Life on a French Swine Farm

This past July I had the opportunity to intern on a swine farm near Auvers-le-Hamon, France. During the month, I lived alongside the Huet family who was the most welcoming and generous family. The family included Alexis, the father, Domonique, the mother, their daughter Anais as well as their sons Esteban, Arthur and Antoine. Needless to say, this experience was one of the biggest learning experiences I have ever had. I was able to learn about French agriculture and observe the similarities/differences to American agriculture.


The house that I lived in with Esteban and Arthur in France

While on the farm, I worked mainly with the sows and their litters. My duties included assisting with farrowing, weaning of piglets, insemination, giving shots and vaccinations as needed, and maintaining the animal stalls among other tasks. The Huet’s operation was truly a family effort with family members working directly on the farm and others working to regionally market their product. The Huet’s utilized the Label Rouge, or red label, program when marketing their product.

 Products with the above seal on them are certified under the Label Rouge. This program guarantees that its products have met a specific set of characteristics establishing that is of higher quality to similar products. Food products and non-food agricultural products such as flowers are eligible for certification under this program. In all that translates to about 500 products being certified under this program in France. For pork, some of the criteria deal with feeding, breeding conditions and age at the time of slaughter.

The most challenging and rewarding part of the internship was working alongside people who spoke almost entirely no English while I spoke very poor French. At the start communication was a big obstacle to overcome when trying to accomplish basic farm tasks. After a few days, we were able to establish a routine and communicate effectively through body language and the few words of French and English that both parties knew. Even though I was not able to have a conversation with the workers, I could tell that they truly cared about their profession and raising their hogs in a healthy environment was their top priority. This showed me that no matter where you may find yourself that producers in both the U.S. and abroad care about the quality of products that they provide to consumers and make agriculture a unique industry due to that characteristic.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns send them my way. I would love to hear them!

Signing off,
Wyatt Pracht

Quinoa Controversy

It was only a few weeks ago that I learned how to pronounce the word correctly.

Please don't discount this post if you think I'm an idiot for not knowing how to pronounce it. (Friends who don't know, it's keen-wah FYI!)

Before becoming uber popular as of late, quinoa was an obscure grain-like seed you could only buy at wholefood shops in the US. It's kind of in the same family as couscous, and if you're like me, it's only on the food shows you love to watch! Dieticians love this stuff. It's full of protein (14-18% by mass), amino acids and it's gluten free. It's a super crop. People have gone nuts over it!

So, no surprise the price has tripled since 2006. Think about wheat, a crop readily produced in the US, being $9 a bushel - quinoa is almost $340 a ton. Economics teachers of my past go ahead and be proud:

Supply-Demand Graph from Econ 101

Across the globe, quinoa isn't a fad. It's not the new protein source that makes people feel better about their food choices.Our country eats so much quinoa that the people of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia (countries where quinoa was the staple food source for many years) can no longer afford it.

In Lima, quinoa is now more expensive than chicken.

This isn't the first tale of how a premium fad food source in American damages the country it is produced in. Peruvian asparagus production is concentrated in the Ica region and because of demand for exports, growing this vegetable is threatening the water resources the local people depend on.

The UN has declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa. So now you have to learn how to pronounce it!

My opinion? We can take these food products, put them in our grocery carts and get all excited about a novel, healthy protein option. That's fine, but don't go home feeling all warm and fuzzy about it. While we are preoccupied with a fad, peasant's can no longer afford a staple grain and are literally starving.

That's not the direction we want our society to head in. We have a lot of people to feed and not all of us are willing to be farmers.

What are your thoughts?

Tera

Technology Has Brought Us A Long Way

I am not a very tech-savvy person. At all. I still don't know how to use Bluetooth and that's been around for about 8 years, maybe more? Anyway, just because I don't understand it doesn't mean I don't appreciate it. Technology has made it easier for parents to teach their children the ABC's at young ages, has improved health care, has globalized  industry and in general has improved our quality of life (although the occasional IT headache does occur). Additionally, technology has made agriculture immensely more productive over time.

