Asparagus Trouble & 2010 Outlook

Asparagus Trouble & 2010 Outlook plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. 2010 is shaping up to be a much better year for U.S. livestock producers, thanks to an improving economy and tighter supplies of beef, pork and poultry. John Anderson, livestock economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, says - livestock producers have seen a return to profitability in the past two months and that's good because it provides a good opportunity to rebuild equity. USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber. GALUBER: World wheat were projecting at 672-million tons. that's only down about 1%, 1.1% so there's still a lot of wheat in the world. Poor weather has turned a promising asparagus harvest into an iffy one. Cold temperatures and a major windstorm wiped out 175 acres of the Middleton Six Sons Farms of Pasco crop. The wind-pelted spears were bent and embedded with grit and could not be salvaged. The season started out with unusually warm temperatures that allowed farms like Middleton's to start harvesting 10 days earlier than normal, on March 31 where they average more than 1,000 boxes a day when harvest is in full swing. But last Thursday -- the first day they were able to harvest after cleaning the fields of the damaged stalks -- they cut just 30 boxes. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. It's starting to sound like something out of a Hollywood B movie, reports from as early as 1897 until now on the giant Palouse earth worm have it being anywhere from three feet long, white and prone to spit, (that's the 1897 version), to shy and rarely seen over the past one hundred years. Here in steps the environmentalists who would like to see the giant Palouse earth worm put on the endangered species list that is if they could find one. On one of the last confirmed sightings of this great white worm in 2005 it was cut in half as an environmental researcher tried to dig a hole in order to record the elusive worm's movement and location. So much for preservation. What farmers and ranchers don't need is another species put on the endangered species list, especially one that supposedly lives sixteen or more feet underground and is seen maybe once every thirty to fifty years! The probable result of the giant Palouse earth worm being put on the endangered species list will be its demise, due to environmentalists trying to find it in order to protect it. This giant worm has done just fine on its own over the last several hundred years, leave it well enough alone. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.