Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO AT MAYAGUEZ
P. O. BOX 9000
MAYAGUEZ,PR 00681
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
This manuscript presents an effort led by the UPRM. It is an attempt to bring together all of Puerto Rico's meat and poultry industry (MPI) stakeholders to address common needs. After organizing the various groups (i.e., beef, pork, poultry, and small ruminants) into a single team, the Puerto Rico Meat Industry Alliance (PRMIA), focuses shifts towards establishing an industry approved certification for its workforce with content defined by stakeholders. Then, resources from all of Puerto Rico's higher education institutionscurrently offering degrees in related fields (e.g., associate, bachelor or master's degrees in animal, veterinary, or food science) will work together to generate educational materials and offer the certification. Certification offering will take place through the UPRM's Division of Continuing Education and Professional Studies (DECEP) as this allows the opportunity to pull the best available resources in Puerto Rico. The developed certification will be available to university students from participating institutions, MPI workers, and general public interested in pursuing careers in the MPI. To meet the 100-student participation requirement, participating institutions of higher education will establish a selection criteria and open enrollment to students from these institutions. By so doing, proponents assure to provide development opportunities to all interested students in Puerto Rico within and outside UPRM. In the long run, this project should move Puerto Rico's MPI to the next level of performance and production; positively impacting Puerto Rico's food security as well as social and economic conditions of MPI participants.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
0%
Developmental
100%
Goals / Objectives
The main goal of the proposed project is to organize the meat and poultry industry (MPI) in Puerto Rico to developpe its workforce, and strategically strengthen the industry as a whole.Specific objectives follow:Objective 1 - Establish the Puerto Rico Meat Industry Alliance (PRMIA) to bring together all meat industry stakeholders (i.e., production, harvesting, processing, academia, and government) to prepare and implement a combined strategic development plan.Objective 2 - Establish an industry accepted certificate to provide the food safety and technical knowledge and skills needed at farm and slaughterhouse levels.Objective 3 - Prepare faculty to offer the industry accepted certificate assuring effort sustainability post project intervention.Objective 4 - Develop a plan for the establishment of a rendering facility to research alternative feed ingredients that maintain nutritional quality while reducing costs.
Project Methods
Methodology:Objective 1 - Establish the Puerto Rico Meat Industry Alliance (PRMIA) that brings together all meat industry stakeholders to prepare and implement a combined strategic development plan.Personal communications between proponents and several stakeholders evidenced that existence of common challenges of the MPI in Puerto Rico. It is expected that the establishment of the PRMIA will help to strategically foster workforce education, integrally develop the industry, and move towards the inception of needed policies. PRMIA should better position the MPI to reduce imports and improve PR's food security.Prior toestablishing the PRMIA, proponents will continue meeting withstakeholders (including industry, academic and government) to gather further input about their current needs and challenges, as well as their view of the industry's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Such information will be organized by topic and used to conduct a stakeholder's working meetings.Composition of PRMIA's board - Aboard is needed to make final decisions based on gathered data and take organized actions. Theboard should include representation from beef, pork, poultry and small ruminant industries, academia, and government. Puerto Rico's Food Marketing, Industry and Distribution (MIDA) organization will also be invited to participate. The board will establish its own bylaws and seek funding to conduct its activities.PRMIA's strategic development plan - Issues and concerns expressed by stakeholders during individual meetings will be grouped into three to five general categories (e.g., marketing, cost, quality, knowledge, others). During working meetings, participants will be divided into groups and asked to (1) draft a goal for each general category that addresses the grouped issues and concerns, and (2) prioritize drafted goals. Then, groups will share their work on each category to enable discussion leading to the definition of PRMIA's goal for each general category.Content of a meat industry accepted certificate - Stakeholders input will be used to define the content and duration of an industry accepted certification. Preliminary input suggests that curriculum should include theory and practice, and cover subjects like food safety, GMP's and other applicable regulations, records, general animal anatomy and typical diseases, market cuts, adequate farm and harvest practices, and worker safety. The developed curriculum should be available to university students