Ameri-Pac Gains National Recognition
DiversityBusiness.com recently named Ameri-Pac, Inc., as one of the top 500 women-owned and minority-owned businesses in the United States. Ameri-Pac also ranked number 18 of the top small businesses in Missouri, and number 14 of the top women-owned businesses in Missouri.
The Div500 is a classification that represents the top 500 diversity-owned businesses in the country in sectors such as technology, manufacturing, food service, and professional services. Established in 1985, Ameri-Pac is an animal nutrition specialty and veterinary supply company that operates three manufacturing facilities in St. Joseph, MO.
Aquaculture Alliance Selects Director
The Global Aquaculture Alliance has selected Wally Stevens as its new executive director. He fills the position recently left vacant by the resignation of Jim Hirt.
Stevens most recently served as president and chief operating officer of Slade Gorton and Co., a leading seafood distribution and marketing company headquartered in Boston, MA, positions he held for 16 years prior to retiring in 2006. Prior to Slade Gorton, Stevens was president of Ocean Products, Inc., and has served as chairman of the National Fisheries Institute.
BSE Lab Closed
News agencies are reporting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) closed the Pacific Northwest’s only bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) testing laboratory on March 1, 2007. The Washington State University lab opened after the country’s first BSE case was discovered in nearby Yakima Valley in December 2003. Only two other infected cows have been found after testing 759,000 animals, including 45,000 in the Northwest.
USDA spokeswoman Andrea McNally told the Associated Press the lack of additional cases of BSE spurred the agency’s decision to downsize the program and target only 40,000 animals per year.
Cargill, Smithfield Commit to Reduce Emissions
Cargill, Inc., and Smithfield Foods have joined the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the world’s first and North America’s only voluntary, legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction, registry, and trading program. By joining CCX, both companies have committed to achieving a six percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010.
Cargill has established internal goals to improve energy efficiency, increase use of renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas intensity globally. So far, the company has achieved a 10 percent improvement in energy efficiency and derives over eight percent of its energy from renewable sources.
Smithfield Foods and its operating companies are taking wastewater and manure from their hog production facilities and, through the anaerobic digestion process, are capturing methane from the resulting biogas. The methane is then used to supply heat for the company’s facilities and processing operations.
“We’re very proud that Smithfield Foods is well on the way to achieving its commitment to the Chicago Climate Exchange of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of six percent by 2010,” said Doug Anderson, president and chief operating officer of Smithfield BioEnergy. “All of us are committed to working very hard to reach the 2010 goal.”
Smithfield Bioenergy researches, creates, and implements bioenergy projects on behalf of Smithfield Foods and its independent operating companies. Some of the company’s biogas-to-energy projects include:
• In North Carolina, Smithfield Packing Company’s Tar Heel pork processing plant is using methane generated by its wastewater treatment system as boiler fuel. The company’s John Morrell plant in Sioux Falls, SD, also benefits from a similar system.
• Smithfield Beef Group’s wastewater treatment facility in Plainwell, MI, burns methane from the facility’s 10 million gallon anaerobic lagoon as a fuel source for its No. 3 boiler, rather than purchasing natural gas.
• Patrick Cudahy in Cudahy, WI, and Moyer Packing Co. in Souderton, PA, have the capability to use animal fats and oils as a renewable fuel for their operations.
As a result of various energy conservation projects at a number of Smithfield’s companies across the country, the company estimates that in 2006 it saved 54.7 million cubic feet of natural gas, 5.7 million kilowatt hours of electricity, and 4.8 million gallons of diesel fuel.
Cattlemen, Cattlewomen Choose Leaders
North Carolina cattleman John Queen will lead the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) in 2007 as its new president after being elected by his peers at the 2007 Cattle Industry Annual Convention and Trade Show in early February. Queen succeeds Missouri cattleman Mike John.
Queen is the owner of John Queen Farms, a third-generation cattle farm founded in 1917 near Waynesville, in the western mountain region of North Carolina. His background in the beef industry includes cow/calf producer, stocker/backgrounder, feeder, and grazer. He has also been an auction barn owner and operator, and is currently owner of Southeast Livestock Exchange, a video-telemarketing company.
One of Queen’s primary goals is to continue NCBA’s momentum in terms of membership growth, which grew by more than eight percent in 2006, surpassing 28,000 members nationwide.
Other officers elected were Guymon, OK, cattle feeder Paul Hitch, president-elect; and third-generation cattleman Andy Groseta, from Cottonwood, AZ, vice president.
The American National CattleWomen (ANCW) installed Wendy Pettz of Huntsville, AR, as its 56th president during the convention and trade show. Pettz and her husband Robert own and operate a cattle and poultry operation just outside the town of Huntsville in northwest Arkansas.
Other members of the 2007 ANCW executive committee are President-elect Fita Witte, Belen, NM; Vice President Kristy Lage, Arthur, NE; Secretary Ruby Poteet, Pine Bluff, AR; and Past President Nancy Stirling-Neuhauser, Midland, SD.
DeHaven to Join AVMA
The Department of Agriculture’s top veterinarian, Dr. W. Ron DeHaven, has been chosen as the next American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) executive vice president.
DeHaven, administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for the past three years, was approved by the AVMA Executive Board in late March following a nationwide search to replace Dr. Bruce W. Little, who is retiring later this year. It was not known at press time when DeHaven would begin his new role at AVMA.
