Sequencing Corn & WTO on COOL

Sequencing Corn & WTO on COOL plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Researchers have just announced that the complete gene sequence of corn has been mapped. Kay Simmons of USDA's Agricultural Research Service explains how this will apply to real world applications.

SIMMONS: For the first time they are going to be able to determine the genes that better control the nutritional value of corn, they can improve the taste, the cooking quality for specific products, they can increase the availability of important nutritional components for humans and also for animals for animal feed. The other advance is that there is so much diversity in corn lines and this will enable scientists to really identify really critical genes for protecting corn from diseases, insects.

The World Trade Organization has decided it will establish a dispute settlement panel to rule on the legality of the U.S. Country-of-Origin Labeling law. The WTO decision comes after Canada and Mexico filed challenges, saying the U.S. law is hurting their meat exports to the United States. The two countries say the rules are stifling their livestock industries because U.S. meatpackers are choosing to refrain from buying their animals rather than go through the trouble of sorting them and labeling product in accordance with the rules.

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

Of all the ridiculous squabbles we hear about in the news the most recent debate over the right to hang laundry out to dry has to be one of the most ludicrous. Who would have guessed that in this day and age of everyone and his dog trying to go green someone would have an issue with laundry hanging on a clothesline. As a child growing up in a small rural community in Kansas one of my favorite things was to sleep on freshly laundered sheets that had dried in the sun; there isn’t a potpourri around that could match that wonderful smell.  And it was just a given that every house had their own clothes line. Granted it was generally in the back yard or side yard, but it was there.  It seems for the most part persons offended by the sight of laundry drying on the line appear to live in suburbia, condominiums, or townhouse communities where they worry about aesthetics. 

Currently several states have passed laws restricting the local authorities right to stop or fine residents for using clotheslines. Other states are looking at adopting similar laws. Interestingly it looks like the “right to hang” will win out over the “right to harangue”.

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