11-29 NWR Food Prices

This is your Northwest report for Tuesday, November 29 I'm David Sparks and USDA food price analyst Annemarie Kuhns, talked about one factor that has resulted in an expected drop in overall grocery store food prices this year. "It is largely a commodity level production story. For instance, eggs, we are now predicting them to decrease between 21 and 22% in 2016 but that is after they had increased 17.8% in 2015 following the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak, so as that industry has recovered we are starting to see production as well as the number of egg layers back to the pre-flu figures. That has brought down retail prices."

Elsewhere, agri-pulse.com is reporting a longtime ally of the Obama administration has been chosen as the new chairman and CEO of the Farm Credit Administration.

President Barack Obama appointed Dallas Tonsager to the position last week but the selection was announced yesterday . Tonsager, who was appointed to the FCA board last year, replaces Kenneth Spearman, who has held the job since March 2015.

Finally, an annual U.S.-China trade conference ended yesterday with little headway in getting China to reform the way it approves new agricultural biotechnology traits, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said.