News Update
Sept. 9, 2009

Watch I Am Angus on Youtube.com

A new documentary series developed and produced by the American Angus Association is airing on television and satellite networks across the country and is also available online.

The program, titled I Am Angus, highlights the lives of people who have dedicated themselves to the advancement of the breed and the beef industry.

AgDay and U.S. Farm Report are broadcast by more than 150 TV stations nationwide and on RFD-TV. Each weekday morning AgDay reaches more than 200,000 households. More than 500,000 households receive U.S. Farm Report each weekend.

To view three of the programs that have already aired, please click here.

Ag Economist Sees More Rough Times For Beef Industry

The pain of recent record losses in the U.S. cattle feeding industry will not diminish soon, but tightening supplies could lead to a modest rebound in late 2010, according to agricultural economist James Mintert.

Speaking at Kansas State University’s (K-State’s) Risk and Profit Conference Aug. 21, Mintert said that consumers have responded to the U.S. economic downturn by saving more and spending less. Not a bad thing on the face of it, but when consumers are saving it means that they’re spending less on some foods, such as beef.

Mintert, who recently became the assistant director of Extension at Purdue University, said, “historically, beef demand has benefited from growth in the U.S. economy and a low (consumer) savings rate.” In 2009 and into 2010, however, he expects weak consumer expenditures to hold back beef demand.

That demand slowdown is partly responsible for the record losses realized by cattle feeders during 2008 and 2009. Read more.

HHS Debuts New Food Safety Web Site

The Obama administration is rolling out a new web site designed to streamline food safety information for consumers.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the new web site, available at www.foodsafety.gov, during today’s Consumer Federation of America’s food policy conference. The site will put food-related information from all federal agencies in one place, including recall and contamination alerts and tips on how to safely handle food.

The web site is a joint effort between HHS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Sebelius says the site would help consumers who have been worried about product recalls.

The consumer web site is the second federal initiative announced in as many days on food safety. On Tuesday, the FDA announced more stringent rules for reporting potential contaminations and the creation of a new electronic database for manufacturers to use to report food safety issues.

Under the new rules, producers are required to report products that could harm consumers within 24 hours.

The law creating the database was passed in 2007, after Congress criticized the FDA for its handling of safety problems involving a variety of food and drugs.

— Provided by The Associated Press (AP).

National Animal ID — Through Another Route?

Even though Congress voted earlier this year to stop funding the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), there is some thinking within the livestock industry that identification could conceivably be implemented through other legislation,” says Stephen Hammack in the August 2009 Texas AgriLife “Beef Cattle Browsing” newsletter.

According to Hammack, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (HR 2749) is working its way through the legislative process. Among other things, the legislation would charge the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to require that “each person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds a food” would have to “maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food, link that history with the distribution of the food, establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons, and use a unique identifier for each facility owned or operated by such person for such purpose.”

Hammack says there is no mention of precisely how identification of such traceback would be done or of how far traceback would extend.

Scientists Develop Method to Detect Live E. coli in Beef

University of Missouri (MU) food scientists have come up with a new method to detect live E. coli cells in ground beef.

According to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 70,000 people in the U.S. become ill each year from infection with Escherichia coli O157:H7. This bacterium colonizes the intestinal tract of cattle and can contaminate beef products during harvest and processing.

The MU researchers developed a two-step method that can distinguish between dead and living E. coli cells.

Dead cells won’t make you sick, but as few as 10 live cells can inflict a severe intestinal illness, said Azlin Mustapha, associate professor of food science in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.

“This is the first such research using these methods in testing beef,” she said. Mustapha and colleagues reported on the research in the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

The research employs a technique called a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This is a quick, reliable method for detecting and identifying pathogens in food. PCR, however, can’t differentiate viable from dead microbial cells. The presence of dead pathogenic cells may result in false-positive findings, which could lead to unnecessary product recalls, Mustapha said.

To prevent this, researchers stain samples with a dye called ethidium bromide monoazide. EMA can’t penetrate live cells, but it can enter dead cells, where it binds to DNA molecules, making them insoluble and therefore invisible to PCR tests.

The researchers have successfully tested the technique on ground beef, chicken and eggs, Mustapha said.

Testing takes about 12 hours, as opposed to older methods, which require up to two days for results.

— Release provided by MU Extension.

— Compiled by Crystal Albers, associate editor, Angus Productions Inc.