Short Takes

Australia’s federal competition office has given JBS S.A. permission to acquire lamb processor Tatiara Meat Company. Tatiara bills itself as Australia’s largest exporter of premium chilled lamb.

This makes JBS-owned Swift & Company the largest lamb processor in the country, killing close to 25,000 lambs a day. Tatiara processes and sells lambs to markets in Canada and the United States.

JBS took over Swift in 2007. At the time, Swift was the third largest processor of fresh beef in the United States, and the largest beef processor in Australia.

Missouri grain dealer Cathy Gieseker promised some farmers too much for their grain and paid them off by selling the grain of other farmers. She led a high life, spending millions of dollars on properties, gifts to friends and buying and showing cattle.

According to the St. Louis Business Journal Gieseker was sentenced to nine years in jail in February in connection with a $27 million Ponzi scheme, the largest grain brokerage failure in Missouri history. She pleaded guilty to one felony count of mail fraud and forfeited millions of dollars in personal property, but it won’t be nearly enough to cover the losses of scores of farmers with no grain and no payment for their crop.

Frito Lay Canada is introducing what it bills as the first 100-per-cent compostable chip bag. The bags are made mostly of a polylactic acid that will break down within weeks in a compost heap. They are made in Arkansas and shipped to the Frito Lay plant in Cambridge. The first product to be packaged in the compostable bags is Sun Chips. Frito Lay, a division of PepsiCo Inc., figures people who eat that multi-grain snack are more interested in the environment than regular snack consumers. The new bag was described as “extremely expensive to produce,” a hint that the price will go up when the new containers reach the market later this year. BF

In North Carolina, according to an article published recently in the Wall Street Journal, naturopathic doctor Millie Hinkle is waiting to get over the hump of clearance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to sell camel milk to consumers.

She says her life has been taken over by her goal to bring camel milk to the United States and to Canada.

Last month, the Senate in the state of Idaho approved a bill to set up a livestock care standards board. It’s a move similar to one made in Ohio (see Short Takes, Better Farming, Dec. 2009) where a board was established with a set number of veterinarians and farm group representatives. The board in Ohio sets standards for animal care and health and environmental standards as well.

As in Ohio, the state aimed to set animal welfare laws before the Humane Society of United States (HSUS) got to influence them. The bill must still pass the Idaho House of Representatives. According to a local newspaper, legislators anticipate that the chicken raising industry will grow in Idaho.

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The Weston A. Price Foundation,a registered charity based in Washington, D.C., got some attention in Canada by supporting Michael Schmidt, who was recently acquitted of charges of selling raw milk illegally in a lower level court in Ontario. The Foundation is also fighting a battle against the soybean industry in the United States.

Last year, the foundation hired lawyers and took action against the state of Ohio for imposing a diet heavy in soy protein on prisoners in the state penal system.

Michael Schmidt’s lower court victory that apparently makes raw milk co-ops legal isn’t transferable to the egg industry, says Harry Pelissero, general manager of Egg Farmers of Ontario.

So if egg seller Shawn Carmichael thinks he can distribute eggs to consumers who own shares in hens he keeps “he is wrong,” Pelissero told Better Farming.

Carmichael’s farm near Shanley, in eastern Ontario, was raided by Egg Farmers officials in April, 2006. Eventually he was forced to quit selling eggs in 2008. Pelissero says that, when Carmichael was convicted of selling eggs illegally (he didn’t have quota for his flock), he agreed to abide by all provincial regulations. On top of that, Pelissero asserts, small hen flocks are tied to the property of their owner.

Folks in Argentina are well known as the biggest consumers of beef in the world. They are also known for being somewhat . . . er . . . macho. So it’s hard to say how effective President Cristina Fernandez’s pitch for the country’s pork industry will be.

The news agency Reuters reports that Fernandez told pig farming leaders that eating pork was more effective than taking Viagra. Her experience was related to a previous weekend with her husband where barbecued pork was consumed. Her speech was televised.

More than 20 years after it began, the United States is considering ending its ban on importing haggis from Scotland.

Imports from Scotland of this national dish, made from a sheep’s “pluck” (heart, liver, and lungs and other offals) have been banned in the United States since concerns grew about BSE back in 1989, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The BBC went on to explain that Scottish haggis makers are ecstatic that ex-patriots on the other side of the Atlantic will be able to get their product again, and not just on Jan. 25, birthday of the renowned Scottish poet Robert Burns, when it is traditionally washed down with a dram of Scotch whisky.