There’s nothing like a cup of cocoa, tea, or coffee when you come in from outside on one of these chilly December days. That fresh cup helps warm us up and restores us almost magically! That’s because it helps raise our body temperature, restoring warmth that the cold weather took away.

In a letter to his daughter, Ben Franklin suggested that the turkey would be an ideal official symbol of the United States. This truly noble bird does play an important part in U.S. diets and our family traditions. According to the National Turkey Federation, turkey production in the United States has increased nearly 110 percent since 1970.

Eighteen farmers from a broad region of across southeast Ireland recently visited Hadley Farms in Cambridge, Illinois to see the beef farm owned and operated by Al and Karen Lyman. Monoslope building technology is not new to Irish farmers, but the quality, detail, size, and scale of the facilities and the operation impressed them.

University of Illinois researchers have recently developed the first of its kind high-resolution map of the U.S. food supply chain. An impressive 9.5 million county-by-county connections show how food and feedstuffs flow between counties. It includes movement of grains, fruits and vegetables, animal feed, and processed food items.

Some of you know Summit Livestock from their reputation for excellence. Some know Summit Livestock for their innovation in building design. Summit Livestock go beyond the traditional approach to buildings to provide innovative, game-changing solutions to protein producers.

Access to and retention of workers continues to be one of the top issues challenging the agriculture industry – and the poultry supply chain is no exception.

Labor management is one of the most challenging factors in profitable swine production. But new tools used to assess employees within their working environment provide valuable insights into optimizing worker satisfaction and performance – factors that directly and positively impact farm performance.

A Summit Livestock monoslope can help keep cattle cooler in the high heat and humidity conditions faced in late summer. Summit’s designs offer cattle producers options that help improve airflow, minimize the intensity of sunlight and optimize shade. Many cattle producers applaud their buildings for allowing them to manage more stock more easily and more safely.