What do I mean? Think about it - in the 60's and 70's Norman Borlaug and his associates created new varieties of corn, rice and wheat that vastly improved the amount of food farmers could produce. In some countries of the world, for example in East Africa, food intake went up by 50%. This was achievable with the application of technology.

In his annual letter, Bill Gates highlights these facts and others about the need for technology to feed our growing world. That's right, Bill Gates has gone agvocate. Well, not really but he does make a great case for our industry.

Bill points out that in the 19th century, the majority of the U.S. workforce was in agriculture. Today, less than 2% of people are responsible for all U.S. food production however, in countries like Uganda 75% of the citizens produce the food. U.S. farmers are so productive that the average family spends less than 10% (8.9% in 2009) of their annual income on food. That is a microscopic amount compared to a country like China who in 2009 spent 37% of their income on food.

It's also brought to attention that only $3 billion a year is spent researching the seven most important crops. This amount needs to increase for the sake of our productivity - especially as our climate continues to change which could cause a 25% decrease in the crop yield if we continue to see droughts and floods like this past year. Research into soil science and crop production can help us to be more efficient with our resources, which is especially important with climate change, urbanization and our growing world population. He suggests we need to increase that amount if we want to be able to meet the demand for food over the next 50 years

Before I close, I'd like to share this picture with you. A little Food For Thought, if you will (cliche, I know):

With this picture I'm not trying to say taxes are high, I'm pointing out the extreme affordability of our food supply. We are very blessed in the states to have such 'cheap' food that has been brought about through research, hard working farmers and technology.

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

To read Bill Gates full letter, click here. Photo credit from here

Hunger in the Horn

There is a thing in this world called hunger and it’s not something that most Americans deal with on a regular basis. There are 925 million undernourished people in the world today. That means one in seven people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. Hunger and malnutrition are in fact the number one risk to health worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. We have taken for granted that when we go to the grocery store there will be food on the shelf. We no longer know where our milk, eggs, produce, bread and meat come from – as far as we are concerned they come from the store. We are out of touch. So what would we do if we went to the store and there wasn’t any food on the shelf? Go without eating? Are you kidding me?

If you’ve been keeping up on current events you know that there is a drought of horrific proportions going on right now in the African Horn. Somalia, Ethiopia, and the northern region of Kenya have been hit the hardest. There are over 1500 new refugees coming out of Somalia and into Kenya every day; this doesn't include the thousands who are going into Ethiopia. Almost 30,000 children under the age of 5 have already died of starvation, and it’s estimated that 12 million people are fighting for survival. I heard a story of a mother having to leave one of her children to die on the roadside in order to save the life of her other child on the 80 km walk to the Kenyan refugee camp – and that’s just from the border to the camp; she probably had to walk double that to get to the border from the Somali countryside. In another example from one of my Kenyan friends, he had to rescue a baby who was still clinging to life in the arms of her dead mother. You may not believe this, but it’s true – they are in a desperate situation and there is no end to it in sight.

There is food relief that is being made available to the refugees. USAID has invested 564,459,389 dollars in aid and private donors and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are working tirelessly in an effort to get food supplies to this region. Organizations like NUMANA, based in Kansas, are taking an active role to try and engage in food aid relief. The trouble is that this is a temporary fix. What these countries need is greater investment in research and development of agriculture. More investment must be made in crops and growing practices that can better serve this type of environment – the same kind of research that allows America to have the most abundant food supply in the world.

I will be boarding a plane on Sunday to Nairobi, Kenya with my friend and coworker, Tyler Lund – we both work for Senator Moran. The Senator sits on the Hunger Caucus, so this cause strikes close to home both personally and professionally. Tyler has lived extensively in Kenya and is an expert in African agriculture and African production practices. During our time in Kenya we will be meeting with NGOs, government agencies, and refugees to identify current problems with the aid structure. There is also an opportunity for us to facilitate food aid ourselves. We are going to be working trough an NGO called First Love International to deliver food to the Dadaab refugee camp, which is currently housing around 417,000 people.

