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Introduction to Sheep Breeds
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Where does your sheep breed come from originally? There are many different sheep breeds worldwide. Their many different looks, sizes and production records were shaped by their purpose and by the environment in which they were bred and raised. In this article I attempt an introduction to the history of sheep breeds. Wool Sheep…
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Raising Prices on Meat: A Pep Talk
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When raising prices, there are many factors to consider including local market, population, and economic conditions and seasonality in demand. By Matthew LeRoux, with Todd Schmit and John Rogers Over the summer, we observed prices from 6 Ithaca grocery stores and 17 farms around NY. Farm prices are from farmers markets and farm-owned farm stores…
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New Report Summarizes NYS Meat Processor Needs and Perspectives
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Building a resilient local food system requires sufficient meat processing capacity. The COVID pandemic revealed that NYS did not have the ability to absorb shocks, including increased consumer meat demand, leaving farmers and consumers frustrated and meat processors overwhelmed. In Fall 2020, a team of Cornell Cooperative Extension educators, Cornell Animal Science Dept faculty, and…
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In the News: COVID-19 Reveals Slaughterhouse Shortages
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Finding a slaughterhouse to process meat has been a challenge for small farmers for years. Federally inspected slaughterhouses are few and far between, and in many parts of the country, it takes driving long distances — often multiple hours, both ways — to reach one. This shortage is often attributed to the consolidation of processing…
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Improved Meat Marketing for Small Scale and Direct Marketing Farms in the Northeast
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For small-scale farms, the need for marketing skills has increased as the local food marketplace has become crowded with more competition. Perhaps 15 years ago the supply of local meat was smaller than the demand, allowing farms to simply “show up and sell out” in their markets. However, here in the Northeast we have seen…
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Meat
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Sheepfolds, pigpens, chicken coops, and smoke houses: on a farm with animals, these places have meaning. Cynthia G. Falk writes about the agricultural and architectural diversity of historic farm buildings in her new book: Barns of New York: Rural Architecture of the Empire State (Cornell University Press, 2012). This is a beautiful book about the…
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Home Grown Cow: An Easy Way to Get Into Online Sales for Meat, Poultry, and Cheese Producers
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“Where did you get these steaks? They’re fantastic!” is the usual reaction from friends from out-of-town to eating beef at my dinner table in South Central Wisconsin. Some of these dinner guests have even asked me to mail meat to their homes in places as far away as Miami and Atlanta because they loved it…
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Pricing Your Meat Cuts
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So, you’re thinking about raising livestock for direct-to-consumer sales. You’ve figured out what kind of livestock you want to raise, what kind of infrastructure you will need, soil tested your pastures, the works. One question remains; how much should you charge your customers? It doesn’t matter if you are selling halves, quarters or single cuts,…
meat
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