Consumers today are blessed with a myriad of choices when they walk into a grocery store. Aside from the many brands of beef, shoppers can choose their preferred production method — conventional, organic, natural or grass-fed. With so many choices and an abundance of items, it can be a challenge to know which choice is best for your health and the planet.

Read more here

July 13, 2012 | Kay Ledbetter | Source: www.extension.org

DALLAS – Reducing phosphorus in dairy diets doesn’t change a cow’s productivity, but it does affect the environmental impact that cow might have, according to a Texas AgriLife Extension Service specialist.

Dr. Ellen Jordan, AgriLife Extension dairy specialist in Dallas, said she has long worked with nutrition consultants on reducing ration phosphorus so the phosphorus excretion is reduced, thereby protecting the environment. Too much phosphorus in runoff can cause algal blooms.

This long-term effort seems to be paying off, Jordan said. Working with other AgriLife Extension dairy personnel, their research has shown no production or animal well-being impact caused by the reduction of phosphorus… Read More

Sponsored by The USDA Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, this webcast includes presenters from Montana State University (MSU) and New Mexico State University (NMSU), in addition to CSU.  The presentation is designed for professionals who advise livestock producers, such as county agents, USDA-NRCS staff, conservation district staff and private agricultural and environmental consultants.  It will run approximately 60 minutes, and 1 CEU in Nutrient Management is available for Certified Crop Advisors.

Proper management of animal mortalities on the farm, ranch or feedlot has important implications for nutrient management, water quality, animal health, and farm/ranch family and public health.  To best ensure human health and safety, reduce regulatory risks, and protect environmental resources, livestock producers should become familiar with best management practices (BMPs) for dealing with dead animals. They should also be aware of state laws related to proper disposal or processing of mortalities.

Mortality composting is an increasingly popular and viable alternative when compared to other disposal practices because of cost savings, reduced environmental risks, and the generation of a potentially useful end-product. The objective of this project is to provide those who advise livestock producers, in the semi-arid High Plains and Rocky Mountains, with the knowledge, tools, and resources to develop mortality management plans,
with specific focus on the composting option.

This webcast is part of a suite of products including: a decision aid spreadsheet that evaluates the costs of mortality composting against other mortality disposal options, a how-to-manual on mortality composting, and a video illustrating on-the-ground mortality composting.  These resources were created by CSU, MSU, NMSU, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the University of Wyoming; they are based on demonstrated research, reviewed pertinent literature, and documented mortality composting systems already in-use by regional producers.  These additional products
are available by visiting: http://livestockandenvironment.org.

Have you wondered how food animal producer groups have responded to the attention given to their industries as sources of greenhouse gas emissions? Are they resting on their laurels since livestock and poultry production has been shown to be a relatively minor contributor to total U.S. emissions (see earlier webcast)? Or are they are taking on the challenge of assessing the carbon footprints of their product supply chains and looking for practical ways to manage emissions? Since June of 2008, the National Pork Board has been working on a specific plan to assess and better understand the pork industry’s carbon footprint. Participate in this webinar to be introduced to this project and see highlighted current results of this research, including description of tools designed for producers to begin to assess greenhouse gas emissions and manage resource efficiency in sow and grow-finish production. Read more…

The  Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment has declared ‘Safe  Food’ as one of our state’s winnable public health battles.  But to win  a battle requires strategy and part of that strategy includes understanding the  enemy. The burden of illnesses caused by contaminated food is significant, both  in terms of impact on public health and in terms of cost. Recent estimates  indicate that every year one in six Americans experience a foodborne illness  and approximately 3000 people die from these illnesses.  Reducing the  number of foodborne illnesses by just 10 percent would prevent 5 million  illnesses nationwide. And what about the cost in dollars related to illness  caused by unsafe food in the U.S.?  That is estimated to be $152 billion  per year, with an average cost of approximately $1850 per illness. To learn  more, please join us for the following webinar:

Friday,  June 8, 2012
2-3:15 PM
          Go to http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/colofood
        click on  “Enter as a guest”

Hosted by
Colorado State University Extension
          and
          Colorado  School of Public Health
          Center for  Food Safety and the Prevention of Foodborne Disease (Proposed)

A new article in the Journal of Risk and Insurance by Sommarat Chantarat, Andrew Mude, Christopher Barrett and Michael Carter describes our index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) product piloted among pastoralists in Northern Kenya, where insurance markets are effectively absent and uninsured risk exposure is a main cause of poverty.

