Can You Spell Trillion & Fruit Purchase

Can You Spell Trillion & Fruit Purchase

Can You Spell Trillion & Fruit Purchase plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

We used to think a billion dollar budget was high, now President Barack Obama has unveiled a multitrillion-dollar spending plan,

OBAMA: If we had taken office during ordinary times, we would have started bringing down these deficits immediately.  But one year ago, our country was in crisis:  We were losing nearly 700,000 jobs each month, the economy was in a free fall, and the financial system was near collapse.  Many feared another Great Depression.  So we initiated a rescue, and that rescue was not without significant cost; it added to the deficit as well. One year later because of the steps we’ve taken. We’re in a very different place.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says USDA intends to purchase 29.1-million dollars worth of blueberry, pear, potato, peach and mixed fruit products for federal food nutrition assistance programs.  The breakdown includes 9-million dollars of fresh potatoes, 8.2-million of peach and mixed fruit products, 7-million for frozen blueberries, and 4.9-million dollars for fresh pears and canned pears packed in light or extra light syrup.

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

I’ve heard said just about everything you need to know can be learned by watching Star Trek. Case in point, even alien Mr. Spock was aware that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”  Of course he hadn’t heard of the sugar beet debate. All too often it seems in the “real” world we will indeed trample the needs and rights of the many in order not to offend the few. Even though roughly ninety-five percent of the U.S. sugar beet crop consists of biotech beets and more than half of U.S. sugar production comes from these beets radical opponents of genetically modified sugar beets are asking federal judges to suspend any and all planting, cultivating, and processing of biotech beet crops until a government environmental assessment can be completed. Such an action would result in practically total devastation of the sugar beet industry, save for a few organic table beet growers who have implemented this whole ordeal. It has been five years since the USDA approved the planting of biotech beets, two years since the filing of the lawsuit against their use. Taking into account the slow moving machine that is the judicial system it looks like we should all be braced to pay exorbitant prices for sugar, when and if we’ll be able to find it.

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

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