September 5, 2008 Wall Street Journal has article about a "slaughterhouse on wheels" on Lopez Island, Washington. The farmers formed the Island Grown Farmers Cooperative to manage the abattoir. This mobile abattoir opened custom butching options to the small and local farms. It is the first mobile slaughterhouse to sanctioned by USDA. The unit handles sheep, pigs and beef. A diesel truck pulls 8 by 12 foot trailer fitted with sink, water tank and cooling locker. The trailer is used 3 to 4 times a week with a butcher and inspector. It is bringing the infrastruc
The following is a brief summary of the House version of comprehensive food safety bill that passed in July. If you are involved in grain or livestock at farm level, direct marketing to farmers market, restaurants or grocery stores, you might want to follow what is in the House version and what is being proposed for the Senate version. A comprehensive food safety bill that gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) additional new authorities to take preventative steps to stop foodborne illnesses passed the U.S.
I wanted to forward this article about "The Green Taam" to the meat processing and other working groups of Local Food Systems. Amalia and Ariella participated in many of the Mobile Processing Unit (MPU) meetings and discusions which were held at OARDC this past year. The Cleveland Jewish News featured their new enterprise in a recent edition.
A meeting has been scheduled for Thursday afternoon, October 1st from 1 to 2pm at Ohio Dept of Agriculture to discuss various grant possibilities for a MPU project with USDA rep Deb Rausch. Amalie Lipstreu with ODA, has organized the meeting so members of the poultry processing work group - and anyone else having an interest in the development of additional processing capacity - can discuss the opportunities.
What can we do to increase the poultry processing capacity for Ohio farmers? We have had a year of meetings, lots of discussion and some success. I'd like to ask the group to give some feedback about any progress you may have seen or heard and any thoughts about keeping the momentum going.....what else could we be doing?
All the issues seem similar to growers here in Ohio. Cooperatives of growers owning and operating their own MPU sounds like the way to go. What are your thoughts?