Looking Ahead & Food Safety

Looking Ahead & Food Safety

Looking ahead & Food Safety plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

 

Later this week the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Economist will release its annual projections report for the next 10 years. The report will be available at noon this Thursday at www.usda.gov/oce. The long-term projections are developed by interagency committees in USDA, with the Economic Research Service having the lead role in the preparation of the report. The new projections cover agricultural crop and livestock commodities, agricultural trade and aggregate indicators such as farm income and food prices through 2018.

How can we deal with food safety issues? Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the federal food safety effort should be modernized and possibly put into a single agency.

 

VILSACK: I think a single food agency might be the right way to go. I think it’s important we work towards ultimately a single agency. Now there may be lobbyists that may think that’s not the way to go but there are 325-thousand people in this country that are hospitalized every year for food borne illnesses and countless millions that have problem they don’t realize are connected to their food supply that suggests to use we’ve got an issue and we’re the only industrialized country in the world to my knowledge that has two separate departments handling this very important responsibility.

 

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

 

Why is it that we as humans need to put a human “face” on everything we own or come in contact with; our cars, boats, pets, etcetera? I suppose it revolves around how fond we are of something that we feel the need to personalize it. This can be especially true of pet owners.  We pet owners will go to great lengths to humanize our animals, sometimes to the point that it is detrimental to the animal’s natural order. Animal rights activists such a PETA would have us believe that animals should have the same moral and legal rights, with legal representation no less, as humans. In fact, some of these activists have gone as far as suggesting that human life should be forfeited in order to protect and promote animal rights. Government is being asked to step in and create legislation for the humane treatment of animals, which on the surface may sound good, but blanket legislation for animal rights will probably very nearly destroy domestic production of meat and milk products. Heaven forbid that someone would remind these people that plants have been reported to respond to outside stimuli. Next thing you know, your salad will need a lawyer!

 

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

 

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