Chinese Cooperation & Pumpkin Prices Steady

Chinese Cooperation & Pumpkin Prices Steady plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

It’s pumpkin season and Kathy Grannis, with the National Retail Federation, talks about why pumpkin sales for Halloween are not expected to decline much this year, despite cutbacks in other Halloween purchases.

GRANNIS: Pumpkins are inexpensive and they are a great joy for children, for some reason. You know children love pumpkins and they think it’s more of the experience of getting a pumpkin. A lot of people choose to get them from farms instead of stores but either way coming home with a pumpkin for $4 or $5, $3 is still an inexpensive way to celebrate Halloween this year.

Closer cooperation on fighting climate change could help improve overall ties between the world's top two greenhouse gas polluters. That’s what Chinese President Hu Jintao told President Obama during a telephone conversation Wednesday. Hu added that he is optimistic about U.N.-led talks on a new global framework to tackle climate change, even though the latest round of negotiations ran into trouble. China and the United States together account for about 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

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

Is anyone else out there getting tired of hearing the radical animal rights activists scream that the sky is falling? Their most recent “chicken little” tirade involves, ironically, a lawsuit expected to be filed concerning the supposed cancer producing chemical in well done or barbequed chicken. They’re seeking to have warning signs placed in restaurants that serve barbequed chicken. This chemical by the way has repeatedly been shown in scientific studies to pose no cancer risk to humans. But as is typical with these radicals the truth is the least of their worries. Their plan according to their legal counsel Dan Kinburn is to “sue virtually every restaurant that is not serving an all vegetarian diet.” Once again the American courts are to be used and abused to push a fear mongering agenda onto the American consumer.  The American public can only hope that our judicial system and the judges that preside therein have the sensibility to see this for what it is, deceitful, fraudulent, and dangerous radical animal rights activists’ propaganda.

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