DeHaven has served in various capacities at APHIS since 1979.
Holmes By-Products Enters Consent Decree
Holmes By-Products, Inc., and two of its officers have entered a consent decree of permanent injunction due to significant violations of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) ruminant feed ban (Code of Federal Regulations 589.2000) discovered after consecutive inspections. The feed ban was put in place in 1997 as a safeguard against the establishment and proliferation of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the United States. Holmes By-Products is a renderer of bovine and poultry materials in Millersburg, OH.
The defendants have agreed to come into compliance with the regulation through a combination of one or more of the following, as required by the feed ban:
1. labeling products with the statement “Do not feed to cattle or other ruminants”;
2. maintaining separate lines of equipment for producing various products; and/or
3. sufficiently cleaning existing equipment between uses.
Further, the consent decree provides for FDA to require a recall or shutdown in the event of future violations.
Feed Industry Releases DDGS Report
The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) has released a year-long study on distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) analytical methodologies and DDGS ingredient guidelines along with guidelines for condensed distiller solubles. Over 60 industry representatives from 40 AFIA member companies participated in the initiative.
The recommendations resulted from concern by purchasers and suppliers of ethanol co-products over a lack of mutual agreement on DDGS analytical methodologies. DDGS producers claimed that the most frequent methods utilized provide differing estimates of the nutrient values for moisture and crude fat.
Along with the Renewable Fuels Association and the National Corn Growers Association, AFIA contracted with the Olsen Biochemistry Laboratory of South Dakota State University for two purposes: (1) to examine common analytical methods utilized in the marketplace; and (2) to conduct both intra-laboratory and inter-laboratory studies on which methods provided the best estimates of those nutrients. The study was expanded to include crude protein and crude fiber assays.
Under the study, DDGS samples were collected from six facilities and utilized for comparison of 13 methods among four nutrient components (moisture, fat, fiber, and protein). Of concern was the use of different methods by the purchaser and supplier that frequently would provide differing estimates of the true nutrient value. The study found five analytical methods from the 13 evaluated that provided the best estimates for moisture, crude protein, crude fat, and crude fiber.
A second report deals with how AFIA describes ethanol co-product ingredients to the industry and public from AFIA’s Electronic Feed Ingredient Guide. The working group dealing with this issue recommended some changes to two ingredient guidelines AFIA developed many years ago.
Copies of the reports are available on AFIA’s Web site at www.afia.org.
Kimball Named NAMP Executive Director
Philip Kimball has accepted the position of executive director of the North American Meat Processors (NAMP) Association. Most recently he was the executive director of the National Dry Bean Council and is former executive director of the National Renderers Association from 1986 to 1993. He is also the founder and former chief executive officer of Kimball and Associates, Inc., an association management firm he lead for 10 years, prior to which he worked for Smith, Bucklin, and Associates, an association management company.
Lamb Board Picks Leaders
Margaret Magruder of Clatskanie, OR, has been re-elected to serve as chairman of the American Lamb Board. Chico Denis of Vancourt, TX, was re-elected as vice chairman; Lorin Moench Jr. of Salt Lake City, UT, was re-elected as treasurer; and Laurie Hubbard of Bellefonte, PA, was elected as secretary. The officers will serve one-year terms.
Representing lamb producers, Magruder is one of the original board members appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture in 2002 and was reappointed for a three-year term in 2004. Denis, representing lamb feeders, was appointed to the board in 2004 and has served as president of the Texas Sheep and Wool Growers Association.
Moench represents producers and was appointed to the American Lamb Board in 2005 for a three-year term. He previously served as president of the American Sheep Industry Association and Utah Wool Growers. Hubbard represents seed stock producers and is currently the assistant shepherd at Penn State University Department of Dairy and Animal Science.
Page Takes Helm at Cargill
Gregory Page has been elected chief executive officer (CEO) and president of Cargill, Inc., effective June 1, 2007. He will succeed Warren Staley, Cargill’s chairman and CEO, when he retires as CEO on June 1, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 for Cargill executives. Staley will continue to serve as chairman of the Cargill Board of Directors until its annual meeting on September 11, 2007. Page was named to his current position as company president and chief operating officer in June 2000, and elected to the board of directors in August 2000. He began his career at Cargill in 1974.
Pork Officers Chosen
Delegates to the National Pork Producers Council elected Jill Appell, co-owner of Appell’s Pork Farms of Altona, IL, president of the organization. Chosen as president-elect is Bryan Black of Ned Black and Sons farm in Canal Winchester, OH; elected vice president is Don Butler of Murphy-Brown, LLC, the livestock-production subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, Inc.
U.S. Poultry Names Chairman
Henry Welch, Peco Foods, has been elected chairman of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association. Welch has been a member of the poultry industry for over 34 years, serving as hatchery and breeder manager for several poultry companies. A graduate of Mississippi State University, he holds a bachelor’s degree in poultry science.
Other officers elected to the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association board include Bill Bradley, Country Creek Farms, vice chairman; Steve Willardsen, Cargill Value Added Meats, secretary; Monty Henderson, George’s, treasurer; and Ron Prestage, Prestage Farms, immediate past chairman.
April 2007 Render