Wyoming funds college meat program, mobile slaughter

INDUSTRY NEWS – AM

Wyoming funds college meat program, mobile slaughter

By Susan Kelly on 1/15/2020

The state of Wyoming has awarded a $777,809 grant to Central Wyoming College to develop a meat processing program that will include a mobile slaughtering unit, the school announced.

The funding, through the Wyoming Works initiative, will support an agriculture faculty position and meat sciences lab equipment, as well as the mobile unit, and is based on a four-year budget. The program will also serve Eastern Wyoming College and the Northern Wyoming Community College District in a consortium.

Supporting local plants

Central Wyoming College President Brad Tyndall said the program will provide for the workforce needs of the area, which is due to gain a new USDA-inspected meat slaughter and processing facility, Wyoming Genuine Meats, this spring. In addition, a local state-inspected facility is considering changing to a USDA-inspected plant, he said.

“Fremont, Hot Springs and Teton counties are really tourism corridors with many thousands of people driving through wanting to experience local food and meats. Our Rocky Mountain Complex, which should break ground in 2021, intends to help meet that agro-tourism need locally and elsewhere by “beefing up main street,” as I like to say. More and more people are contacting us to be a part of this vision,” Tyndall said in a press release.

Central Wyoming College’s Wyoming Works agriculture-related programs will serve 60 students annually in a two-year program, or 120 students across the four years of the grant period. The consortium will add an additional 76 students annually in a two-year program, or 152 across the four years of this grant period..

The college said it created its animal sciences and meat sciences curricula in consultation with local ag producers and meat processors. Once the school received approval for the meat sciences curriculum, it was then approved as a Wyoming Works program by the Wyoming Community College Commission.