Minnesota Farmers Union (MFU) members have long identified addressing the bottleneck in meat processing—and building a more distributed, diverse, and resilient meat processing system—as a top priority. To advance this work, MFU and the University of Minnesota Extension’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP) partnered to create a joint graduate student position that is dedicated to helping MFU build capacity for local and regional meat processing and otherwise meet the needs of livestock producers across the state.

Projects Include:

Let’s Meat

Convening a webinar series focusing on conversation around opportunities and challenges in small and mid-scale meat and poultry processing.

Meat Minute

Publishing a regular column summarizing new and important information in the meat processing sector.

Meat Processing Working Group

Supporting and driving work to address local and regional meat processing challenges such as:

• Submitting proposals for a mobile meat processing unit.
• Partnering to established meat cutting programs at technical colleges.

For more information about the position contact MFU Government Relations Director Stu Lourey at (320) 232-3047 or stu@mfu.org.