It describes the methodology used to design the contract and its underlying index of predicted area-average livestock mortality, established statistically using longitudinal observations of household-level herd mortality fit to remotely sensed vegetation data. Household-level performance analysis based on simulations finds that IBLI removes 25–40 percent of total livestock mortality risk. We describe the contract pricing and the risk exposures of the underwriter to establish IBLI’s reinsurability on international markets.

Read More Here

 May 21, 2012      From: AllAboutFeed.net

 CJ Bio America has broken ground on its first US construction project to produce amino acids to supplement animal feeds, in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn. (NCBA) is
preparing to join the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, according to
reports from Beef Central.

NCBA president J.D. Alexander was quote in the
Australia media source as saying the decision to join had been delayed until
NCBA could gain a full and thorough understanding of who was involved and what
the participants were aiming to achieve before signing up.

Discussions
on the development of regionalized sustainability plans for the global beef
industry have been underway between the World Wildlife Fund and some of the
industry’s largest downstream players such as McDonalds, JBS, Cargill and
Walmart since November 2010

The move would be a significant step forward for the
Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef.

Cattle industries from around the world were among
the initial organizations involved in the first Roundtable meeting in Denver,
Colo. NCBA was at that meeting but did not give its support to the
effort.

Alexander was quoted as saying that the association
recognized that beef producers have to provide a product that consumers want and
are willing to pay money for, and believes it has to take part in global beef
sustainability discussions. NCBA had been looking at setting up its own
sustainability effort rather than partner up with the roundtable.

“The major premise I go by is that if you’re not at
the table, you’re on the menu,” Alexander said.

“I’m a firm believer that we’ve got to have our voice
heard.

“We’re representing producers all across the United
States, we’re the oldest, longest established, biggest organization, so we want
to be a part of anything that is going to be determining our future,” he
said.

NCBA told Feedstuffs that the decision has been made
to join the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef but that the announcement by
Alexander was a bit premature since the check has not yet been written. NCBA
said it expects a formal announcement to be forthcoming in a week or two.

Depending on whom you ask, Dr. Temple Grandin
is either a genius or a fraud.

To thousands of professional animal scientists,
producers and processors, she is the nation’s preeminent scholar on issues of
animal handling, welfare and wellbeing. To her detractors, she has most recently
been painted as self-aggrandizing, and overly eager to abandon sound science to
“mob rule” as the guiding principle behind sound animal
husbandry.

To hear Grandin describe her values, research
and principles in her own words, she is the ultimate realist, advocating a
balance of science and perception as the next critical step in the evolving
relationship between food producers and consumers.

“Most of the time I want to use science,”
Grandin explained in this week’s edition of Feedstuffs In Focus, the
weekly podcast of big issues in agriculture. “But then you get into things like
an animal living in a box where it can’t turn around for most of its life, and
that’s a degree of confinement people just aren’t going to
accept.”

She related a story where a consumer from Texas
likened the issue of gestation stalls in pork production to his own hunting
dogs, telling Grandin that he would never put his dogs in a space that
small.

Grandin said that with the vast majority of
consumers she meets and deals with, people are generally curious about food
production, and open to learning how and why various practices are employed on
farms and in processing facilities. To best balance that curiosity with the
sound science underpinning good animal husbandry, she said transparency is
critical.

“I commend places like Fair Oaks Dairy in
Indiana and hope they build the new Pig Adventure, because we have to open up
the doors and show the public that we are doing the right things,” she
said.

Submission Deadline

The deadline for the current round in the Call for Papers is 24 May 2012. Please return to this page after this date for subsequent rounds and deadlines in the Call for Papers. Proposals received during earlier rounds, when accompanied by a paid registration, will be given scheduling priority.

Accepted presentations may be viewed in the Session Descriptions area of this site.

