" often bring the lowest price per pound because the amount of saleable product is small, even though the overhead costs of slaughtering and processing are about the same as larger, fleshier cows. Also, thin cows are more susceptible to bruising while in transit to market and to the harvest plant. Therefore, more trim loss is likely to occur with thin cull cows than with those in better body condition.
From a producer standpoint, when selling cull cows, it is generally more profitable to feed the Leans and Lights up to get to Boners. It is generally not economical for a producer to feed a cull cow up to the Breakers class as the price differential between them and Boners is usually small.
To make it more confusing you’ll also see the prices reported for cull cows based on their USDA carcass grade or their expected carcass grade. The most common grades, in order of the least amount of marbling to the greatest amount of marbling are: Canner, Cutter, Utility, and Commercial. Younger aged cows (30 months or less) may also reach the Standard, Select or Choice grade.
Full mouth and broken mouth are relative terms for cull cows that describe the age of the animal. Check out the following web page on aging cattle from their teeth to see some photos: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OFO/TSC/bse_information.htm. Another age term, which you might encounter, is smooth mouth. Sometimes, you’ll see reports that only use abbreviations like FM = full mouth; SM = smooth mouth; and BM=broken mouth.
Other terms are used when Calvy or pregnant cows are marketed and the most common seen is Close-up. Close-up means the cows are 21 days or less prepartum (before calving). You might also see Far-off which means 60 to 21 days prepartum. Interestingly, these terms come from the dairy industry and are used for grouping cows on the dairy. These prepartum terms are often used to describe heifers too.
References Used and for Further Reading:
Marketing Cull Cows How and When?
http://beef.unl.edu/beefreports/symp-1995-19-XIV.shtml
United States Standard for Grades of Slaughter Cattle
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3062519
Know USDA Cull Cow Grades Before Marketing Culls
http://beefmagazine.com/cowcalfweekly/1030-know-usda-cull-cow-grades-market/
