Click here for the Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company brochure

Service Company Seeks to Help Livestock Farmers
Sign up to begin March 1st

Are you a small farmer frustrated by the difficulty in getting your beef, pork, veal, lamb, goat, farm raised venison, or poultry processed? The Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company (NELPSC) is here to assist the livestock farmer by making it easier to get their livestock processed. They are seeking to sign up interested producers starting March 1st.

NELPSC will help the livestock producer by offering the following services: a Processing Coordinator who advocates on the farmer's behalf for the best quality processing, processing discounts, scheduling preference at processing plants, one person contact for scheduling and cutting instructions, personal service and technical assistance regarding: greater consistency in percent return of usable meat, attention to quality control, attention to humane animal handling, guidance on retail cuts and packaging, live animal readiness for processing, product storage for held inventory, production recommendations for "sliding livestock" into off-season processing periods; and information sharing regarding transport of livestock to the processing plants. Livestock producers will be asked to pay a per head fee which will be offset in part by the discount NELPSC has negotiated with processors.

"With the discount, livestock producers won't be paying that much more than they are now and with the oversight in quality, assistance in working with processors and technical assistance, this will turn out to be a valuable service," says Seymour Vander Veen, president of the NELPSC board.

Kathleen Harris, Livestock Processing Coordinator with NELPSC says, "Having been a livestock farmer for 26 years, I know first hand how difficult it can be to have your animals processed. It is a crisis that has affected our farm and livelihood in a profound way. When the plant we were doing business with lost their grant of USDA Inspection we lost our ability to retail which cost our farm probably 75% of our revenue. Going to the next closest USDA slaughterhouse was not cost effective for us. We had to make a very hard decision, so after 24 years of processing our livestock through slaughterhouses, we chose to get out and take work off the farm. Because of this personal experience, I am particularly eager to dedicate myself to the solution and I am excited to be able to provide this service to producers."

The Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company, LLC (NELPSC) is a producer-based company born of a grassroots effort by the Hudson-Mohawk Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) to address the on-going issues associated with obtaining meat processing for livestock and poultry. The company consists of a five member board of directors, three advisors and a processing coordinator and is funded by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, NYS Senate Majority Leader office, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Hudson Mohawk RC&D, and the Rensselaer County Economic Development Office.

This service also benefits meat processors who will be in contact with one processing coordinator for scheduling and cutting instructions rather than several farmers. It will also provide processors with more work, especially off-season as a result of the technical assistance to producers about "sliding" livestock.

The sign up of producers will begin March 1, 2006. If you are a producer or a member of a producer group and you would like more information about the Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company please contact Processing Coordinator, Kathleen Harris at (518) 673-5193 or by email nelpsc@frontiernet.net

Article is from Small Farms News Room: http://www.smallfarms.cornell.edu/pages/news/index.cfm

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