Tough times

[Broke Cowboy]

My biggest hurdle is convenience for the consumer to purchase my product. I can sell all the sides I produce, but the beef I carry in inventory for sale by the individual packages is limited as far as what I can sell direct. This is mostly because I work an off farm job during the week and customers have to make arrangements to purchase. Saturday mornings I spend at the farmers market. At some point I would like to get a walk-in freezer and have a farm store where one wall of the freezer is the glass doors with shelves. I would probably start with the store having very limited hours. I would also love to get into pastured pork, possibly acorn finished, I hesitate taking on too much more while working an off farm job.

Ben check with your USDA agent. Holding coolers and freezers qualify for goverment assistance just like grain bins. Low interest loans. :wink:

Build one - they are easy to build - plans are everywhere.

BC

 

[Ben H]

With the commercial real estate bubble getting ready to pop, and living in an area with a very high restaurant per capita rate, I should be able to find something used. My butcher shop built their new freezer with two units out of a semi truck mounted in the wall.

 

[Denny]

Grassfarmer, I do not think that there will be a mass exodus of people switching from beef to pork because of price. And it is obviously true that lower farm-gate prices don't translate into lower retail prices.

However, when the commodity pork is as as cheap as it is for the processor, it is a beautiful opportunity for them to run more "feature" pricing that will move tonnes of product over the store shelf in a short time. For instance, cooked, ready to serve ham at $1.49/lb.

That kind of price differential makes it easy for the shopper to drop one of those into her cart rather than an uncooked beef roast at 2 -4 times the price.

And even getting 1 % of the consumers doing that switch does have a significant impact on the beef sales.

In my opinion, pork just doesn't have the taste or texture that it used to and we eat very little of it - bacon occasionally and ham maybe once a month. Can't stand a pork roast.

BenH I think your assessment of the efficiency factor in pork is bang on.

Burnt 2 factors in taste. Hogs have been bred way to lean. They are now trying to reverse this big mistake.

Taste and texture is also controlled by what hogs are eating. Then hogs are confined and developing no muscle. The meat is basically a mass of fibers with no structure.

We raise all of our hogs on pasture. No confinement facilities. There is a difference in pork raised the old way and the factory way.

Also your bacons and cured meats here is the gist of these products. The average bacon is cured and packaged in 12 hours from the time of killing and chilling. Also many packers have resorted to using tumblers to speed the introduction of cure into the finished product. This results in a product with no texture or basically a pile of mush.

Nothing is about quality any more its simply about the bottom line. Another example of this is Barbque. 30 years ago Barbque was slow cooked for hours. Your typical pork shoulder was slow cooked over live coals for an hour per pound of shoulder weight. A whole hog was slow cooked for 26 hours over live coals.

Today people accept Barbque as a sauce splashed on some meat with a liquid smoke added. Anyone who has had the real product will not accept the bottom line product of today.

Country hams used to age for a year before being sold and were dry cured. Today a country ham is pickled with a a brine and pumped full of fluids prior to marketing to stop any shrink. Clifty Farms Country hams are a pickled or brine cured ham.

Last the gassing of meats in vacuum packaging is also the cause of the inferior taste of the retail product. They gas the product to be able to extend the shelf life.

All interesting but when you barbeque a whole hog you best have a very small fire below it to make it last 24 hours on a spit we start them about 6 am and by 2 or 3 in the afternoon they are falling apart on the spit. I know a guy who fell asleep while SLOW cooking his when he awoke all the meat had fallen off and ended up in the ashes. We get no complaints when the roasted hog is served..

To me barbeque is a process you need to do yourself you can't just buy it at the local store.

 

[Anonymous]

Grassfarmer, I do not think that there will be a mass exodus of people switching from beef to pork because of price. And it is obviously true that lower farm-gate prices don't translate into lower retail prices.

However, when the commodity pork is as as cheap as it is for the processor, it is a beautiful opportunity for them to run more "feature" pricing that will move tonnes of product over the store shelf in a short time. For instance, cooked, ready to serve ham at $1.49/lb.

That kind of price differential makes it easy for the shopper to drop one of those into her cart rather than an uncooked beef roast at 2 -4 times the price.