Return to this page for subsequent rounds in the Call for Papers.

Submission Process

In-person Proposal (Paper Presentation, Workshop/Interactive Session, or Poster/Exhibits Session)

1. Submit an in-person proposal via the ‘Submit Proposal’ link on this page.
2. Once a proposal is accepted, the author must submit a paid registration for the conference. Note that, only one proposal in any format may be accepted per registered presenter, except in the following case: An author submits Proposal A for one in-person paper, and submits Proposal B for an additional, co-authored, in-person paper. This author will submit a paid in-person registration for Proposal A, and at least one of her/his Proposal B co-authors must submit a paid in-person registration. The two registrations (for Proposal A and Proposal B) permit both papers to be presented at the conference and submitted to the journal. If all of the co-authors of Proposal B are unable to attend, one of the co-authors will need to submit a paid virtual registration in order to submit the paper to the journal.
3. Once we receive the necessary paid registration(s), your presentation(s) will be scheduled in the draft program of the conference. Note that we cannot schedule your session(s) in the program until we receive the paid registration(s). The draft program of the conference is usually available about 4 weeks prior to the conference.

In-person Proposal (Colloquium)

1. Submit an in-person proposal via the ‘Submit Proposal’ link on this page. Remember, there must be at least 5 participants – for example, 4 presenters and a chairperson. All participants must be listed on the proposal submission form (list as one primary author, and 4 co-authors).
2. Once the proposal for the colloquium is accepted, each participant must submit a paid registration for the conference.
3. Once we receive all participants’ paid registrations, the colloquium will be scheduled in the draft program of the conference. Note that we cannot schedule the colloquium in the program until we receive all participants’ paid registrations. The draft program of the conference is usually available about 4 weeks prior to the conference.

Virtual Proposal:

1. Submit a virtual proposal via the ‘Submit Proposal’ link on this page.
2. Once a proposal is accepted, the author must submit a paid registration for the conference. Note that, only one proposal in any format may be accepted per registered presenter, except in the following case:
   An author submits Proposal A for one virtual paper, and submits Proposal B for an additional, co-authored, virtual paper. This author will submit a paid virtual registration for Proposal A, and at least one of her/his Proposal B co-authors must submit a paid virtual registration. The two registrations (for Proposal A and Proposal B) permit both papers to be submitted to the journal.
3. Once we receive the necessary paid registration(s), your paper(s), if accepted, will be published in the journal. Note that we cannot publish the accepted paper(s) in the journal until we receive the paid registration(s).

For further information, contact the Conference Secretariat.

Proposal Types

In-Person Presentations
Non-Attending Presentation
Presentation/Paper Focus

The Sustainability Conference is a participants’ conference comprised of numerous parallel sessions and selected plenary sessions. Participants are invited to submit proposals for in-person presentations as either Paper Presentations (to be assigned to a Themed Session or Roundtable Discussion), Workshop/Interactive Sessions, Poster/Exhibits, or jointly presented Colloquium. A virtual participation is also available if you are unable to attend the conference in-person.

Only one proposal for an in-person presentation may be accepted per registered presenter. This means that two proposals may be accepted in the case of two registered presenters in a joint presentation, as long as both presenters are registered as in-person participants. If one person registers as a virtual participant (instead of an in-person participant) the paper on which they are a co-author will be fully eligible for journal submission, but will not be listed in the conference program.

If your proposal for an in-person presentation has been accepted, we cannot schedule your session in the conference program until you have submitted a paid registration.

