Rural development forums scheduled
Washington Ag Today January 20, 2010 Two community forums on jobs and economic growth in rural Washington are being held next week. The sessions will be a town hall format and are being hosted by USDA Rural Development and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency. Judy Olson, Executive Director of the Washington state office of the FSA, says the forums are follow up to a December White House conference on rural jobs. Olson: “We want to hear from rural businesses. We want to hear from producers. We want to hear from economic development entities in rural counties and communities. We want to hear from the banking industry. We want to hear from agribusiness. We want to hear from everyone about the challenges and where the opportunities might lie, and what the challenges to implementing those opportunities might be.” The forums are scheduled for Tuesday, January 26th in Longview from 6:30 to nine p.m. at the Cowlitz Regional Conference Center. The second forum will be in Yakima January 28th from 6:30 to nine p.m. at the Perry Technical Institute Auditorium. Olson says input from these meetings will be passed on to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The U.S. Supreme Court says it will hear an appeal of a court order that stopped Monsanto from selling Roundup Ready alfalfa seed. The planting of the genetically modified seed has been prohibited since 2007. Opponents of the GMO alfalfa fear it would contaminate conventional alfalfa. The court’s ruling could also impact a second case involving sugar beets that are also genetically modified to resist Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network. ?