And even getting 1 % of the consumers doing that switch does have a significant impact on the beef sales.

In my opinion, pork just doesn't have the taste or texture that it used to and we eat very little of it - bacon occasionally and ham maybe once a month. Can't stand a pork roast.

BenH I think your assessment of the efficiency factor in pork is bang on.

Burnt 2 factors in taste. Hogs have been bred way to lean. They are now trying to reverse this big mistake.

Taste and texture is also controlled by what hogs are eating. Then hogs are confined and developing no muscle. The meat is basically a mass of fibers with no structure.

We raise all of our hogs on pasture. No confinement facilities. There is a difference in pork raised the old way and the factory way.

Also your bacons and cured meats here is the gist of these products. The average bacon is cured and packaged in 12 hours from the time of killing and chilling. Also many packers have resorted to using tumblers to speed the introduction of cure into the finished product. This results in a product with no texture or basically a pile of mush.

Nothing is about quality any more its simply about the bottom line. Another example of this is Barbque. 30 years ago Barbque was slow cooked for hours. Your typical pork shoulder was slow cooked over live coals for an hour per pound of shoulder weight. A whole hog was slow cooked for 26 hours over live coals.

Today people accept Barbque as a sauce splashed on some meat with a liquid smoke added. Anyone who has had the real product will not accept the bottom line product of today.

Country hams used to age for a year before being sold and were dry cured. Today a country ham is pickled with a a brine and pumped full of fluids prior to marketing to stop any shrink. Clifty Farms Country hams are a pickled or brine cured ham.

Last the gassing of meats in vacuum packaging is also the cause of the inferior taste of the retail product. They gas the product to be able to extend the shelf life.

All interesting but when you barbeque a whole hog you best have a very small fire below it to make it last 24 hours on a spit we start them about 6 am and by 2 or 3 in the afternoon they are falling apart on the spit. I know a guy who fell asleep while SLOW cooking his when he awoke all the meat had fallen off and ended up in the ashes. We get no complaints when the roasted hog is served..

To me barbeque is a process you need to do yourself you can't just buy it at the local store.

There is a little bit of difference in a roaster which can weigh anywhere from 50/100 lbs when alive and a 240 lb live weight barbque hog. Try cooking a top hog on that spit in that time frame and you will end up with a hog unfit to eat. :lol:

There is also a big difference in the taste of a hog that has been roasted versus a true southern barbqued hog. The roasted hog is good but cannot compete with the old time way.

 

[Denny]

Burnt 2 factors in taste. Hogs have been bred way to lean. They are now trying to reverse this big mistake.

Taste and texture is also controlled by what hogs are eating. Then hogs are confined and developing no muscle. The meat is basically a mass of fibers with no structure.

We raise all of our hogs on pasture. No confinement facilities. There is a difference in pork raised the old way and the factory way.

Also your bacons and cured meats here is the gist of these products. The average bacon is cured and packaged in 12 hours from the time of killing and chilling. Also many packers have resorted to using tumblers to speed the introduction of cure into the finished product. This results in a product with no texture or basically a pile of mush.

Nothing is about quality any more its simply about the bottom line. Another example of this is Barbque. 30 years ago Barbque was slow cooked for hours. Your typical pork shoulder was slow cooked over live coals for an hour per pound of shoulder weight. A whole hog was slow cooked for 26 hours over live coals.

Today people accept Barbque as a sauce splashed on some meat with a liquid smoke added. Anyone who has had the real product will not accept the bottom line product of today.

Country hams used to age for a year before being sold and were dry cured. Today a country ham is pickled with a a brine and pumped full of fluids prior to marketing to stop any shrink. Clifty Farms Country hams are a pickled or brine cured ham.

Last the gassing of meats in vacuum packaging is also the cause of the inferior taste of the retail product. They gas the product to be able to extend the shelf life.

All interesting but when you barbeque a whole hog you best have a very small fire below it to make it last 24 hours on a spit we start them about 6 am and by 2 or 3 in the afternoon they are falling apart on the spit. I know a guy who fell asleep while SLOW cooking his when he awoke all the meat had fallen off and ended up in the ashes. We get no complaints when the roasted hog is served..

To me barbeque is a process you need to do yourself you can't just buy it at the local store.

