Milk Win-Win & Oregon Ranking

Milk Win-Win & Oregon Ranking plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

USDA will transfer approximately 200-million pounds of nonfat dry milk from the Commodity Credit Corporation to USDA's Food and Nutrition Service for use in domestic feeding programs. The nonfat dry milk will be further processed or bartered. The products are expected to include items such as instantized nonfat dry milk, ultra high temperature milk, cheese, and soups for domestic feeding programs. Jerry Kozak of the National Milk Producers Federation says it’s a win-win.

KOZAK: We believe this is an important first step taken by Secretary Vilsack to use the resources of USDA to help the economic crisis facing dairy farmers who are right now suffering from punishing low milk prices.

Usually being at the top of a list is a good thing. For Oregon, being at the number 3 spot on the nation’s unemployment rate list is not. Only South Carolina and Michigan have higher unemployment rates than Oregon’s 10.8%. All told, 49 states and the District of Columbia saw their unemployment rates move higher in February from the previous month. Only Nebraska recorded a slight drop.

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

“Change” has to be one of the scariest words in the English language. The very word itself evokes a shudder down most people’s spines. But change is exactly what is needed in regards to the current Food and Drug Administration. It has become pretty obvious over the last several months with all the different food safety issues and tragedies that something has to change, and it needs to change sooner rather than later. Most everyone is in agreement with this statement, but when it comes right down to how and where the change will take place, people start to bristle. A new bill introduced in the House last month would divide the FDA into two separate agencies to oversee food safety and the medical field. And while separating food safety from the main branch of the FDA is in and of itself a good thing great care needs to be taken that the bill is not, as the senior vice president of the United Fresh Produce Association so succinctly stated, a “one size fits all” approach to regulating food safety.

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