So when you eat dinner or go to the store this week, think about this: we are blessed. We are blessed with technology and production practices that allow us to feed a nation. We must continue to invest in agriculture if we are to feed a world. We aren’t doing it now, and the population is growing larger by the day – there is expected to be 9 billion people on this earth by 2050.

If you would like to get involved or learn more you can contact me or check out the links below.

Sincerely-

Brandon

http://www.usaid.gov/

http://firstloveinternational.com/

http://www.numanainc.com/

People Requiring Humanitarian Assistance in Kenya 3.7 million U.N. Agencies – July 29, 2011

People Requiring Humanitarian Assistance in Ethiopia 4.8 million U.N. Agencies – July 29, 2011

People Requiring Humanitarian Assistance in Somalia 3.7 million U.N. Agencies – July 29, 2011

People Requiring Humanitarian Assistance in Djibouti 165,000 U.N. Agencies – July 29, 2011

Number of Somali Refugees in Kenya 476,808 UNHCR1 – August 3, 2011

Number of Somali Refugees in Ethiopia 159,871 UNHCR – August 5, 2011

Slaughtering Cattle for Beef

When having conversations about meat, there's often language that people adopt to make things sound a bit less harsh. Excuse me if you prefer that language because this post is just plain honest. I'm not going to insert the word harvest instead of saying slaughter because I believe you harvest corn and you slaughter cattle and I'm just going to say it like it is! I also believe that if you are a consumer interested in engaging in conversations about where your meat comes from, you'd rather hear it first hand than have an edited "family-friendly" version come across.

So there is my disclaimer, there's nothing pretty about slaughtering animals for human consumption. It's necessary in my mind and it should be handled humanely and with an appropriate amount of respect.

Beyond making sure animals are handled humanely I also think consumers really want to make sure that the food they are getting is safe. After spending a week mentoring with a USDA Veterinary Medical Officer in Dodge City, KS, I have become even more aware of how safe our food supply in the US is. As a USDA Vet in a meat packing plant, food safety and public health is a number one concern. We spent most of our time at National Beef and some at Cargill. I was very impressed with the plants I toured and Vets I learned so much from. These are a few things I wanted to share:

• Utmost respect. Bottom line, there is nothing pretty about death and the process of taking a live animal and moving it through a system to become food for people. Just because it isn't pretty doesn't mean it isn't handled with a high level of respect. Feel good about the process that takes place in the US because I saw first hand how much respect these animals were treated with. They were given more than enough room in the holding pens to lay down, move around and drink clean water. As they moved closer to the knocking box (where they are rendered unconscious to pain) it was a very quiet and smooth process. Workers moved cattle along calmly, taking advantage of the natural behaviors of cattle and herding them through the alley ways.
• Stringent standards. Rendering animals unconscious to pain is a process taken very seriously in packing plants. Cattle are stunned with a captive bolt that humanely euthanizes each animal and screwing that process up is pretty much zero tolerance. There is a plant employee whose only job is to closely monitor each calf that comes through after being euthanized to make sure that the stunner did it's job.
• Visible pride. The plants that I visited employ a lot of people. It takes a large number of people to make everything work in a shift. The resounding feeling I got from the employees I got a chance to interact with is that they are all very proud of what they do. Feeding a growing population is a noble sector of the work force and meat packing plants in SWKS are in large part providing the world with beef. The employees should be proud, National Beef and Cargill are two outstanding companies that are literally helping to feed the world.
• Integration for success. If you think the cattle business isn't integrated, think again. There are so many factors and sectors of the cattle industry that go into a steak on your dinner plate. One thing I was very impressed with from a Veterinary standpoint was that before cattle even get to a slaughterhouse, the feedyards and cattle producers are just flat doing things right! From what I saw, a lot of credit should be given to the feedyard and cow-calf man when a steer or heifer enters the food chain. Cattle were in good condition, health and physical. Cattle were also overall very uniform which traces back to the genetics that producers have adopted and implemented.
• Hurdles for safety. If you think a carcass is given a once-over and deemed either safe for human consumption or not, think again!!! Carcasses in US meat plants are inspected so many times that I lost track for the first few days. There are so many opportunities for USDA trained inspectors and veterinarians to check for anything that might deem a carcass unsafe for human consumption. This is a wonderful system and is the reason we have the safest food supply in the world.

