Presidential Garden & Poultry Disease

Presidential Garden & Poultry Disease plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Garden time is rapidly approaching and first lady Michelle Obama has established the White House’s first official vegetable garden. It’s on the South Lawn. Mrs. Obama will urge volunteer labor to grow those vegetables. Students from a Washington, D.C. elementary school will help with planting in the coming weeks and harvesting later this year. The Obama family will be involved in tending the garden and it just may prompt more people to get into gardening according to gardener Rose Hayden-Smith.

HAYDEN-SMITH: I think that is remarkable and inspirational and it sure makes me want to go out and do some more gardening in my front yard.

Animal Health Officials in Texas are euthanizing approximately 1.4 million chickens after a contagious respiratory disease was found in some birds on a farm in Robertson County, Texas. Veterinarians detected the virus, infectious laryngotracheitis, or ILT. Birds from 56 broiler houses are being depopulated in an area that has been isolated to keep the virus from spreading. The Texas Animal Health Commission says the virus is not a danger to people, even if they eat meat from infected birds.

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

Ever wonder why we haven’t seemed to make much progress in finding a cure for cancer, or creating affordable alternative fuel sources, such as algae bio-fuel. Strangely the answer may be the same for both although they seem worlds apart. Apparently a large number of researchers and scientists don’t like to share. Could it really be as simple as that? The fields of medical research and bio-fuel research are both big business. The investors who dole out millions of dollars for research and the researchers themselves don’t want their findings to fall into the hands of competitors so information is not shared, progress is therefore stalled, and it becomes a Mobius strip of continued failure.  Progress in science relies heavily on duplication and repetition, but if no one is reporting what works or doesn’t work, the same errors are being made over and over again. A reminder to the great minds of science from Robert Fulgham’s “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten”; share everything is at the top of the list, and yes, it really can be that simple.

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