American Lamb Board:
Board of Directors

(None of these categories are instantly identifiable and understood by industry outsiders—or just average consumer—like me.)

PRODUCER BOARD MEMBERS

Florence Cubiburu, Stockton, CA
Margaret Magruder, Clatskanie, OR (Chair)
Lorin Moench, Jr., Salt Lake City, UT (Treasurer)
John Oswalt, Vicksburg, MI
Sandy Snider, Powell, WY
David Trotter, Marysville, IN

FEEDER BOARD MEMBERS

Chico Denis, Vancourt, TX (Vice-Chairman)
Joe Harper, Seneca Rocks, WV
Spence Rule, Brighton, CO

SEEDSTOCK PRODUCER MEMBER

Laurie Hubbard, Bellefonte, PA

FIRST-HANDLER/PACKER MEMBERS

Bill Brennan, Iowa Lamb
Teddie Crippen, Superior Farms (Secretary)
Kevin Quam, Swift and Company

Finances

(Both of these images are screenclips taken from the PDF financial report at the American Lamb Board.) That is a $2.3 million dollar budget, with nearly 60% (close to a million and a half dollars) spent on promotion. (Hello, Fleishman-Hillard!)

Other

1. BUZZ WORDS: "Price point"

"The reason for our success were the price point of the lamb and the consumer response of those who attended South Beach Food and Wine Festival."

This tells us that they're using the cheapest products possible to feed the lambs, otherwise they wouldn't have such low prices.

2. From this page at the American Lamb Board:

How are Lambs Raised? During weaning, lambs gradually begin feeding on pasture or coarsely ground grain. They are raised on hay and feed consisting of corn, barley, milo(a type of sorghum), and/or wheat supplemented with vitamins and minerals. Lambs are usually "finished (grown to maturity) in feedlots where they are fed specially formulated feed."

"Feedlots" means: constrained, confined, cramped, and forced. The word word "organic" is not found on this page. (Or anywhere, really.)

What Does "Natural" Mean? All fresh meat qualifies as "natural". Products labeled "natural" cannot contain any artificial flavor or flavoring, coloring ingredient, chemical preservative, or any other artificial or synthetic ingredient; and the product and its ingredients are not more than minimally processed (ground, for example). All products claiming to be natural should be accompanied by a brief statement which explains what is meant by the term "natural."

But "natural" doesn't mean anything, especially not to the meat industry, who feed CORN to COWS and other ruminants, for goodness sake!

One of the Board Members, in fact the Secretary, is Teddie Crippen, of Superior Farms in Dixon, California (near Sacramento). From the Superior Farms website: "Lamb is at its best when raised naturally, in small flocks on family farms. Farms where there is no unnecessary use of chemicals, hormones or antibiotics."

Emphasis mine, of course. Define "unnecessary." I know many "conventional" farmers who think antibiotics are pro-active, and use them out of fear. Others use them out of necessity, because their operations are not clean, and disease is an issue. So "unnecessary" doesn't really cut it, does it? Not in any category. It's not defined, ans it's therefore meaningless. The rest of the page is a lot of nice-sounding claptrap: "daily access to the outdoors" doesn't mean they live outside. It might mean there is a tiny door in a distant corner of a huge building. "Shade and shelter" could also mean "cooped up in a cramped building, out of the sun (and fresh air)."

There simply is no proof, but it all sounds good, doesn't it?

I ain't buying it.

Partners

The American Lamb Board, who is forbidden to make contributions to political entities due to it being in bed with the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture (HELLO, FARM SUBSIDIES FOR CORN AND SOY! HELLO GREEDY THIEVES!) considers these organizations, among others, partners in the improvement and viability of the American lamb industry:

• AMI—American Meat Institute (www.meatami.org)

A. From Sourcewatch: Executive Committee members include employees of Sara Lee, Tyson Foods*, Cargill, Hormel Foods,and a host of others that Googling would no doubt turn up unsavory (inhumane, factory-farm supporting) factoids.

* From Render magazine:

Tyson Guilty of Illegal Discharge

Tyson Foods pled guilty in late June to violating the federal Clean Water Act and agreed to pay $7.5 million in fines for dumping untreated wastewater from its central Missouri chicken processing plant.

In the plea agreement, Tyson admitted that between September 1998 and March 2001 it repeatedly discharged untreated wastewater from its Sedalia, MO, poultry plant into a tributary of the Lamine River. The company, which has a state permit requiring wastewater to be treated before discharging into the stream, also acknowledged that employees at the plant knew about the discharges.

Tyson will pay a $5.5 million fine to the federal government and $2 million to the state. The company will also be on probation for three years, will hire an independent consultant to perform an environmental audit, and will implement an improved environmental management program.

The 1,000-acre Sedalia complex includes a hatchery, feed mill, and rendering plant and its own wastewater plant. It processes about one million chickens a week and generates hundreds of thousands of gallons of wastewater a day.

B. Let's take a few Executive Board members of AMI at random. Google results for:

1. "Carl Kuehne American Foods Group":

"Wisconsin's American Foods Group is a mid-sized, privately-owned meat packing and processing company. It is the 18th-largest meatpacker in the United States, primarily handling the slaughtering and packing of cattle."

"2000: 1.1 million pounds of beef recalled due to E. coli"

Principal Competitors: Atlantic Premium Brands; Colorado Prime; ConAgra Foods; Farmland Industries; Hormel; IBP; Moyer Packing; Packerland; Smithfield Foods; Stock Yards Packing; Wolverine Packing

2. Dane Bernard Keystone Foods, L.L.C.: contributed $750 to the Republican National Committee, and $250 to re-elect the Shrub.

3. Bill Brennan Iowa Lamb Corporation: Denver/Iowa Lamb slaughters 5,000 lambs daily at plants in Denver, Colorado, and Hawarden, Iowa.
Iowa Lamb Corp.
Address: 315 10th Street, Hawarden, Iowa IA 51023
Bill Brennan, Plant Manager
(This is surpassed only by Conagra, Inc., who slaughters 6000 lambs daily. Google ConAgra: I dare ya.)

4. Neil Genshaft Fresh Mark, Inc.: 2006 political contributions: $1000 to Rick Santorum, $500 to AMI PAC

C. Another AMI Google produced this:

American Council for Fitness and Nutrition is partnered with AMI: The American Meat Institute is national trade association "representing companies that process 70 percent of U.S. meat and poultry and their suppliers throughout America."

D. AMI's PAC (with donors) in 2006 raised nearly $300,000. Here is a list of the politicians they supported. Short story: (my research and compilation): Approximately $45K to Democrats (3 in Arkansas, 3 in North Carolina, 2 in Texas, 2 in California (SAM FARR?!), 2 in Missouri, and one each in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Maryland, Washington, Washington/DC, Newbraska, Minnesota, New Jersey, South Carolina, Michigan, and Mississippi)

Approximately $92K to Republicans, some of the more notoriously corrupt or idiotic I've highlighted in red. Orrin Hatch, Tom Delay, Dennis Hastert, Trent Lott, Richard Pombo...and their biggest single donation ($11K) to Rick Santorum.

You can see my casual but telling breakdown here.