New Animal I.D. Framework & Oregon Turnaround

New Animal I.D. Framework & Oregon Turnaround plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The new framework for animal disease traceback and livestock identification will be more flexible and will have more local focus according to the USDA’s Chief Veterinarian, Dr. John Clifford.

CLIFFORD: Because I think we’re going to get a lot more buy in and support for this approach. We’ll be starting very soon to work with the industry and actually the state and tribal governments to start the development of a proposed rule for that purpose.

Oregon has taken a negative and made it into a positive. The worst recession in 70 years is turning into an energy-saving boon for tiny and remote rural schools in Oregon as well as the state's poorest people. Federal economic stimulus money is paying for new energy-efficient lights and windows in schools that have not been modernized since they were built after World War II, and in houses and apartments where people struggle to pay their utility bills. Oregon's share is $38 million a year for three years for weatherizing low-income housing and $42 million a year for three years for energy upgrades in schools and other public buildings.

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

The other night my husband and I had the opportunity to see Hal Holbrook perform as Mark Twain a.k.a. Samuel Clemens live at our local performing arts center.  To say that it was an enjoyable experience would be down playing it immensely. Mr. Holbrook, who has been performing as Mark Twain since he was twenty-nine and is now eighty-four years young, continues to wow his audience with his award winning performance.  I first saw Holbrook do his one man show in 1967 sitting in front of my family’s small black and white television set. At even that very young age I became totally smitten with Mark Twain,  humorist and humanist extraordinaire. The mere fact that the comments made by “Mr. Twain” are as much true today as they were nearly one hundred years ago is both poignantly stimulating and distressing. In the nearly two hour show the audience was treated to a discourse on numerous topics including, but not limited to, the impotence of Congress, rural life and childhood growing up on the farm, the depravity of Wall Street, and the ironic “marriage” of religion and war. All in all an experience I wouldn’t have missed for the world. Thank you Hal Holbrook for your unparalleled channeling of Mr. Twain.

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