News Update
Oct. 12, 2009

Educating the Next Generation

A lot of folks in the beef industry worry about where the next generation of ranchers will come from. But cattlemen with real foresight wonder about tomorrow’s consumers.

Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) recently partnered with its licensed distributor, Performance Food Group, at the Culinary Institute of Virginia (CIV). Their joint mission: to educate the next generation of chefs on preparing high-quality beef dishes that will capture future consumer demand.

The inaugural CIV Culinary Scholarship Competition challenged young chefs to develop new menu items featuring nontraditional Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) brand cuts. With that came an education on the utilization of the flank, flat-iron, teres major and center-cut sirloin (baseball cut) steaks. Read more…

— Release provided by Certified Angus Beef LLC.

Keys May Unlock Cellular Doors to Marbling Mysteries

Knowing more about marbling helps cattlemen produce the best beef. All four National Beef Quality Audits (NBQA) said consumers want more of it, yet many producers manage so as to inhibit rather than enhance marbling.

Scientists offered new insights at the Reciprocal Meats Conference this summer.

“Three major things affect the beef eating experience: flavor, juiciness and tenderness,” Brad Johnson, of Texas Tech University said. “In some direct or indirect way, marbling affects all three of those.”

Johnson, the university’s Gordon W. Davis Regent’s Chair in Meat and Muscle Biology, said marbling is a key to feedlot profits, too. Although the USDA Choice premium over Select fell off in the last year, he said beef industry sustainability hinges on its ability to produce more marbling with fewer inputs and lower carcass weights.
Read more…

— Release provided by Certified Angus Beef LLC.

Rookie Rancher Uses ARRA Funds to Start Cattle Business

Christopher Helt’s dream of one day owning and breeding his own calves came true when the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved his application for a direct operating loan in March. Helt, a beginning farmer, used his $30,000 operating loan made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to buy 24 cows, a truck-mounted remote feeder and a large cement feed trough from a local retailer in Cherryvale.

Watch this ARRA success story video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7EgiW72Wio.

Helt didn’t grow up in a farming family, but he had gained experience breeding and raising calves by helping others, when he wasn’t working in his primary profession as a sandblaster. He found an ideal 75-acre pasture to rent near his home to use for his cattle. Now, Helt’s son has also become interested in raising calves and was recently approved for a Rural Youth Loan to buy five cows for eventual breeding.

Without the ARRA money from USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), Helt’s dream of starting this new farming business would not have become a reality. The ARRA money also helped the local Cherryvale economy through residual reinvestment. Helt credits his success to having learned from veteran farmers and hopes to become a resource for the next generation of farmers.

This project is just one of thousands of USDA success stories made possible through the Recovery Act. Altogether, the Department has announced approximately $27.8 billion of the $28.0 billion in Recovery Act projects. USDA has distributed $173 million in loans similar to Helt to help famers buy the seed, feed and fuel they needed to plant this spring and stimulate rural economies.

More information about USDA’s Recovery Act efforts is available at http://www.usda.gov/recovery. More information about the Federal government’s efforts on the Recovery Act is available at www.recovery.gov.

— Release provided by USDA.

FDA Awards $17.5 Million in Grants to Further Food and Feed Safety

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that it has awarded 83 grants in fiscal year (FY) 2009 totaling $17.5 million to state and local regulatory agencies to boost food and feed safety initiatives among federal, state, and local partners. The grants fund major cooperative agreements in four major areas: response, intervention, innovation and prevention.

“These cooperative agreements support and enhance local food safety efforts,” said Michael Chappell, the FDA’s acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. “The grants are another step in the FDA’s continuing efforts to build an integrated food safety system between federal, state, and local partners.”
The grants and their recipients include:

Response: Rapid Response Teams. The Food Protection Rapid Response Team (RRT) and Program Infrastructure Improvement Prototype Project cooperative agreements will develop, implement, exercise, and integrate an all-hazards food and foodborne illness response capability to more rapidly react to potential threats to our food supply. The RRT, designed to operate in conjunction with other food and feed agencies within state programs, other state RRTs, FDA district offices, and state emergency operations centers, is another tool to enhance response capabilities.
An RRT responds to food hazard incidents in the farm-to-table continuum of food production and delivery by using an incident command structure response protocol, which is a formalized crisis management system. Each recipient received up to $500,000 to exercise its response team, conduct a program assessment, purchase additional equipment and supplies, fund personnel, and train and share information and data as appropriate.
States funded in FY2009 include Virginia, Texas, and Washington. Those states join six other states already receiving funds under the program.

Intervention: Food Safety and Security Monitoring (FERN). The grants for Food Safety and Security Monitoring provide funding to FERN laboratories. FERN laboratories provide additional capacity for analyzing food samples in the event of foodborne disease outbreaks or other large-scale food emergency events. These samples could be foods and/or environmental samples related to foods, and will be collected by federal, state, or local agencies. Numbers of samples and scheduling of samples will be done by the FERN National Program Office in coordination with state/local laboratory authorities. Federal or state surveillance assignments will also be a source of samples for lab analysis. Selected laboratories received up to $350,000 in grant funds. The grants are for microbiological, chemical, or radiological analysis capacity.

• Microbiology Program. The FY 2009 grants of up to $250,000 were made to: Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
  
  
• Chemistry Program. Arkansas, Nebraska, and Wisconsin received grants in FY 2009. These three states join 10 other states with existing grants.
  
  
• Radiological Program. Five states with existing grants received continued funding but no new grants were awarded in FY2009.
  

Innovation: Innovative Food Defense. The Innovative Food Defense Projects grants are awarded to generate products that complement, develop, or improve State and local food defense programs. These products could then be applied to food defense programs nationwide. One example is the food defense program in food establishments called the Assure, Look, Employees, Reports, and Threat (ALERT); and, Employees Follow, Inspect, Recognize, Secure, and Tell (FIRST). Each recipient received up to $62,500.

The funded counties were Riverside County (California) Department of Environmental Health and Westchester County (New York) Department of Health. States receiving funds included Wisconsin and North Carolina.

Prevention: Food Protection Task Force Program. The Food Protection Task Force Conference program supports meetings that foster communication, cooperation, and collaboration among state, local, and tribal food protection, public health, agriculture, and regulatory agencies. The meetings are designed to:

• Provide a forum for all the stakeholders of the food protection system — regulatory agencies, academia, industry, consumers, state legislators, boards of health and agriculture, and other interested parties;
  
  
• Assist in adopting or implementing the Food Code and other food protection regulations;
  
  
• Promote the integration of an efficient statewide food protection/defense system that maximizes the protection of the public health through prevention, intervention and response; and
  
  
• Detect and contain of foodborne illness early.
  

Pennsylvania and New Hampshire were selected to receive awards up to $5,000 in FY2009. These two states join 22 other states and the District of Columbia with existing grants.
For more information, please visit Food Defense and Emergency Response.

— Release provided by FDA.

— Compiled by Mathew Elliott, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.