Senate Farm Bill & Monsanto Lawsuit

Senate Farm Bill & Monsanto Lawsuit plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Last week the Senate invoked cloture or a call to end debate and proceed to a vote on the Farm Bill. The action received a lot of thumbs up from ag groups. The current version contains 38 amendments approved by the Senate last year and 14 added in debate this year. The final vote is scheduled for 2:30 Pacific time this afternoon. Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow talks about what they did.

STABENOW: We’ve eliminated over 100 authorizations and programs that were duplicative, didn’t work anymore, were not the right thing to do from a taxpayers standpoint. We have consolidated in a way that has not been done - I would argue - in decades and we have reduced the deficit by more than the last bill - $24-billion dollars.

A lawsuit filed last week in Kansas against Monsanto has been followed up by a suit from two Washington State farmers over the unauthorized release of genetically modified wheat. The suit claims the finding of the genetically modified wheat has hurt the farmers export markets since both Japan and South Korea have said they will not take certain wheat exports now. The investigation is continuing.

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

Creating a “fairy garden” is all the rage now, and why not, those enchanting and delightful whimsical creatures have been capturing people’s imaginations for centuries. A fairy garden is the creation of a tiny, fairy sized world, where the fanciful possibilities are only limited by your own imagination. Most garden centers now have display areas devoted primarily to “everything fairy” where you can find fairy sized plants and landscaping supplies, along with a few fairies themselves! Designing and constructing a fairy garden can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Children love to be involved in picking out the perfect accessories for a fairy garden that are provided by nature itself, such as small stones, pinecones, twigs, leaves, and even shells. These fairy garden accessory scavenger hunts are also a perfect opportunity to for a nature lesson. Before you know it, the whole family will be involved in creating the perfect tiny habitat that any fairy worthy of their wings would love to abide in. Even big strong “he men” can’t help but become enamored with fairy gardens, and why not, it helps us connect with that “inner child” we all have clamoring to get out.

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