In-Person Presentations

1. Paper Presentation

An accepted proposal for a single paper presentation (prepared by one or more authors) will be assigned to one of the following formats:

a) “Themed Session”
This type of session is best suited for reports on completed research or scholarly work.  Authors present summaries or overviews of their complete paper, describing the essential features (purpose, procedures, and outcome, product, or results) of their scholarly work. The formal oral presentation of work should be limited to 15 minutes. Presentations are grouped according to topic or perspective into these themed sessions, with time provided after all of the presentations for Q&A and group discussion.  Authors are welcome to include visual supports (paper handouts, computer slides, or digital displays) to assist delivery of their oral presentation.  Please note that we cannot provide photocopying facilities at the conference but we will provide data projectors for computers in each room.  Multiple-authored presentations are welcome, though only one article may be submitted to the journal based on each presentation.

b) “Roundtable Discussion Session”
This type of session is best suited for position papers, reviews of theoretical or conceptual frameworks, works-in-progress, policy analyses, or topics that generate, or benefit from, extended discussion. Authors are each assigned a numbered table in a large meeting room for a full 60 minutes, during which time they converse and interact with interested delegates who join them at their table. Authors are encouraged to bring copies of their papers and/or a short handout summarizing their work for distribution at their tables. Multiple authors of a single paper may participate, and one article per roundtable may be submitted to the journal.

2. Workshop/Interactive Presentation

This type of session is best suited for teaching or demonstrating particular procedures, skills, or techniques.  Appropriate considerations for this Session format may include, for example: a workshop, demonstration, performance, exhibition, staged conversation, debate, or extended dialogue with the audience. The Sessions are scheduled for 45-60 minutes and should be structured so that some explanatory or introductory information is provided, with ample time for audience interaction, participation, and involvement. A single article, jointly authored if appropriate, may be submitted to the journal based on an Interactive Presentation.

3. Poster or Exhibits Session

This format is ideal for presenting preliminary results of work in progress or for projects that lend themselves to visual displays and representations.  In these 60-90 minute conference Sessions, a number of authors have the opportunity to display or exhibit their work and engage in informal discussion about their work with other delegates throughout the session. Displays may be posters (maximum 4X6 feet), digital/computer displays, artwork, or other visual media. Each display should include a brief abstract of the purpose and procedures of the work; handouts or copies of written material may also be available. Space for the poster or exhibit will be provided by the conference, however all materials must be organized by the presenter, including posters, displays, handouts or other appropriate materials. Please note that we cannot guarantee a dedicated power source for each presenter.  Authors may submit a formal paper describing their work to the journal.

4. Colloquium

This conference Session is scheduled for 90 minutes and involves five authors who are proposing a set of papers based on a shared theme or topic. The papers may present complementary aspects of a specific body of work, or contrasting perspectives on a specified topic.  There must be at least five registered participants (for example, a Chair and four presenters). The presenters should conceive and design the session to allow time for individual presentations (approximately 15 minutes each) and at least 15 minutes of audience discussion or question-and-answer. All participants must be listed on the proposal submission form (list as one primary author, and 4 or more co-authors). Either a single article or multiple articles may be submitted to the journal based on the content of a colloquium session.

Non-Attending Presentation

Virtual Presentation
A paper submitted without the participant attending the conference in person, but eligible to be refereed and published (if accepted) in the journal. A virtual registration allows you to join the conference community in the following ways:

• Your conference proposal will be listed in the Session Descriptions of the conference. Acceptance of a conference proposal for a virtual participant is based on the same criteria as that for an attending participant.
• You may submit a paper to The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability.
• Your journal paper submission will be refereed by conference participants and you will in turn referee paper submissions of other conference participants.
• If accepted, your paper will be published in the same volume as conference participants from the same year. You will also have online access to all papers published in the journal from the time of registration until one year after the conference end date.

You will receive the Community Newsletter.

Presentation/Paper Focus: Practice, Research or Theory

Referees for presentation proposals and of submitted papers will base their assessment upon the kind of focus of a particular presentation or paper.

Practice Focus
A presentation or publication which describes innovative or exemplary practices or programs in the community, in workplaces, in education institutions and the like. This may take the form of case studies, narratives, demonstrations or technical reports. The outcomes of practice may be improved frameworks, concepts, understandings or structures, such as enhanced capacity through the development of skills, knowledge and operational effectiveness. This kind of work may involve putting theory and research into practice.

Research Focus
A presentation or publication reporting upon original research, based on the systematic collection and analysis of data or facts. This kind of work may involve the application or testing of theory.

Theory Focus
A presentation or publication which is broad and generalizing in its emphasis, reflecting upon and systematically referenced against one or more bodies of literature or systems of thought.