Beginner Funds & Mexican Standoff

Thursday Apr 9th, 2009 33 Views Northwest Report

Beginner Funds & Mexican Standoff plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

An ad hoc coalition made up of 140 business, manufacturing, food and agricultural organizations, have sent a letter to President Obama urging him to quickly resolve the dispute with Mexico over allowing its trucks to transport goods into the United States. National Pork Producers Council International Trade Counsel Nick Giordano says unless President Obama resolves the NAFTA dispute Mexico’s retaliation list could grow.

GIORDANO: Pork wasn’t on this initial retaliation list. Our great concern is that this problem continues to fester and it’s not resolved, that the Mexicans could take another crack at that list.

The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program received a ‘boost’ from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. USDA is making more than 17-million dollars in grants available under the program. The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program is an education, training, technical assistance and outreach program designed to help U.S. farmers and ranchers - specifically those who have been farming or ranching for 10 years or less.

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

I’ve been battling a type of thistle in my yard for the past several years. Apparently the previous homeowner thought this certain type of thistle was “pretty” and intentionally put it in the landscape. Yes, the blooms this thistle produces are pretty in their own way, but that’s about as far as its allure goes. It is an invasive and “vicious” plant. I’ve lost track of how many times it’s sharp prickly leaves have savagely bit me! It seems though that help is on the horizon in the war on invasive thistles in the form of a biological control species of mite and weevil. Now before you say that the cure sounds worse than the disease; scientific research has shown that these mites and weevils do not negatively affect any non targeted plants. Of course that easily recognizable icon of the old west seen in just about every western ever made, the tumbleweed, is in actuality the Russian thistle. And it’s about as invasive as you can get, causing millions of dollars of damage yearly. If the USDA is successful in their attempt to use these biological dynamos to stop the Russian thistle and its cousins, the tumbleweed may soon become just an image on celluloid.

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