Cottage Food Producer Food Safety Training to be held in Willmar

Do you make and sell baked goods, home-canned pickles, salsa, jam and jellies? Are you a cottage food producer? If you are, attend the Cottage Food Producer Food Safety Training from 1-5 p.m. Wednesday, June 27, at the U of M Extension Office, Mid Central Research and Outreach Center, Willmar.

This advanced safe food handling course focuses on aspects of cottage food products including baked, confectionery, dried, fruit preserves and, acid and acidified fruit and vegetables. You will learn how to produce, package and label a safe food product.

Wonder if your product tests as an allowable non-potentially hazardous food? Bring it along to the cottage food class and have it tested.

If you sell more than $5,000 annually, this workshop meets the training requirement to register as a Minnesota cottage food producer. Registration materials available at http://www.extension.umn.edu/food/food-safety/courses/cottage-food. For more information contact, Karla at 507-337-2808 or engel114@umn.edu.

Plant-based drinks could lose ‘milk’ ID in North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Some North Carolina agriculture leaders say drinks made from soy and almonds aren’t truly “milk” coming from lactating animals and should be marketed on the state’s store shelves as something else.

The General Assembly’s annual farm bill unveiled Tuesday in a Senate committee would direct the state to develop a plan to enforce federal and state standards and by January prohibit sales of plant-based drinks mislabeled as milk.

WRAL-TV reported Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler told senators most of the world’s countries ban the milk label for plant-derived drinks, saying it otherwise confuses consumers. Troxler said the provision could also help state dairy farmers who are struggling financially.

The bill contains several other agriculture-related items. Two committees approved the measure Tuesday. It must go through others before reaching the Senate floor.

Construction of U of I feed mill to begin

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — The University of Illinois says it will begin building a multi-million dollar feed mill to replace the one that’s stood for more than 90 years.

The (Champaign) News-Gazette reported construction will begin Sept. 8 at the new site located at the U of I’s South Farms in Urbana. Construction is expected to be completed in June of next year.

According to one estimate, the completed mill will produce about 16,000 tons of feed a year — or about 10,000 more tons than is produced for livestock and research by the feed mill that was built in 1927.

Fox Development CEO Andrea Ruedi says that more than half of the $11 million that the project will cost has been raised by the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

GOP race for Iowa ag secretary expected to go to convention

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A five-way Republican primary race for Iowa agriculture secretary remains unresolved as the incumbent appears just shy of the threshold needed to secure the nomination.

In unofficial results, Mike Naig stands 233 votes short of the 35 percent threshold needed to become the GOP nominee in the general election. However, provisional and absentee ballots could still add to the tally, potentially allowing Naig to make up the difference in the coming days.

Kevin Hall, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, said county auditors will finalize results — including provisional and absentee ballots — by June 12.

The Republican state convention is scheduled for June 16 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.

“At this point, we’re really focused on convention,” Naig said. “We’ll certainly be watching as the vote becomes official.”

Naig was named to the position by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds in March after longtime agriculture secretary Bill Northey took a job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Naig received more than 30,600 votes in the Republican primary, where Reynolds and other GOP state officials were unopposed.

State Sen. Dan Zubach, who chairs the agriculture committee, finished second with about 18,800 votes. The other Republican candidates are former Iowa Farm Bureau Federation president Craig Lang; former American Soybean Association chairman Ray Gaesser; and former Iowa Environmental Protection Commission chairman Chad Ingels.

Any of the five candidates could still emerge as the nominee at the convention.

Jesse Dougherty, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Iowa, said a candidate must receive a majority of delegate votes at the convention to become the nominee. Delegates start winnowing the lowest-performing candidates after the second round of voting to avoid gridlock.