Getting to the Root Problem & Supplemental Nutrition plus Food Forethought.

Getting to the Root Problem & Supplemental Nutrition plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The Texas Department of State Health Services has ordered Peanut Corporation of America to recall all products ever shipped from its Plainview, Texas plant. The order was issued after dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers were discovered in a crawl space above a production area during an in-depth DSHS inspection. They have also ordered to stop producing and distributing food products. Plant officials voluntarily stopped operations this past Monday night but the state’s order prohibits the plant from reopening without DSHS approval. The Associated Press reports that a former assistant plant manager had previously sent as many as six e-mails to the state health department trying to direct attention to problems at the plant. This story is a long way from being over.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the economic stimulus package has received increased funding and Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says that will provide a stimulus in its own right.

VILSACK: Obviously the unemployment rate is increased and people are finding it tougher to make ends meet but it is also a stimulus. When you essentially put more money into that program, that program is in a position to help people buy more food – more food means greater sales for farmers, greater need for trucking produce to grocery stores, greater need for grocery store employees. It puts people to work. For every $5 that’s spent in this program you get about $9.20 of economic activity.

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

I can’t help but wonder if this generation will look back on their “hard times” with the same amount of warm affection and tenderness as our parents or their parents generation tends to do when reminiscing about the Depression era; a tenderness that comes from a lifetime of acquired wisdom. Talking with most people who survived the last Great Depression one is struck by the fact that no matter the amount of sacrificing and hardship most of them experienced they all seem to have came through it with a greater sense of  self worth and determination.  In talking with my mother-in-law about her eighty-eight plus years of experiences one thing truly stands out; strength, the strength of individuals, families and communities to overcome great adversity. Now, as back then, families are discovering that they can get by with less, that leftovers aren’t near as bad as we made them out to be, and that daily lattés from the coffee chain down the street aren’t really a necessity.  Things won’t be easy for a while, but eventually these hard times too will pass, and hopefully the next generation will see in us a source of great strength and wisdom.

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