A-State Expands Venison Processing to Help Hunters Feed Arkansas Children

Arkansas deer hunters have a new in-state outlet for turning donated venison into food for children. Arkansas State University has unveiled a $750,000 expansion of its College of Agriculture Meat Market and Lab in Jonesboro, aimed at producing shelf-stable venison snack sticks for Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission reported the expansion on November 2. Funded by a grant from the Arkansas Office of Skills Development, the project addresses a specific bottleneck: processing donated meat into packages that can go home in school backpack programs without refrigeration.

Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry already distributes donated ground venison through food pantries. Its snack-stick program reaches children on weekends and school holidays, when school meals are unavailable. Executive director Ronnie Ritter told AGFC that demand from schools has grown beyond initial expectations, and the organization previously relied on a Missouri facility for most of that processing.

Last year, the program provided 172,000 snack sticks. Deer clubs enrolled in AGFC’s Deer Management Assistance Program supplied the meat for 128,000 of them. Those donations connect local herd-management work with a use for venison that club members may not need for their own freezers. AGFC says its biologists and participating clubs have coordinated special hunts to help supply the program.

The organization hopes to provide 200,000 snack sticks this year. That is a goal, not a completed total. A-State meat lab director Corey Readnour said the upgraded facility should be able to process nearly 200,000 shelf-stable sticks annually, provided it has sufficient meat-storage capacity. Students will process and package the venison, gaining practical experience while supporting the feeding program.

For hunters who want to help, Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry lists participating processors and explains how to donate a deer or part of a harvest. Its website says processing donated deer is free to the hunter. Contact a participating processor before making a delivery to confirm its current intake arrangements. A donation starts with a legally harvested deer; the program does not replace hunting regulations or authorize an extra harvest.

Hunters can also help cover processing costs by donating when they purchase an Arkansas hunting license. The immediate need described by the program is processing capacity and funding, not simply more equipment in an individual hunter’s kitchen.

Source: Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s November 2 report.

Illustrative photograph: A white-tailed buck in grass and brush, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service media library. Public domain; resized for display. This is a species illustration, not a photograph of the Arkansas donation program or the A-State facility.

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