11/28/08 Internation Biofuels Conference & Holiday Shopping

International Biofuels Conference & Holiday Shopping. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer has returned from Sao Paulo, Brazil - where he says the International Conference on Biofuels was a very positive conference. He says just under a hundred agriculture ministers from around the world were able to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by biofuels. SCHAFER: President Lula of Brazil called a biofuels conference saying that the United States and Brazil are the largest producers and consumers of biofuels in the world and as this technology gets developed he said how are we going to get the opportunity out there to create energy independence for countries that don't have any energy at all and how are we going to create a better environment. We're showing the way with biofuels and we want to do that for the rest of the world. We ended up with about 92 countries; people that were interested in how they can follow on along with the technology experiences and background of biofuels from Brazil and the United States to help out their own countries. Today is the traditional beginning of the holiday shopping season. Already some stores have been open for hours and hoping to draw in customers. The big question is, will they spend the money that retailers are hoping? Many analysts don't believe so, instead they feel that after the financial woes of this past year and the high price of gas earlier in the year that shoppers will hang on to their hard earned dollars. But only time and the sound of the cash register will tell. Now here's today's Washington Grange Report. (GRANGE) That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.