There is a little bit of difference in a roaster which can weigh anywhere from 50/100 lbs when alive and a 240 lb live weight barbque hog. Try cooking a top hog on that spit in that time frame and you will end up with a hog unfit to eat. :lol:

There is also a big difference in the taste of a hog that has been roasted versus a true southern barbqued hog. The roasted hog is good but cannot compete with the old time way.

We arent Hmong we don't roast 50 to 100# pigs we roast 225 to 300# live weight hogs try to stay at 240#s the bigger ones don't fit real well in our roaster. I guess you have to be from the south to know how to barbeque a hog now thats a hoot in itself.

 

[krt966]

Yeah a 240 lb. pig. A hot summer night, Several good friends(male and female),a bunch of hickory,White oak, and pecan wood. A bunch of coolers of adult beverages,kids running everywhere. let me spice it up a little more: 2 gallons of apple cider vinegar,2 lbs of butter. 1cup of ground red pepper,and 1 cup of black pepper and about 18 large size lemons. mix it all together and use it liberaly on meat when the skin side is down and meat side up. when you can outdo that holler at me.

 

[Anonymous]

All interesting but when you barbeque a whole hog you best have a very small fire below it to make it last 24 hours on a spit we start them about 6 am and by 2 or 3 in the afternoon they are falling apart on the spit. I know a guy who fell asleep while SLOW cooking his when he awoke all the meat had fallen off and ended up in the ashes. We get no complaints when the roasted hog is served..

To me barbeque is a process you need to do yourself you can't just buy it at the local store.

There is a little bit of difference in a roaster which can weigh anywhere from 50/100 lbs when alive and a 240 lb live weight barbque hog. Try cooking a top hog on that spit in that time frame and you will end up with a hog unfit to eat. :lol:

There is also a big difference in the taste of a hog that has been roasted versus a true southern barbqued hog. The roasted hog is good but cannot compete with the old time way.

We arent Hmong we don't roast 50 to 100# pigs we roast 225 to 300# live weight hogs try to stay at 240#s the bigger ones don't fit real well in our roaster. I guess you have to be from the south to know how to barbeque a hog now thats a hoot in itself.

Denny when and where have you ever had a hog cooked southern style?

Just for the heck of it would you post a picture of the roaster that cooks a 300 lb hog? Lastly you used a 8 hour time frame in your initial post. it would be impossible to cook a 300 lb hog even in a temperature controlled oven that would accommodate it. And expect it to be tender in 8 hours. Let alone done. Not trying for a pizzing match. but I do know hog cooking first hand!

You ever hear of Memphis in May. My brothers won several Barbque competitions in 1985. Competed in the ribs shoulder and whole hog categories in Memphis that year.

You can cook a hog by convection, on a spit, and over live coals the old way. Live coals 1 hour per 10 lb of live weight cooking time will win hands down any day of the week.

What are you firing your roaster with and how? What temperature are you cooking at?

 

[Northern Rancher]

I volounterr as judge!!

 

[Hay Feeder]

We watched the swine industry fade away in our area that was once known as the feeder pig capitol of the world. Now we are watching the dairy insdustry going the same way. We once had several pig auction barns the last one closed its operation in 1994. We have a milk processing plant in a nearby town that is slowly turning into a milk hauling dispatch line.
I worry if the beef cattle industry is slowly going the same way. A local sale barn could not get enough cattle to hold a weekly auction so they tryied to have a buying station but ran ads this week its closing also. A regional cattle market had 1,000 hd less this week than last week. I will keep you posted. To many people have bought land from farmers that a conservation oriented people. Those people pay much more for the land than cattle people can produce off of it and take the land OUT of production. Saturday I helped at a registered cattle consignment sale. Most of the consigners were Bankers, Lawyers, etc. The buyers came from out of state thinking this was big cattle country. I helped load those people bought 3 or 4 cows and a bull and became instatnt cattle ranchers in one afternoon. When I got home dads cows were out on the neigbors place. The grass was as tall as the windshield on the pickup. The neighbor has ownered this place for 20 years and does not allow livestock on his land nor keep up any fence. Our state fencing law now protects these kind of people. No sharing on fence we have to keep fence to keep our cattle off other land thats the law.
A progressive ranch south of us supplied beef to a steak house that had just started it lasted 18 months great food but no cusotmers. IN that same town not one but two mom and pop restruants also closed at the same time...
Tough times where are the cattle. Everyone did not sell out because of high prices thats for sure.

