Pandemic boosts bison consumption Dave Thompson, Prairie Public. Dec 16, 2022 The North American Bison LLC processing plant in New Rockford is expanding. "We've been experiencing solid growth, in terms of consumption of bison — not only domestically in the U.S., but across the globe," CEO and President Jim Wells told Prairie Public. "We saw a need to expand our production capacity." North American Bison is harvesting around 11,000 animals per year, according to Wells. "We're going to move our capacity to over 17,000 animals annually," he said. The company recently was awarded $250,000 in state aid to help with expansion construction costs, according to state Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring. The money is through the Agricultural Diversification and Development Fund, which is administered by the state Agriculture Department and state-owned Bank of North Dakota to support new or expanding value-added agriculture businesses. The coronavirus pandemic is a big driver of the bison...

Registration is open for the 2023 NBA Winter Conference in Denver January 18-21, 2023. Register before December 18th and save $25 in registration cost! Join the biggest bison gathering of the year where we’ll gather, network, learn and celebrate the American bison! Two days of top-notch educational programming, market updates, and amazing bison-themed meals, all concluding with our annual Gold Trophy Show and Sale (GTSS) bison auction at the National Western Stock Show on Saturday, January 21st. You won’t want to miss out on this great opportunity! Also, please be sure to book your deeply discounted Winter Conference lodging before December 18th at the beautiful Westin Westminster hotel. Book your room without breakfast option – $139/night. Or call the Westin hotel directly at 303.410.5000, or Marriott reservations at 888.236.2427 and request the National Bison Association room block to reserve over the phone.Francie M Berg Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog

A rancher-owned meat harvesting cooperative is slated to open this fall in Havre, Montana, according to a Prairie Star report. The USDA-inspected Montana Premium Processing Cooperative (MPPC) facility, owned by Montana member ranchers, will initially process 3,000 to 3,500 head of cattle, sheep, hogs and bison a year. The co-op purchased a building in Havre, Mont., where it will park a semi-trailer that has been modified to be a kill floor. Matt Rains, a rancher and chief of staff for the Montana Farmers Union, told the publication that cattle producers who have been sending finished steers to a large processing plant out of state started the co-op because they wanted to retail their own beef. Producers leave $1,500 to $2,000 "on the table" for every steer they sell, and wait times to get into a processing facility can be one to two years, he said. The facility in Havre is near the end of construction and will open soon. The plant is expected to be a year-round operation that can...

The Center of Excellence (COE) for Bison Studies led M. bovis Task Force met today to continue their work on gaining a better understanding of the virus and offering mitigation options.

Twice each year, TV customers may experience some degree of television interference due to sun outages, which are caused by a phenomenon known as “solar satellite interference.” These brief outages occur when the sun passes directly behind the satellites that transmit cable signals for any provider, not just Consolidated. When the sun is aligned with a transmitting satellite, solar radiation emitted by the sun disrupts the satellite’s signal and causes a brief signal outage.