Tag: slaughter

October 11, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

County Begins Deer Harvest Cooperative

Imagine higher agricultural yields, fewer invasive species, and a new economic product that’s as versatile as it is plentiful: venison. That was the vision of the founders of the Maui Axis Deer Harvesting Cooperative (MADHC), a new initiative organized by the County of Maui. Its goal is to help farmers, ranchers and landowners control invasive axis deer on their property while addressing food security with zero waste. MADHC members are a group of certified, trained, hunters who can provide harvesting services to those receiving damage from axis deer. The meat will be shared between hunters and landowners, and in some cases, local slaughterhouses will process meat for resale.

While the cooperative is already active on Maui, some Molokai residents are looking at the possibilities for the Friendly Isle — turning venison into a trademark specialty while helping out farmers with deer problems. Phyllis Robinson, one of MADHC’s founders and pilot coordinator, said it’s still early in the process, but her goal is to be able to incorporate Molokai and Lanai into the program.

“We’d like to plant the seed of awareness,” she said. “It could be helpful to have a coordinated effort county-wide but unique efforts on each island.”

Robinson said she has been in communication with Molokai axis deer rancher and hunter Desmond Manaba to explore the possibility of establishing an auxiliary board on Molokai to organize similar services on the island and be part of the cooperative umbrella.

Manaba, who has been deer ranching on Molokai for 18 years, said he sees tremendous potential economic benefit axis deer.

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April 2, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Union, consumer groups to protest proposed changes to poultry inspections

Consumer groups and food inspectors represented by the American Federation of Government Employees will join forces Monday in a rally to protest proposed changes to the way poultry is inspected.

The protesters are scheduled to gather outside the Agriculture Department headquarters at Jefferson Drive in Southwest Washington at 11:30 a.m. Monday.

The Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has proposed a new inspection system for young chicken and turkey slaughter establishments that is designed to improve the system’s effectiveness. The shift would focus resources on areas of the poultry production system that pose the greatest risk to food safety, relying less on armies of inspectors to eyeball animal carcasses in search of bruising, tumors or visible signs of contamination.

The new rules would reduce the number of inspectors on slaughter lines, and assign more inspectors to focus on testing poultry for pathogens and other high-risk contaminants. Some regulatory requirements the government considers outdated would be removed and replaced with more “flexible and effective testing,” according to the proposed changes.

Opponents, including the unions that represent inspectors, claim the changes would reduce the overall number of inspectors and increase the number of birds each inspector must examine, potentially putting consumers at risk.

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January 11, 2012 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Tuna, meat labeling disputes highlight WTO control

You might have missed this while you were busy taking the kids to school and preparing for the holidays, but last fall, two U.S. food labeling programs suffered serious legal setbacks that threaten to confuse consumers and thwart the intentions of the “dolphin-safe” tuna and “country-of-origin” labels.

The details are complicated, but in September and November, two dispute panels for the World Trade Organization in Switzerland sided in part with Mexico and Canada on complaints against the voluntary dolphin-safe label and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL). Mexico argued that U.S. dolphin-safe standards are misleading and discriminate against the controversial fishing techniques that Mexico employs to catch tuna. Canada argued that the COOL program discriminates against imported cattle and hogs.

Reactions to the WTO rulings have ranged from tranquil to concerned to downright outraged. Major U.S. tuna producers say they won’t change their dolphin-safe sourcing standards even if they have to change their labels. Pork and beef producers worry that Mexico and Canada might apply tariffs to U.S. meat imports if the U.S. government doesn’t comply with the WTO rulings on COOL, a regulation the meat industry has had mixed feelings about since its implementation in early 2009.

And some nonprofit groups are frustrated that the United States finds itself in this position at all. They’ve long predicted that America’s binding membership in the WTO could lead to this: sacrificing important U.S. environmental and public-safety laws in the name of free international trade.

“There has been widespread concern,” wrote the nonpartisan advocacy group Public Citizen after the dolphin-safe ruling in September, that the WTO could “second guess the U.S. Congress, courts or public by elevating the goal of maximizing trade flows over consumer and environmental protection.”

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October 20, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Review head defends decision not to make stunning of exported cattle mandatory

THE head of an independent review into live exports has backed the government’s decision not to make stunning mandatory in the slaughter of Australia animals overseas, saying the practice is not universal and can still be inhumane.

Former departmental secretary Bill Farmer released the report of his investigation into the industry today as Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig confirmed a series of reforms to the $1 billion a year trade, reported by The Australian today.

The new arrangements will see extra transparency measures in place for live cattle exports to Indonesia – introduced in the wake of graphic ABC Four Corners footage – extended to all markets, including Asia and the Middle East, and will also cover the live-sheep and goat export industries.

The changes, which represent an unprecedented shake-up of the industry, will be staggered over the next 14 months to avoid mass disruptions.

Mr Farmer said the review examined animal killing practices overseas – with and without stunning – that met animal welfare guidelines.

“We also saw practices, both stunning and non-stunning, that fell far short of the OIE guidelines. Stunning applied incorrectly is not a humane practice,” he said.

“There is not universal acceptance of stunning, including under our own guidelines in Australia.”

Mr Farmer said he did see a “very significant move in Indonesia” to introduce stunning and by August, 30 abattoirs there had introduced the practice.

Senator Ludwig said the government had accepted all 14 recommendations made by Mr Farmer.

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May 14, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Malaysian pigs get IDs to protect pork eaters

KUALA LUMPUR – MALAYSIA will give locally-reared pigs embedded identity discs in a bid to stop the illegal slaughter and distribution of meat that is unfit for human consumption, reports said on Sunday.

This follows the revelation by Malaysian pork sellers association chief Goh Chui Lai over the weekend that unhealthy pigs were being slaughtered at illegal abattoirs, resulting in unhygienic meat being distributed nationwide.

Malaysian veterinary services department chief Abdul Aziz Jamaluddin told the New Straits Times daily that radio-frequency identification (RFID) disc would now be placed beneath the skin of each pig in order to track it.

‘Any mismatch between the number of pigs reared in each farm and the number slaughtered at licensed abattoirs will be considered suspicious,’ he told the paper.

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May 2, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Trespasser beheads, guts goat at local dairy

KILAUEA — Sometime between dusk on Thursday and dawn on Friday, a pregnant goat from Kilauea’s Kunana Dairy was gutted and beheaded, her unborn kids dumped next to her insides, sources said Monday.

“Nothing like that has ever happened to us before,” dairy co-owner Louisa Wooton said. “You have no idea how horrible it was. She was like a family member.”

A trespasser is suspected of killing Kaitlyn, Kunana’s goat named after a former worker.

Wooton said Kaitlyn was gutted in a field in Moloa‘a about a mile from the dairy’s main pasture in Kilauea.

“They took her meat, they took her head, they took everything that was edible from her and left everything else there on the ground,” she said.

Wooton said she discovered what was left of Kaitlyn on Friday afternoon, when she went to check on her goats in Moloa‘a.

“Our goats are so fricking tame, she was probably kissing his hands while he knifed her in the heart,” Wooton said.

Next to Kaitlyn’s remains, the killer left behind a Winchester hunting knife, unspent shotgun shells and a pair of sunglasses.

Kaitlyn, a 4-year-old white doe, was two weeks away from giving birth. Wooton said besides being a family member, Kaitlyn was also a working animal that generated $7,000 in annual income for the dairy.

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