 

[MsSage]

PSF-Premium Standard Farms here in Dalhart is in the final stage of closing down. They have one maybe 2 more loads to go out then tear down. They had the farrow to finish hogs/pigs.

 

[Anonymous]

We watched the swine industry fade away in our area that was once known as the feeder pig capitol of the world. Now we are watching the dairy insdustry going the same way. We once had several pig auction barns the last one closed its operation in 1994. We have a milk processing plant in a nearby town that is slowly turning into a milk hauling dispatch line.
I worry if the beef cattle industry is slowly going the same way. A local sale barn could not get enough cattle to hold a weekly auction so they tryied to have a buying station but ran ads this week its closing also. A regional cattle market had 1,000 hd less this week than last week. I will keep you posted. To many people have bought land from farmers that a conservation oriented people. Those people pay much more for the land than cattle people can produce off of it and take the land OUT of production. Saturday I helped at a registered cattle consignment sale. Most of the consigners were Bankers, Lawyers, etc. The buyers came from out of state thinking this was big cattle country. I helped load those people bought 3 or 4 cows and a bull and became instatnt cattle ranchers in one afternoon. When I got home dads cows were out on the neigbors place. The grass was as tall as the windshield on the pickup. The neighbor has ownered this place for 20 years and does not allow livestock on his land nor keep up any fence. Our state fencing law now protects these kind of people. No sharing on fence we have to keep fence to keep our cattle off other land thats the law.
A progressive ranch south of us supplied beef to a steak house that had just started it lasted 18 months great food but no cusotmers. IN that same town not one but two mom and pop restruants also closed at the same time...
Tough times where are the cattle. Everyone did not sell out because of high prices thats for sure.

Less cattle in the U.S. now than in the great depression. Sad but some things are way to familiar with then and now.

 

[Anonymous]

http://gmy.news.yahoo.com/vid/16153498

This is the wave the pig industry is betting on. :lol:

I just wonder how they do Barbqued?

 

[RobertMac]

We watched the swine industry fade away in our area that was once known as the feeder pig capitol of the world. Now we are watching the dairy insdustry going the same way. We once had several pig auction barns the last one closed its operation in 1994. We have a milk processing plant in a nearby town that is slowly turning into a milk hauling dispatch line.
I worry if the beef cattle industry is slowly going the same way. A local sale barn could not get enough cattle to hold a weekly auction so they tryied to have a buying station but ran ads this week its closing also. A regional cattle market had 1,000 hd less this week than last week. I will keep you posted. To many people have bought land from farmers that a conservation oriented people. Those people pay much more for the land than cattle people can produce off of it and take the land OUT of production. Saturday I helped at a registered cattle consignment sale. Most of the consigners were Bankers, Lawyers, etc. The buyers came from out of state thinking this was big cattle country. I helped load those people bought 3 or 4 cows and a bull and became instatnt cattle ranchers in one afternoon. When I got home dads cows were out on the neigbors place. The grass was as tall as the windshield on the pickup. The neighbor has ownered this place for 20 years and does not allow livestock on his land nor keep up any fence. Our state fencing law now protects these kind of people. No sharing on fence we have to keep fence to keep our cattle off other land thats the law.
A progressive ranch south of us supplied beef to a steak house that had just started it lasted 18 months great food but no cusotmers. IN that same town not one but two mom and pop restruants also closed at the same time...
Tough times where are the cattle. Everyone did not sell out because of high prices thats for sure.

Less cattle in the U.S. now than in the great depression. Sad but some things are way to familiar with then and now.

Yet beef supply has not changed proportionally...why???

The same global food corporations that have "top down" vertically integrated pork and poultry industries, now control the beef industry...why should beef producers expect a different outcome?

Producers are hurting because consumers aren't buying our product...who is in charge of marketing????

Most important, Pig Farmer and Denny...skin on or skin off?

 

[katrina]

I volounterr as judge!!

