Pork

Meat Labeling

The savory aroma of a backyard barbecue on a summer afternoon, the flavor of a juicy flame-kissed pork chop, or the great feeling you get from making a delicious ham for dinner. These all begin with the selection of your favorite pork cut at the grocery store or local meat market. When you are standing there deciding which pork product you are going have for your next meal, you can be faced with over 10 different options. With so many options available to us at our favorite store making a decision may not be an easy task.  Many labeling claims exist which can lead to confusion when you are making your decision at the meat case. Therefore, we are providing some points to help you as a consumer make a more educated decision about the pork products that you are purchasing.

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Disaster Preparations for Livestock Producers

What you would do if a weather disaster struck your ranch or feed lot? I remember thinking that following the tornado that destroyed Manchester, SD.  I think we’re all guilty of focusing so much on the day-to-day issues that we ignore potentially serious possibilities. While there is nothing that we can do to prevent a severe weather outbreak, some time spent thinking about our response could prove very valuable.

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Pigs provide an alternate market for frost-damaged soybeans

Due to a wet spring, late plantings, and a cooler growing season, the recent frost in the northern half of the region has resulted in some frost-damaged or green soybeans.  Green beans are often severely docked at the elevator because the higher levels of chlorophyll in the bean will also end up in the soybean oil and soybean meal after they are processed, which will then be discounted in the market.

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Little Things That Add Up to Some Big Things

With current feed and hog prices, everyone is looking for ways to fine-tune their operation to improve their profitability.  Things like pigs/sow/year, herd health programs, feeder type, and genetics immediately come to mind.  However, some of the very basic things like feed processing are often overlooked.  Since feed cost represents 75-80% of the cost of pork production, it is certainly an area that should never be overlooked.

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Comment Period Now Open for New CAFO Reporting Rule

The U.S. EPA has proposed a new rule, referred to as the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) 308 rule, under a settlement with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Waterkeeper Alliance, and the Sierra Club. The rule was published October 21 in the Federal Register, and we are now in a comment period that will last until January 19, 2012.  Kent Woodmansey, from the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, summarized the key points of the new proposed rule as follows.

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