Minimum Wage & Brucellosis Concern

Minimum Wage & Brucellosis Concern

Minimum Wage & Brucellosis Concern plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The USDA is taking comments on new interim brucellosis rules. Lyndsay Cole of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service explains why brucellosis is a serious disease for cattle and bison herds.

COLE: Brucellosis affects cattle and bison and it is a serious disease that causes these animals to abort their fetuses and it can be passed from one animal to another very quickly. And in this case it’s still a major factor because there are wildlife, mostly elk and bison in the greater Yellowstone area that are known to still carry this disease and can transmit it to the livestock in those areas.

Now the holidays are over and most people are back to work. For hourly wage employees in Oregon and Washington that means an increase in their minimum wage. Oregon’s is up 10 cents to $8.50 while Washington’s is up 12 cents to $8.67. There is some concern especially in Washington that wage increase will be a hardship on ag producers in the state and an attempt to block the increase had failed.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Self proclaimed health expert, and editor of a men’s magazine, David Zinczenko is featured regularly on Yahoo, and while some of what he says is good advice, plain common sense really, the rest is a marketing ploy to sell his latest book and his sponsors products. These articles generally start out with Mr. Z urging people to eat fresh homemade fare, which is definitely the right route to take, but he quickly sidesteps, wrapping up each section with several plugs for particular brands to use just in case you happen to be one of those “rare” busy people with limited time in the kitchen. And, be it a surprise to no one, he has a strong loathing for anything containing corn sugar. Again, he does offer tidbits of good advice for eating healthy, but like all self improvement gurus what he’s dishing up mainly is just a regular old dose of plain common sense. So while Mr. Zinczenko’s seven, or is it eight now, books on eating either this or that can be entertaining late night reading, they are not a required purchase for healthy living, that is unless you’re David Zinczenko and you’re trying to pay for your limestone and Italian marble graced condo.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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