Ditto......

Just send it up for me to do a taste test.......... :wave:

 

[Northern Rancher]

Katrina it's roadtrip time!!!

 

[Anonymous]

We watched the swine industry fade away in our area that was once known as the feeder pig capitol of the world. Now we are watching the dairy insdustry going the same way. We once had several pig auction barns the last one closed its operation in 1994. We have a milk processing plant in a nearby town that is slowly turning into a milk hauling dispatch line.
I worry if the beef cattle industry is slowly going the same way. A local sale barn could not get enough cattle to hold a weekly auction so they tryied to have a buying station but ran ads this week its closing also. A regional cattle market had 1,000 hd less this week than last week. I will keep you posted. To many people have bought land from farmers that a conservation oriented people. Those people pay much more for the land than cattle people can produce off of it and take the land OUT of production. Saturday I helped at a registered cattle consignment sale. Most of the consigners were Bankers, Lawyers, etc. The buyers came from out of state thinking this was big cattle country. I helped load those people bought 3 or 4 cows and a bull and became instatnt cattle ranchers in one afternoon. When I got home dads cows were out on the neigbors place. The grass was as tall as the windshield on the pickup. The neighbor has ownered this place for 20 years and does not allow livestock on his land nor keep up any fence. Our state fencing law now protects these kind of people. No sharing on fence we have to keep fence to keep our cattle off other land thats the law.
A progressive ranch south of us supplied beef to a steak house that had just started it lasted 18 months great food but no cusotmers. IN that same town not one but two mom and pop restruants also closed at the same time...
Tough times where are the cattle. Everyone did not sell out because of high prices thats for sure.

Less cattle in the U.S. now than in the great depression. Sad but some things are way to familiar with then and now.

Yet beef supply has not changed proportionally...why???

The same global food corporations that have "top down" vertically integrated pork and poultry industries, now control the beef industry...why should beef producers expect a different outcome?

Producers are hurting because consumers aren't buying our product...who is in charge of marketing????

Most important, Pig Farmer and Denny...skin on or skin off?

ONLY one way to cook a whole hog skin on. You start out belly down for 14 hours over live coals placed under the shoulders and hams. { a square shovel full under each ham and under each shoulder. A few more scattered under the loins and side meat.} Re/fire about every hour and fifteen to thirty minutes.

When you flip the hog at the 14 hour time frame the skin being on the hog is very important for two reasons.

One the skin holds the juices and they begin to marinate throughout the hog for the next 10 hours while cooking with the belly up.

Secondly if the skin is off the fats begin to cook of at this time more so than the first 14 hours. Flare up become problematic and a hog can explode in mere minutes, if these are not cared for as they happen.

proper cooking temp is 225 degrees.

Its best if the hog has warmed up to a room temperature some prior to being placed on the pit. Kind of like cooking a steak. If the hog is placed on the pit right out of the cooler it tends to set the fibers up and shock the meat so to speak.

In the Carolinas they use a mustard sauce. However in my opinion there is nothing better than a sauce with vinegar, apple juice, and lemon juice as the 3 major ingredients. Other ingredients salt black pepper, ketchup, sugar, and a good helping of ground Cayenne pepper.

If you want to cook one at home nothing fancy is required. A pit 5 feet wide by 6 feet long out of cinder blocks 8x16 on level ground just staggered and stacked on top of each other. On one side you must have 2-16 inch openings with metal plates to cover the openings with when you are not firing the hog. Pit should be 4 blocks high no more no less.

Fill the blocks with sand to help hold the heat in. You will need two grates about 54 inches x 68 inches. One to start cooking on the second to place on top when it comes time to flip the hog. These grates can be made of angel iron with cat walk type mesh for covering the angel iron with. You will need two braces evenly placed. When you go to flip the hog place the second grate on top off the hog which is skin side up. Wire this to the bottom grate as tightly as possible. Make sure not to place the wires where they will be on top of the blocks when you flip the hog. These grates must be tight as [possible to keep the hog from moving when flipping it.

2X10'S placed around the bottom grate stood up on edge screwed together form a lid. Cover the hog with cardboard. you want smoke to escape as this is critical to taste. The drippins from the hog will create flavor and smoke from the wood will cook into the meat. Dead smoke is what they make creosote from. It will leave an off flavor in the meat.

