Food Labeling & Opportunities for Young People

Food Labeling & Opportunities for Young People plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm? Well it seems rural America is becoming a great place for economic development and a good place for young people to make a living according to Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack.

VILSACK: If we are just simply able to meet the threshold of 36-billion gallons of biofuel by 2022 - we would see $95 billion dollars invested in rural communities to build bio-refineries. Over 800-thousand jobs directly or indirectly would be created in that time period. Most of them would be in rural communities creating opportunities for bright young people.

It is great that you can grab a product at the grocery store and by reading the label know what is in it. But…can that label be trusted. Reports in recent months of inaccurate, misleading ingredient lists or calorie-counts on store-bought foods are leading many to wonder if food-product labeling can be trusted, and who -- if anyone -- is checking that it's true. A number of cases have come to light and this lends urgency to a recent FDA "three-pronged initiative" for better oversight of food labeling. That effort includes moving food-ingredient information to the front of the package -- instead of burying it on the back -- and amending "serving size" amounts to reflect real-world eating practices.

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

Farming is hard work. No one who has ever made a living through farming would argue otherwise. Ever hear that old joke, “What do you call it when a farm is willed to your children?” “Child abuse.”  As the average age of the American farmer continues to climb upward, currently topping out at fifty-eight, it is increasingly vital to the future of farming that we reignite the interest and passion for farming in our young people. Slowly, through school gardening programs, internships, and youth farming conferences the tide is starting to turn. Agrarian passion is showing up in the most surprising of places. Whereas one would expect the main interest to come from rural settings the opposite appears to be surfacing. The urban longing for a simpler life has made rural chic very much accepted and popular. The demand for fresh, local foods in cities across the nation has resulted in a resurgence of rooftop gardens. But turning posh into true passion will require capturing that enthusiasm and channeling it into a movement of first generation farmers. It starts with a dream. Let’s help them turn that dream into a working reality.

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