at the undergraduate and graduate level, industry participants not currently seeking a formal degree but wishing to further their knowledge and skills in the field, and general population interested in pursuing careers in the meat industry.Objective 2 - Establish an industry accepted certificate that provides the food safety and technical knowledge and skills needed at farm and slaughterhouse levels. Information about the industry accepted certificate gathered in the working meetings will be used to develop the curriculum and content of a two-weekimmersive course.Subject matter experts will be identified to develop the required course materials for the certificate, yielding copyrights to UPRM's Agricultural Extension Service. In as much as possible, educational materials shall be available online.To provide hands-on experiences, UPRM has farms for cattle, pork, small ruminants, and poultry where students can polish skills and apply practices. There is also a small slaughterhouse, currently under a collaborative agreement with a farmer cooperative group, where students can acquire experience in meat harvesting. For processing activities, UPRM has a Meat Products Lab suited with the necessary equipment to support teaching activities. Beyond UPRM, arrangements will be sought with stakeholders to allow participants to attain internship opportunities. Students may also choose to use their participant support stipend to acquire other internship experiences elsewhere and/or attend a conference that may further broaden their networking opportunities for the future.Curriculum offering can be administered through the University's Division of Continuing Education and Professional Studies (DECEP). This office can recruit teaching resources not associated with the University. Thus, the best resources can be pulled from the private or public sectors to teach, as needed. Furthermore, offering the industry accepted certificate throughDECEP, enables its fast implementation since the lengthy approval processes of universities are not required.Selection criteria of sponsored university students will be decided among collaborating universities. Three sponsored student waves will be conducted during the summer terms of years three (20 students), four (35 students) and five (45 students), respectively. Training over the summer term allows students to focus on the educational experience without the pressure of other coursework. Additional waves could be planned throughout the year, as needed, to train industry participants and the general population interested in pursuing careers in the MPI.The smaller class planned for the first year will allow proponents to sort out logistic details of the certification, particularly for the hands-on experiences, and serve as external validation of the developed educational materials. To further polish the efforts, assessment activities will be conducted after each student wave to gather feedback on their experiences, perceived knowledge gain and perceived readiness to join the meat industry workforce.Objective 3 - Prepare faculty to offer the industry accepted certificate assuring effort sustainability post project intervention. To assure effort sustainability after the proposed project's life, four graduate students in Animal Science, Food Science or related fields will be selected to be sponsored, mentored, and trained to become the future trainers. Selected students will commit to participate as teaching resources for the certificate for a minimum of 5 years after graduation. In return, these students and a group of their mentors will attend the Texas Tech Meat School to further their knowledge and skills in the production and processing of meat.Mentored graduate students will also participate in industry internships to be coordinated with PRMIA's participants. It is expected for these students to support course material development and administration.As part of assessment activities, proponents will conduct individual annual interviews with students and mentors to identify areas requiring development and strengthening.Objective 4 - Develop a plan for the establishment of a rendering facility to research alternative feed ingredients that maintain nutritional quality while reducing costs.Communications conducted during the development of this proposal suggests the need to reduce feed costs as the means to improve the farm's economic wellbeing and achieve a cost competitive product. Previous economic studies evidenced that a main contributor to feed cost is ingredient price and availability.Studies with ingredients like breadfruit, fish meal, and pigeon peas have been conducted at the UPRM's Agricultural Experiment Station with some success. However, such efforts have been limited by UPRM's ability to process ingredients to a form appropriate for feed preparation in a sufficient quantity.As part of this project, it is desired to develop a plan for the refurbishment of a small feed mill at UPRM's Experimental Station in Lajas that is not in use that may work as a rendering facility that could process ingredients into a form suitable for feed preparation. Such a plan should include an evaluation of the required technology and equipment capacity needed as well as thedevelopment of a business plan that includes cost structure and ensures sustainable operation.