Getting Popped for Pop & Food Bank Assistance

Getting Popped for Pop & Food Bank Assistance plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

I’m one of those that believe prison should not have any benefits like color TV’s, internet access and soda pop. One group in Oregon is raising a ruckus over the state spending some $773 thousand dollars annually to provide Department of Correction inmates with soda pop. The Department acknowledges the budget item is an issue and may be working on a way to reduce the amount of carbonated consumption.

It appears the downturn in the economy has been good for our nation’s food banks. Ross Fraser with Feeding America talks about how to get food bank assistance or learning ways you can volunteer.

FRASER: If you are down on your luck or if you are up on your luck, call your local food bank and ask what your can do to help them. There’s all kinds of opportunities, so you can go into food banks and sometimes it’s the sorting through food, it’s putting the food in boxes. Maybe of you are older and you can’t lift food you can help with paperwork. I know of a retired doctor in Vermont and 5 days a weeks she goes to her local food bank and cooks and makes dozens and dozens of meals and freezes them in little plastic storage bags and then those are delivered to senior citizens and then they have a hot meal to eat.

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

Most everyone has heard the old adage, “the early bird gets the worm”, but how about “a happy cow gives more milk”? It makes sense. You probably haven’t heard it before though because it hasn’t been until recently that dairy farmers have begun to learn more about their cows comfort as it pertains to milk production. Oregon State University is researching dairy cow comfort factors with an Israeli made ankle bracelet that can sense when a cow is lying down. For anyone who doesn’t know, a recumbent cow receives more blood flow to her udder which increases milk production. Researchers are also asking farmers for their ideas on additional test factors, such as if their cows seem to have a bedding preference, any breed separation influence, weather changes, or other contributing factors on cows resting time. And while this device won’t make a nation of dairy farmer Dr. Doolittle’s overnight, it will tell them what factors are influencing their cows’ ground time which in turn means more milk.

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