In Indiana, the Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program Opens Meatier Markets for Small Processors

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Elanor Starmer, National Coordinator for Local and Regional Food Systems, on April 8, 2014 at 1:00 PM

Lou’s Gourmet Sausage, a small family business run by the Vinciguerra brothers of Cleveland, Ohio, takes sausage seriously.  For over fifty years, the company has been supplying Cleveland restaurants and grocery stores with Sicilian, Andouille, Cajun, mild and hot chicken and veal sausages. But despite strong demand for its products, it took a USDA program to make Lou’s sausage available outside Ohio.

In 2012, Ohio was the first state to join USDA’s Cooperative Interstate Shipment program (CIS).  The program, authorized under the 2008 Farm Bill, allows inspected and approved small state-inspected meat processors, like Lou’s Gourmet Sausage, to bear an official USDA Mark of Inspection and ship meat and poultry across state lines. Previously, only products from federally inspected plants could be sold in other states. To participate in the program, state certified plants like Lou’s Sausage work with USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) to integrate their systems to meet federal inspection standards.  Once inspected and approved for compliance, these smaller plants can ship across state lines and are poised for bigger market opportunities.

This week, Indiana followed Ohio’s lead and joined North Dakota and Wisconsin to become the fourth state to participate in the Cooperative Interstate Shipment program. Each time a state works with FSIS to participate in the program, it is expanding market opportunities for the region’s small meat and poultry producers – many smaller producers process their animals at small state-inspected plants – while strengthening state and local economies and increasing consumer access to safe, locally-produced meat. In Indiana, it will mean that meat processed by selected smaller operations will be available beyond the Hoosier state.

Interstate shipment may not sound like a local food issue, but CIS actually has important implications for local food producers and consumers – especially when one state has a major market right across its border, as is the case with southern Wisconsin and Chicago. Implementing CIS is part of USDA’s broader strategy to strengthen local and regional food systems and to help small and midsize producers access new market opportunities. USDA coordinates its work on these issues under the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, which includes a variety of resources to help producers and businesses tap into consumer demand for local foods. One such resource, a guide called Tools for Small and Midsized Livestock and Poultry; USDA Resources for Producers and Processors, was released in March as part of a wider package of support for America’s small and mid-sized farmers and ranchers.

FSIS’ Small Plant Help Desk, a customer service phone line at 1-877-FSIShelp, is also a valuable resource for small and midsize meat and poultry plants and can address issues and answer questions specific to smaller meat processors. The Small Plant Help Desk has fielded over 10,000 inquiries since 2009.

For businesses like Lou’s Gourmet Sausage, USDA’s commitment to local food and to small and midsize producers is epitomized by efforts such as the Cooperative Interstate Shipment program and the Small Plant Help Desk. With these resources and opportunities, small processors are accessing new markets – and consumers are happily digging in.

USDA-Funded Researchers Map the Loblolly Pine Genome

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Scott Elliott, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, on April 4, 2014 at 1:00 PM

During the month of April we will take a closer look at USDA’s Groundbreaking Research for a Revitalized Rural America, highlighting ways USDA researchers are improving the lives of Americans in ways you might never imagine, including research into trees that could fuel new energy solutions.

A team of researchers led by the University of California–Davis has mapped the complete genome of the loblolly pine. And if you don’t think that understanding the genetic makeup of loblolly pine is a big deal, perhaps you cannot see the forest for the trees.

Loblolly pine, the most commercially important tree in the United States, is the source of most paper products in this country and 58 percent of timber. On the surface, that might be reason enough for the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to invest $14.6 million in 2011 toward science that could increase the productivity and health of American forests.

Loblolly pine also looms large on the horizon as a feedstock for the next generation of American biofuel.  President Obama’s goal of reducing the United States’ dependency on foreign oil by 30 percent by the year 2030 will be met, in large part, by producing home-grown biofuel. According to Genome Biology, approximately 75 percent of that biofuel will have to come from non-grain, non-food sources called lignocellulosic biomass – and loblolly pine could be a major contributor to filling that need.

Mapping the loblolly genome, then, became an important part of the plan in terms of improving the health and sustainability of this important plant. But, mapping a genome is no easy task, and the loblolly pine proved to be the greatest challenge to date for this type of research. The loblolly genome is the largest ever sequenced and is about seven times larger than the human genome.

To sequence a genome, scientists must first examine the DNA of their subject and then “map” the location of each nucleotide (the “A, C, T, and G” bases) of the entire DNA chain. Scientists use this information to find the best traits, such as disease resistance, and develop better future generations.

The challenge of overcoming the sheer volume of loblolly data is a triumph of its own for the research team.  According to David Neal, team leader and professor of plant sciences at UC–Davis, the team could “read” the nucleotide letters, but only in short batches. The problem was putting together the 16 billion fragments in a way that would allow them to read the complete story of the loblolly pine.

Researchers met this task by employing a new technique developed at the University of Maryland.  Team members overlapped smaller sections of data to form larger chunks and then threw away the redundant information. The process eventually meant the computer had 100 times less sequence data to deal with. The success of this process may help speed up future genome-mapping projects.

The loblolly project team consisted of UC–Davis, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Indiana University–Bloomington, Texas A&M University, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, and Washington State University.

Their complete articles of this research were published in the March 2014 issues of GENETICS and Genome Biology.