—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 22, 1972 16 Sri.. Terrific Tillie Gibson, guiding light of the 4-H nutrition program for inner city children. Federal Meat (Continued From Page 1) In an effort to fmd out what was behind the takeover, Lancaster Farming contacted a Washington spokesman for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Ser vices Division He said that his department had started action because there were deficiencies in the state’s inspection service He was asked if the well-known animosity between Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Jim McHale and U S Secretary Earl Butz had anything to do with the takeover “I’m not in the political side of the department,” he said “I’m a career officer with the Animal Health Services. We’re supposed to be the professionals, as opposed to the politicians. We’re the ones who started the action to take over the state’s meat inspection. As far as I’m concerned, the political thing, the name-calling and all that started after we notified the state that we felt their inspection procedures were deficient ” lune Milk Reported June milk production in Pennsylvania was 610 million pounds, two per cent lower than June production last year, and seasonally lower than May’s production. Average production per cow was 880 pounds for June, com pared with 890 pounds in June a year ago, and 950 pounds in May. The seven per cent decline from May to June is an average seasonal decrease for the period. The amount ot concentrates fed per cow, as of July i, averaged 12 7 pounds, compared with 14.0 pounds on April i This question, which used to be asked monthly, is now asked quarterly at the first of January, April, July, and October The number of milk cows in Pennsylvania was 693,000 in June, the same as a month ago, but down 1 per cent from 702,000 m June 1971 U S milk production during June is estimated at 11,021 million pounds, two per cent more than a year earlier. Daily average production for June is up 0 5 per cent from May compared with no change between these same months last year. June output provided 1.76 pounds per person daily for all uses, com pared with 1.75 pounds last month and June a Year ago. Total milk production during the first 6 months of 1972 is two per cent more than 1971. Inner City Children (Continued From Page 1) families The focus of ENEP is on nutrition education, but there are many other 4-H projects. Even crops “This is the only group in the state that’s growing vegetables, as far as I can tell,” asays Mrs Gibson. “They’ve got other ENEP programs - Pitt sburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and other places - but I don’t think anybody else has got hold of some land to try something like this ” Twenty-six young people, twenty-six garden plots, each a veritable vegetable market Corn, tomatoes, radishes, let tuce, zucchini, squash, water melon, collard, beans are all doing quite well on the plot of ground made available to the group by Lloyd Weaver. Both Weaver and Tillie Gibson are members of the South Christian St Mennomte Church The church, in fact, is a big factor in the success of the local ENEP project. Mrs Gibson says that her seven volunteer leaders are all from the church, and the work would have been impossible without their efforts All the group’s meetings are held in the basement of the church. The young people named themselves the Good Use Club, after debating the merits of What’s Cookin’ in the Kitchen as a club moniker They meet once a week. During the meetings, they The official went on to say that the deficiencies were due largely to a manpower shortage in the inspection force. Because the inspectors alledgedly weren’t able to visit plants often enough, the USDA charged that some plants were operating under unsanitary conditions. In Lancaster County, there were no major deficiencies reported by the inspectors during the first week of inspection. A check with several smaller operators revealed no extreme actions taken by the inspectors. The proprietor of one two-man shop said he was visited on Monday by four different in spectors, and none had any complaints. Another meat store owner said that his inspector was flown in from lowa, he was a perfect gentleman, and he had no problems at all. Another small butcher said so far so good. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to stay in business,” we were told by another store owner. He has four full-time butchers and some part-time help. He was referring not to equipment, but to operating hours. The federal meat inspectors have the right to regulate hours of operation. We were told by the USDA's Washington office that the reason for this is that an unscrupulous processor can do anything when he’s operating while he knows he’s not going to be inspected. Meat inspectors stop working at 3:30 p.m. If they feel com pelled to stay in a plant after that time, regulations say that they may charge the plant a $9.36 per hour overtime fee USDA provides up to eight hours of free inspection, after 3:30, in dustry pays. The smaller operators felt this might be an unconscionable burden. In a two-man shop, for example, we were told by one proprietor that the inspector would be making more money than the shop owner and it just wouldn’t pay him to stay open. He felt he might lose customers and income because of this regulation. In a large plant, this fee hasn’t much of an effect on cost, because it is spread over a much larger output. go to the Weaver farm, near Strasburg, to tend their gardens. Because of rainy weather, they weren’t able to get into the gardens for several weeks at one point Weeds grew nearly out of control, and they faced a par ticularly dreary task of weeding. “One thing kids learn fast about gardening,” Mrs Gibson says. “They hate to weed.” On the first nice Tuesday after the rains, however, the Good Use members found a contingent of South Christian St. church members waiting for them. They all pitched in and the weeding was done in short order. “You might think we’d have a lot of problems with a group of kids from the inner city,” Mrs. Gibson says “But we don’t. We limit the ages from 13 to 19, and we let the kids discipline them selves. They do a pretty good job