Performing Department
Medicine & Epidemology
Non Technical Summary
The meat industry is the largest segment of US agriculture. Based on data obtained from United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA), from 2005 through 2016, 237,451 carcasses were condemned in California,representing 20% of the total carcasses condemned in the US. During the same period, California ranked fifth in the US inrespect to the number of slaughtered animal but it ranked first in the number of the condemned carcasses. More than 90%of the condemned carcasses in California are associated with dairy cattle. Very few studies, if any, have assessed thetemporal dynamics, risk factors and economic impact associated with dairy carcass condemnations. The evaluation of postmorteminformation may help to increase awareness about management practices that result in carcass condemnationamong livestock producers in the US. There is also a need to understand the impact that factors such as milk, meat or feedmarket price may have in the increase or decrease of specific reasons of condemnation cases. Certainly, the price of feed,milk and meat has an influence in the producer's management practices and decision-making and can directly influence thedynamics and number of dairy cattle condemned and reasons for condemnation. This proposed study will provide thefoundation of knowledge to better understand how management, decision practices and other factors are responsible forcarcass condemnations in California. This knowledge is highly needed to prioritize education and mitigation strategies.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The specific objectives are to 1) model system dynamics of carcass condemnation cases (i.e. number ofthe condemned carcasses/number of animal send to slaughter *100) per condemnation reason, based on monthly averagemeat, milk and feeder price in California and 2) develop an e-learning, outreach tool that provides information about themain causes of condemnation and recommendations to mitigate them given different meat, milk and feed market pricescenarios. Our ultimate goal is to advance in the development of a system dynamics model of how producer decisions incombination with management, environmental and economic factors affect condemnation cases.
Project Methods
Data on cattle condemnation reasons were obtained with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)from the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In the US,USDA is responsible for slaughter conditions and meat inspection through Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) and isreadily available to be used in this project. FSIS inspectors follow similar practices/protocols and have similar training in allstates. We focused on entire carcass condemnation (i.e., whole carcass is condemned). Data consisted of daily reports ofcondemned carcasses per type of cattle and condemnation reasons in 684 slaughterhouses in the US from 2005-2016,including 29 slaughterhouses located in California. For each animal, the database contained: condemned reason (n=35),cattle ID number, slaughter date, slaughterhouse's name (n=684) and state (n=49). Slaughtered cattle were classified asbeef cow, bob veal, bull/stag, dairy cow, formula-fed veal, heavy calf, heifer, non-formula-fed veal and steer. The yearlynumber of cattle sent to a slaughterhouse per state and per cattle type from 2005-2016 were also provided by FSIS. Herewe will focus only on dairy cows and only in California. Historical month price of dairy meat, milk and feed have been alsogathered from the USDA-ERS. We will estimate the direct losses associated with carcasses condemnations for the dairyindustry similar to previous studies conducted in other countries13. As a novelty, we will use multiple-input, single-output(MISO) economic models14 to understand the impact of the milk, feed and meat price changes on the carcasscondemnation in dairy industry in California by condemnation reason (i.e., we will run one model for each type ofcondemnation reason). We will also estimate the direct economic costs associated with each carcass condemnation reasonfor the dairy industry California using market prices. Finally, we will aim to provide the main findings and a list ofrecommendations to producers in an interactive way by integrating them into an online short-course within eXtension toincrease awareness and reduce the number of condemnation cases in the dairy industry. We believe that this researchextensionapproach will inform producer decisions and management practices and better prevent condemnation cases inthe dairy industry.