My mistake

Friday I quoted a university researcher who evidently was attempting to secure more funds for her program with the statement that “the incubation period for Chronic Wasting Disease is 15 years.” So I want to correct that error and thank all of you who called me on it. Strong evidence shows that the accurate time frame for CWD to incubate, before symptoms develop, is less than three years. Sorry for the error.

Michigan Corn hits a home run

I am a little concerned that we do not have full agricultural support for Ethanol. Ethanol production benefits farmers with value added crops. Livestock producers will receive a benefit as well because the ethanol plant will not survive without the ability to capture value on dry distiller’s grains. Bruce Noel is passionate about agriculture and an excellent spokesman. He is quoted here in regard to the benefits of ethanol to the consumer. Click here to read the entire release or click here to read my sentiments about another such controversy in Missouri.

Michigan corn producers may soon need to work even harder to meet the demand for their crop as Lansing received its Clean Cities designation today.

After years of hard work promoting ethanol and other alternative fuels, the Corn Marketing Program of Michigan’s (CMPM) partner, the Greater Lansing Area Clean Cities Coalition (GLACCC), was honored at a designation ceremony hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. The event was held at the State Capitol in Lansing.

“As a farmer, it gives me a great sense of pride to see how ethanol can help make our cities cleaner,” said Bruce Noel, a member of the CMPM Board of Directors and a corn producer from Leslie. “It’s amazing to think that one bushel of corn grown in Michigan can be processed into 2.8 gallons of ethanol. We produce over 240 million bushels of corn annually so, as you can see, we can really make a dent in our dependence on foreign oil.”

Keeping our kids safe

Joe Roybal of Beef Magazine is dedicated to getting the facts presented correctly when it comes to the fourth pillar of public health - utilizing technologies that are already available to protect our kids. Here is a sample of Joe’s comments click here to read his entire report.

Beef Industry Logs Successful Week In E. coli O147:H7 Battle; (September 26, 2003) BEEF Magazine’s Cow Calf Weekly; By Joe Roybal: The last seven days have been a great week for the beef industry and its campaign against E.coli 0157:H7 in ground beef.

* First, came news (reported in last week's issue of BEEF Cow-Calf Weekly) that testing of 4,432 beef samples for E. coli O157:H7 by USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in the first eight months of 2003 had shown a decrease of almost ½ of 1%. FSIS say that 0.32% of the ground beef samples tested positive for the pathogen in the first eight months of 2003, a significant drop from 2002, when 0.78% of samples tested for the pathogen, and the 2001 level of 0.84%.