Banning Antibiotics & Greenhouse Gas Levels

Banning Antibiotics & Greenhouse Gas Levels. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

A bill introduced in California that would ban antibiotics from meat and poultry in that state passed out of a Senate committee Tuesday by a vote of 3 to 1. The measure, written by Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, would phase out the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in animals meant for human consumption. SB 416 would prohibit schools in California from serving meat or poultry treated with non-therapeutic antibiotics after January 1, 2012. By 2015, the ban would apply to any animal raised for human consumption in the state.

The Agriculture Secretary says agriculture could benefit from the need to reduce greenhouse gas emission level if ag offsets are part of a environmental based economy.

VILSACK: I think the capacity to use our land and our forests in particular create tremendous opportunities for us to offset greenhouse gas emissions in other sectors of the economy. There is, I think, real opportunity here and I am certainly going to continue to advocate that agriculture play an important and significant role in reducing our dependence on foreign oil and in reducing greenhouse gas impacts.

The question remains – how will congress handle the situation? Vilsack says, his hope is – the agriculture offset opportunity is the focus of provisions in the law.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange Report.

(GRANGE)

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