Healthier Eating Incentives & eTattoo

Healthier Eating Incentives & eTattoo plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

As the New Year is about to begin the New-Val program is being used at selected supermarkets around the country to help consumers make healthy food choices. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack talks about point-of-sale incentives to healthier eating.

VILSACK: The President has been quite clear in his instructions to me that the health of the citizens of the country is very important to him and one way we can make America healthier is for us to be better eaters. If we can have point of sale incentives and find out what works through this test pilot program we can line that up with the New-Val type systems where people can make informed choices and hopefully the right choice.

The Department of Agriculture has approved the first ultra-high radio frequency identification tag and the first non-low frequency tag to be approved for use with the “840” Animal Identification Number.  Called: eTatto, the ear tag operates at 915 MHz. The tag allows users to collect data from individual animals housed in large pens or across groups of pens in a fraction of a second, even while animals are moving. The read range is optimized to allow producers to collect data from either the front or back of the animal at a distance of up to 25 feet using a fixed reader or up to 15 feet using a handheld device.

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

Well, this past week saw all the big expectations and high hopes for successful climate change talks go up in a puff of steam, like a single rain drop hitting asphalt on a 110 degree day in Kansas.  Perhaps the failure to reach any semblance of a workable world plan to fight global warming stems from something perhaps as simple as the mere fact that most of our world leaders maybe don’t understand the issue of carbon foot-printing any more than the majority of average citizens. Carbon market schemes where basically “permits to pollute” are bought and sold have most of us scratching our heads in wonder. The U.S. has now found themselves on the hot seat after the failed talks with EU nation’s calling for a much larger cut in CO2 emissions than has been promised by the Obama administration.  In fact, one top climate scientist, James Hansen, describes the Obama administrations global warming policies as “half-assed”; pretty strong words no matter what circle you run in. It seems President Obama is starting to get a taste of what it felt like to be in G.W.’s shoes.

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