To control your temp NO THERMOMETER IS NEEDED. Place your hand on the cardboard. If it can stay there for 5 seconds without being to hot it is the right temp. Anything less than 5 seconds is to hot anything longer than 5 seconds is to cool. If you cant count put a female rabbit and buck together the buck will show you 5 seconds.

Lastly every time you refire. The coals should kind of be in a pile under the shoulders and hams. Before placing new coals in to refire take a rake and scatter the old coals around.

Before ever cooking a hog on a new block pit be sure and fire it up for about 6/8 hours to season the blocks and not flavor the hog with concrete curing.

Maintaining just the right temp is essential to quality.

we make our coals from a constant fire of hickory and oak slab wood. A little beech is ok but not much.

You will be wore out after cooking it but it sure is worth the trouble.

I cannot emphasize enough not getting the hog to hot after its flipped. it will catch just like a pot of grease on the stove that has gotten to hot. [/b]

I am wore out just from typing this. :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

We watched the swine industry fade away in our area that was once known as the feeder pig capitol of the world. Now we are watching the dairy insdustry going the same way. We once had several pig auction barns the last one closed its operation in 1994. We have a milk processing plant in a nearby town that is slowly turning into a milk hauling dispatch line.
I worry if the beef cattle industry is slowly going the same way. A local sale barn could not get enough cattle to hold a weekly auction so they tryied to have a buying station but ran ads this week its closing also. A regional cattle market had 1,000 hd less this week than last week. I will keep you posted. To many people have bought land from farmers that a conservation oriented people. Those people pay much more for the land than cattle people can produce off of it and take the land OUT of production. Saturday I helped at a registered cattle consignment sale. Most of the consigners were Bankers, Lawyers, etc. The buyers came from out of state thinking this was big cattle country. I helped load those people bought 3 or 4 cows and a bull and became instatnt cattle ranchers in one afternoon. When I got home dads cows were out on the neigbors place. The grass was as tall as the windshield on the pickup. The neighbor has ownered this place for 20 years and does not allow livestock on his land nor keep up any fence. Our state fencing law now protects these kind of people. No sharing on fence we have to keep fence to keep our cattle off other land thats the law.
A progressive ranch south of us supplied beef to a steak house that had just started it lasted 18 months great food but no cusotmers. IN that same town not one but two mom and pop restruants also closed at the same time...
Tough times where are the cattle. Everyone did not sell out because of high prices thats for sure.

Less cattle in the U.S. now than in the great depression. Sad but some things are way to familiar with then and now.

Yet beef supply has not changed proportionally...why???

The same global food corporations that have "top down" vertically integrated pork and poultry industries, now control the beef industry...why should beef producers expect a different outcome?

Producers are hurting because consumers aren't buying our product...who is in charge of marketing????

Most important, Pig Farmer and Denny...skin on or skin off?

To many imports from the south. ALSO some brothers in Brazil or Argentina control the packing houses here for the biggest part.

Also who can afford roasts 6 dollars a pound steaks 10 to 12 dollars a pound. 3 to 4 dollars a pound for ground meats. Then lets not overlook quality a mere 2 percent nationwide grades prime. Lots of the prime is shipped out of the country because of the scarcity of prime around the world. When the beef industry began to focus on one thing being marbling the other quality traits were left on the sidelines.

Marbling is important but to achieve it at a loss of quality beef was a mistake. Its that plain and simple.

Look at pork and chicken prices retail. Sausage 4 dollars a pound from a 25 cent sow. chicken breasts 3 to 4 dollars a pound. Legs wings and thighs 2 dollars a pound. All the while these products are processed by illegals underpaid. The farmer rancher producer cannot make ends meet while someone is making off like a bandit.

Then there is one other thing facing the beef producer its called collusion. Collusion by the people that purchase your and my animals at the sale barns.

These good old boys have been making off with the farmers/ranchers profits for to long. That is why we are changing to direct marketing our beef and pork products plain and simple.

There is a demand for the product minus the middle men we must develop it. No one is going to do it for us. If enough producers go this way then the tides will turn and only then.

