PoultryCast Update

This week is our local county fair. It is always a highlight of the year for me personally to see so many young people proudly displaying their months of hard work in an agriculture project. But it is also an excellent opportunity for all of us in agriculture to share our story with the public.

What more could we ask for than for hundreds, if not thousands, of local consumers actively seeking to learn more about what we do? So regardless of whether you have a young person involved in your local fair, take the time to go anyway just to visit with individuals and families about where their food come from.

Comments from Truffle Media's Trent Fredenburg: After a recent trip to Chicago, I am reminded once again how great the distance is between consumers and the farm. While the mileage from downtown Chicago to the nearest farm may not be long, the distance in understanding of consumers and food production is continually growing.

We need to establish education as one of our top priorities and work diligently to close this education gap that exists today. So I challenge each of us to do a little more to help consumers better understand our story of producing their food. Take a couple of minutes and share with me some of the steps that you have taken to help educate our consumers. Or just share some of your thoughts on how we, as an agriculture community, can do a better job of educating.

The recent Multi-State Poultry Feeding and Nutrition Conference looked at two major industry issues; feeding for environmental efficiency and issues with feed source mycotoxins. Dr. Todd Applegate discusses his presentation on Dietary Impacts on Air Emissions from Poultry.

Also, Dr. Bret Rings, Cobb-Vantress, provides an outlook on Broiler Industry Issues and Trends, from the Midwest Poultry Convention. Dr. Rings also mentioned he was especially interested in Man Made Climate Change: Hoax or Myth series captured by Truffle Media’s Beef Specialist, Trent Fredenburg.

A quick note: The Multi-State Poultry Feeding and Nutrition Conference 2010 takes place May 25-27 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The valuable educational program kicks off on Wednesday the 26th with early presentations like Advances in Environmental Nutrition by Dr. Park Waldroup and Early Broiler Responses to Dietary Amino Acids by Dr.

PoultryCast^® Conversations

Why Agro-Terrorism Is Limited

David Silverberg, Founding Editor of Homeland Security Today magazine, responds to the audience question of why the food supply has not been targeted.

U.S. Poultry will return to Russia after negotiators agreed to provide supplies which had not been treated with a chlorine rinse to reduce Salmonella. The story was covered in the St. Petersburg Times.

It’s interesting to note the article mentions the renewed effort to increase domestic meat production in Russia. “President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new 'food security' doctrine in February, calling for, among other things, 85 percent of all meat consumed in the country to be produced domestically. In January, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia would be able to cease all poultry imports by 2015.” There are, of course, many forms of trade restrictions.

PoultryCast has recently increased its industry stake with sponsorships of significant meetings through our parent, Truffle Media Networks. The event sponsorships resulted in exclusive coverage of the recent National Institute for Animal Agriculture Annual Meeting: One Health: Implications For Animal Agriculture. You find selection presentations here. Of note are the presentations about the Avian Influenza Update and Food Safety Issues for Salmonella in Eggs and Egg Products.

Survey information just released shows new home sales at an ‘all-time’ low. With the slow down in both consumer and commercial building markets, the availability of our preferred pine shavings continues to tighten. Research on river-sand as an alternative where the product is available has yielded positive results in turkey poults. It seems once the birds reach a weight where heat loss is less of a problem, they’re able to thrive for a multitude of reasons.

Poor feed quality will likely play a role in industry productivity throughout the United States in the coming months. The Poultry Science Association warns nutritionists who rely on bushel weight as a prime factor for assessing quality may be missing an important part of the quality-evaluation picture.

“Adverse growing conditions and the potential for reduced bushel weight are one component of the corn quality equation. Unfortunately, determining a precise relationship between variability in bushel weight and the nutritional value of corn is problematic,” said Dr. Mike Lilburn, a poultry nutritionist in The Ohio State University’s Department of Animal Sciences.

In our last update we referred you to the Slaughter Bill (U.S. House Bill 1549) as a major fight in the making. Just this week, livestock and poultry health professionals joined forces to share industry issues with Capitol Hill legislators and staffer.