Online Petition & 21-Hour Trading

Online Petition & 21-Hour Trading plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Some time back we reported on the fact that Domino’s Pizza had turned down the Humane Societies call to have their suppliers stop using gestation crates and Farm Bureau stood behind Domino’s decision and even threw an Ag Pizza Party. We;; now an online petition is being circulated to collect signatures in an effort to get Domino’s to change their minds. The person responsible for initiating the petition is an HSUS supporter.

The CME Groups proposal to expand electronic grain futures trading to 21 hours has been approved. Trade will only stop between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Central each day. The new trading schedule started at 5 p.m. on Sunday. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commissioner Bart Chilton says he still has concerns with the grain markets being open during USDA report release.

CHILTON: They’re going to try to reach some accommodation. They’ve worked with USDA but for the near term they’ll be trading during those times. Now I’m not so sure that ultimately that’s a bad thing. There are already some of the softs; coffee, cocoa and sugar are traded when the reports come out but it’s a different thing. It hasn’t happened in the past so people are going to need to also get used to that.

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

The release earlier this month by the HSUS of an undercover video displaying animal abuse at a Wyoming hog farm was disturbing on numerous levels, to those within the animal agriculture industry, and those who are not. Sadly, animal agriculture is not immune to having some of its members behave badly any more than the educational, religious, or medical fields are. But unlike other industries, when an animal agriculture person does something wrong it is instantly assumed that all those in the industry are of a similar breed. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The shocking display of abuse on that video sickened those in the animal ag industry for many reasons. First and foremost for the possibility of the alleged abuse itself. Next was the fact that the alleged abuse was held “undercover” for several months before anything was released or done about it. Why was the anonymous tip given to the HSUS instead of to the local authorities? And why if the major concern here was for the animals did the “undercover” investigator” do nothing to stop the abuse as it was happening? If it were really about the animals, the HSUS would not have waited for just the right time for their political positioning to release the video.

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