LOCAL

The 2020 Minnesota firearms deer season opens November 7

As the 2020 firearms hunting season begins, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is taking a voluntary approach to chronic wasting disease (CWD) testing, in order to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission among hunters. Testing for CWD, a deadly disease of deer, moose, elk, and other cervids, is vital to stopping the disease’s spread. Self-service stations will replace DNR-staffed sampling stations. In deer permit areas where CWD has been detected, hunters are asked to submit heads from all deer of at least 1 year. A list of areas affected is on the DNR website for hunting seasons information. 

Venison processing may also look different this year. In August 2020, regulation of wild game processors moved to be under the Department of Agriculture (MDA)  Meat Inspection Program, which will allow licensed wild game processors to expand their work to include custom slaughter and processing of livestock for the owner of the animal. They were previously regulated by the MDA’s Retail Food Inspection Program, but have been moved under the rationale that since wild game products are returned to the owner of the animal, they are not required to meet the same food codes as meat that will be sold. 

Some forecast that this has contributed to a scarcity of processors available to hunters this year: due to the updated licensing requirements in combination with the increased demand for local slaughter and processing of livestock (due to the COVID-19 caused backups in meatpacking plants) and CWD-related restrictions. 

MN DNR Deer hunting seasons information
MDA Wild Game Processing
Star Tribune

NATIONAL

Tyson Foods to replace federal inspectors with company employees 

Tyson Foods announced last week that its beef plant in Holcomb, Kansas will replace more than a dozen federal inspectors with company employees. The company received a waiver from the USDA to do so in March 2020, after applying in 2019. According to a USDA statement made to Reuters, Tyson workers will take on parts of the process relating to “quality assurance and trimming tasks”, while federal inspectors will continue to oversee food safety and animal welfare. 

This move is a step by Tyson, in partnership with the USDA, to innovate and modernize the inspection process. Select pork and poultry plants have been part of a USDA project launched in 1998 to develop a more flexible, efficient, and integrated inspection system, through utilization of the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) approach to inspection. There has been no similar program in beef plants. 

Tyson has described plans to eventually automate some inspection tasks using computer vision and machine learning. The processing industry as a whole has been moving toward automation of demanding, repetitive, or dangerous tasks, a trend accelerated by the impact of COVID-19 on packing plants and employees. 

In the short term, the Holcomb plant will hire 15 new workers per shift to handle the work. The company has worked with Iowa State University's Center for Food Security and Public Health to develop appropriate training materials. The move also frees up federal inspectors—government employees highly trained in public health and food safety—to work in other important areas of need. 

Reuters
Food Safety News
Food Dive

INTERNATIONAL

UK navigates approach for agricultural trade agreements post-Brexit

The UK is leaving behind the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy and trade agreements as part of the transition following Brexit. As such, the country will need to develop their own policies and trade agreements, and there is tension around the development of these policies.

The EU has some of the world's strictest agricultural trade policies, including bans on many foods and feeds produced in the US and South American countries, such as beef raised with hormones, poultry processed with chlorine washes, and uses of biotechnology. UK farmers and citizens are concerned that new trade deals will not reflect those same restrictrictions, enabling the import of foods that were previously banned and unmanageable competition for local agricultural producers. 

On Sunday, the UK strengthened the role of the Trade and Agriculture Commission (TAC) in the process of developing new free trade agreements. The TAC, originally commissioned in July for a six-month assignment to represent the interests of UK farmers and consumers in new trade agreements, will be given full statutory footing to be renewed every three years. The Commission will produce a report on every new free trade agreement proposed, outlining the impact it would have on UK food and farming. 

Prior to this solution, there were efforts to legislate standards for future imported foods through an amendment to the Agriculture Bill. More than a million people signed a petition of the National Farmers Union in support of the amendment, stating that domestic farmers would not be able to compete with imports of cheaply produced food unless the amendment was passed. 

UK Government press release
British Veterinary Association
BBC
The Counter