New Combo Plan & Ethanol Demand Rising

New Combo Plan & Ethanol Demand Rising plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Simplification was the goal when five federal crop insurance products were combined into one starting with fall planted crops to be harvested in 2011. Risk Management Agency Administrator Bill Murphy says this was a positive move. MURPHY: This is going to be a great advance for the program. It's going to be simplification – I also think it's going to make it a lot easier on the farmer to make up their mind what kind of coverage they want for the coming year so I think it's a win for everybody all around. The January 2010 Daily Ethanol Production/Demand report shows that U.S. ethanol production began the year on a record pace. According to the information from the Energy Information Administration, January 2010 ethanol production averaged more than 818-thousand barrels per day. That's an increase of 188-thousand over January 2009. Ethanol demand, as calculated by the Renewable Fuels Association, also reached an all time high at 784-thousand barrels per day, up from 644-thousand one year earlier. EIA also reports fuel ethanol imports of 1.4 million gallons in January. Fuel Ethanol reserves are at 22.7 days. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Okay, here's one for you, farm subsidies make people fat. No, I didn't just make that up. The connection or lack thereof between farm subsidies and the overweight has been the subject of a four year study on farm policy and obesity. Thanks to people like Michael Pollan, who work very hard pushing their political food agenda through such claims, the amount of money wasted on studies such as this one is in the millions. The results of this particular study are not surprising, scientists have concluded that farm subsidies have not been a significant contributing factor in the rising problem of obesity in the United States, there must be other things that are responsible. This is not one of those slap your forehead why didn't I think of that moments. Instead, it amounts to more of a "well duh" moment. The fact that we even give credence to such claims in the form of federally funded studies is something that really needs to be researched. There isn't one single food item that we can pinpoint as the major contributing factor in the cause of America's obesity problem. It's just not that simple, but bless their hearts they keep trying. Here, let me save you several millions in research in the study on obesity; eat less, exercise more. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.