Recent updates in the U.S. pork industry include permanent funding for the USDA’s Beagle Brigade, draft air quality guidelines for livestock farms from the EPA, and ongoing opposition to California’s Prop 12 by the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). These are the latest developments. The threat of African Swine Fever entering North America is still as large as it ever was, and so is the devastation it would cause to US pork farms. The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) is therefore happily greeting news that the Beagle Brigade Act introduced last year has been approved by the US Senate, lending permanent funds and formally providing congressional authorization for the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Detector Dog Training Center in Georgia. The center has been operating through unstable user fees, which dropped during the pandemic. For decades, these dogs have been used at airports, ports and land borders to alert handlers to contraband materials. The NPPC shar
The US meat processing sector relies on the use of illegal workers and is therefore scrambling for solutions in the face of President-Elect Trump’s plans for mass deportation of illegal migrants. Trump has stated that he will begin, after his inauguration 20 January, with criminal illegals and then deport others. According to Wired Magazine, “around 23% of workers in the meatpacking industry are undocumented.” Comments from packers such as Christensen Farms (owner of two of the largest pork processing plants in the US, Seaboard Foods in Oklahoma and Triumph Foods in Missouri), JBS and Tyson have been scarce on this issue. Outside of processing, there are denials from such groups as the North Carolina Pork Council that pig farmers use undocumented workers, but there are many reports that these workers are commonly hired on pig, dairy and poultry farms in various states. Raids Raids related to illegal workers at processing plants have occurred sporadically, but not often. In 2018, Chr
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In pigs, the testicle initially develops within the abdomen. Prior to birth the testicle descends via the inguinal canal into the scrotum
