Hay Crop Damage & Food Stamps Are Up

Hay Crop Damage & Food Stamps Are Up

Hay Crop Damage & Food Stamps Are Up plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Rain and cold temps have been taking their toll across the NW and Dan Newhouse, Washington State Director of Agriculture toured affected areas last week before recommending to the Governor that many counties be declared disaster counties which would make them eligible for federal assistance. NEWHOUSE: We certainly didn't have to look hard to find damage to hay, hay fields, stacks of hay. I think everyone and it's pretty general throughout the region that tried to get a crop of hay up this first cutting had some kind of setback with rain. So we saw everything in stages of still in windrow to some people just starting to lay it down because the sun was coming out and I tell you that stuff was pretty well full bloom. Demand for food stamps is up in Oregon, and is expected to keep increasing. The Oregon Department of Human Services said more than 700,000 Oregonians received food stamps in May, a 17 percent increase from last year. But it has jumped 46 percent since July 2008 at the beginning of the recession. The food stamps program is now called the supplemental nutrition assistance program, or SNAP. Another program, called temporary assistance for needy families, is available for very low-income families and demand for it has also increased, up 35 percent since July 2008. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. In today's volatile economy it's common to find several generations all living under one roof. Baby boomers are reportedly offering financial, emotional, and social support to their adult children on a level that goes far beyond what they received from their parents twenty or thirty years ago. On top of that baby boomers are finding that they are also giving financial and emotional support to their aging parents. This trend applies to families in urban and rural settings. The fact is most young farmers could not manage the start up costs of a new farming operation without the financial help of their parents and, or grandparents; farming is the original "family owned" business. Commonly when someone thinks of multigenerational families they think of families around the turn of the century or 1930's and 40's "Waltonesqe" type families. Truth is the number of multigenerational families has grown from thirty-two million in 1940 to over forty-nine million in 2009. Even the First Family is a multigenerational family with the President, First Lady, their two daughters and the First Grandmother all sharing living quarters in the White House. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
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