 

[katrina]

We should of bought the Ainsworth packing plant....

 

[Anonymous]

This will shut down a lot exports- no matter what Vilsack or anyone says...A lot of folks in the world don't agree with our industry driven science...

Release No. 0514.09

Contact:
Angela Harless (202) 720-4623

USDA CONFIRMS 2009 PANDEMIC H1N1 INFLUENZA VIRUS PRESENT IN MINNESOTA FAIR PIG SAMPLE

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack: "U.S. Pork Is Safe to Eat"

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2009 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) has confirmed the presence of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in a pig sample collected at the Minnesota State Fair submitted by the University of Minnesota. Additional samples are being tested.

"We have fully engaged our trading partners to remind them that several international organizations, including the World Organization for Animal Health, have advised that there is no scientific basis to restrict trade in pork and pork products," said Vilsack. "People cannot get this flu from eating pork or pork products. Pork is safe to eat."

Sequence results on the hemagglutinin, neuraminidase and matrix genes from the virus isolate are compatible with reported 2009 pandemic H1N1 sequences. The samples collected at the 2009 Minnesota State Fair were part of a University of Iowa and University of Minnesota cooperative agreement research project funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which documents influenza viruses where humans and pigs interact at such as fairs.

The infection of the fair pig does not suggest infection of commercial herds because show pigs and commercially raised pigs are in separate segments of the swine industry that do not typically interchange personnel or animal stock. USDA continues to remind U.S. swine producers about the need for good hygiene, biosecurity and other practices that will prevent the introduction and spread of influenza viruses in their herd and encourage them to participate in USDA's swine influenza virus surveillance program.

More information about USDA's 2009 pandemic H1N1 efforts is available at www.usda.gov/H1N1flu.

 

[garn]

That is so sad.

A hog barn without power is a dangerous place. Those ventilation fans are there for a reason. :shock:

Recession???? What a joke. It's called a Depression. We've been reliving the thirties for six years, and now the hog producers have joined us. What will it take to make anyone care? :???:

As long as there is food on the shelves, the majority of the people will not care. And if the food comes from Argentina or New Zealand, they will still not care.

Until Argentina gets hit with another round of FMD and then they will wonder why we don't grow our own food . . . .

It's not so much that they don't care - they don't know. Most consumers live in urban areas and are far removed from what happens on the farm. We need to reconnect with consumers and tell our story - I think they would be very supportive if they knew the circumstances most producers are in. I was delighted to read the AlbertaViews magazine this month as it's feature is beef production and has a series of articles about the history of beef production to the modern day crisis, outlining the role of the packer in our demise, quoting discussion from the legislature between an NDP politician grilling the Ag minister on why his government consistently backs the US packers against AB producers. The concluding page advises consumers what they can do to help the producer - eg avoiding product processed by the packer monopoly, buying locally or direct from producers etc. This is an outstanding magazine - I wish we could spend part of the ABP budget buying these and mailing this issue to every consumer in the province.

Free kids exhibits at the Iowa State Fair. Half of Iowa's nearly 3 million now live in roughly 10-15 counties. Iowa is becoming more and more of an urban state.

Little Hands on the Farm teaches children the importance of agriculture and how it affects their daily lives in a fun and interactive way. Children ages 2 to 10 become farmers at this free, hands-on exhibit. Children obtain a gathering basket and proceed along a path that includes a garden, grain bin, apple orchard, chicken coop, tractor shed, sheep barn and dairy barn. After gathering particular items along the way they get the chance to sell these items at the Little Hands on the Farm Farmers' Market for a Little Hands dollar to spend at the Grocery Store for such items as a piece of fruit, a granola bar or an ice cream sandwich. The last tour leaves the Start Barn at 7:30 p.m.

Paul R. Knapp Animal Learning Center
Open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., located next to Little Hands on the Farm

The 2007 Iowa State Fair marked the debut of the Paul R. Knapp Animal Learning Center and Christensen Farms Hall. This agricultural education exhibit features live births of various species including cows, sows, nanny goats and ewes. Fairgoers of all ages will be drawn to the chicks and ostriches hatching, along with the baby ducklings. In 2009, Fairgoers will also be able to see hatching turkeys!