Mark your calendars and make plans to attend the American Meat Science Association’s (AMSA) 76th Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC), June 25-28, 2023. At this premier event meat scientists from across the country will gather in St. Paul, Minnesota where they will be hosted by Hormel Foods Corporation and the University of Minnesota for an amazing celebration of friendship and research! “RMC brings together the leading scientists and technical experts in the meat industry to understand challenges, work toward solutions, and plan for the future. Best of all, students, the future of the meat industry, are there to learn from them,” stated AMSA CEO, Collette Kaster. For the last 76 years this meeting has been a place for researchers, students, and industry professionals to gather and discuss research and hot topics within the meat industry.
The opening keynote presentation “Alleviating Food Insecurity in the United States: The Critical Role of Meat,” will be led by Craig Gundersen, Ph.D. the Snee Family Endowed Chair at the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty (BCHP) and Professor in the Department of Economics at Baylor University. Dr. Gundersen will review how food insecurity rates have declined markedly since a post-Great Recession peak in 2014. A key reason for this decline is the success of our agricultural supply chains and, in particular, the meat industry. In this presentation, Dr. Gundersen will define food insecurity, give an overview of trends and differences across geography and demography, and discuss the role of the safety net against hunger, with an emphasis on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program). He will conclude with some of the remaining challenges to more fully alleviating food insecurity in the United States and the roles that can be played by the meat industry.