There's a reason I was impressed this past week by our food system. We are doing things right in the United States. There are a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of eyes watching to make sure these hoops are jumped through. I'm sure glad it's that way. It keeps the integrity of agriculture in tact and more importantly it keeps our food safe. As a farm girl from Kansas in vet school, I was pretty excited after leaving the packing plant on Friday. I was proud of what people in my part of the country are doing to make sure that people in other parts of the world have beef available to eat. Did you know that 25% of the beef slaughtered in the US comes from SWKS? Feel good about it, folks, because I have personally spent time in 3/4 of the plants in that part of the state and they are doing things right!

My best,

Tera

I thought the world was supposed to end in 2012.....

"Both the Hopis and the Mayans recognize that we are approaching the end of a World Age...in both cases, however, the Hopi and Mayan elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a transition from one World Age into another." - Joseph Robert Jochmans


I definitely don't want anyone to take me for a person truly believes the world is going to end in 2012. However, I think many people may believe that the world could end tomorrow considering the onslaught of natural disasters that have ravaged Earth so far in 2011. The floods and cyclones we've seen here in Eastern Australia, the combination of wildfires and floods in the US, and the chilling aftermath of Japan's earthquakes have certainly made me wonder what the good Lord has in store for this world next.

These disasters have certainly taken a toll on world agriculture as well. For the three months I've been in Australia, I haven't eaten a banana yet because they're probably one of the most expensive fruits here, at a price of about $5.00 a pound since the crop in Queensland was almost wiped out. Then when I call home to Ohio, my dad still hasn't put a crop in the ground because the ground is saturated. With the supply of corn tighter than ever before, food prices across the board have risen over 3% since 2010, according to USDA statistics.

Even with these somber tones, I suppose there is a silver lining. I know that my wife and I, with our limited budget here in Australia, have really come to appreciate the cheap food costs we enjoyed back home in the US. We've learned to budget accordingly, and only treat ourselves to a rare meal away from home. When I talk to people in the US, they complain about rising food costs as well. I believe that in times and situations where food costs are high, each and every one of us gains a better appreciation for the 'good life' and the amazing food production system we have at our disposal in the United States. At least in the sense of food costs in the US, perhaps WE ARE looking at a New World Age, by joining countries like Australia that have to pay more for the food on their table.

Right, wrong, or inevitable, it's something to consider the next time you go to the store....

Bananaless in Australia,

Hyatt Frobose

Feeding the Increasing Population

Today I listened to Dr. Luis Rodriguez, from the USDA Agriculture Research Service at Plum Island Animal Disease Center speak about the importance of a one health approach to foreign animal disease eradication.

One health is the focus of healthy animals, healthy people and a healthy environment. This is an important approach to creating a safer, more healthy world.

This graph was in Rodriguez's presentation and really drives home the point of what we are up against. The x-axis represents three-year time intervals over the past several decades. The y-axis represents per capita consumption of different food groups.

Excerpt from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i0680e/k6960e00.pdf

You will see that the per capita consumption of eggs, meat and milk are significantly higher than other food groups. Eggs are the cheapest protein source on the market and can be easily incorporated into countries with traditional agriculture practices being a family's main source of food.

We will have a larger population to feed in the future, and it clearly will not be a population of vegetarians. Food animal production will become even more important in the years to come. Foreign animal disease research is vital to production and Manhattan, KS will be a huge player in this research with the building of NBAF.

My Best,

Tera Rooney