Did the Egg Recall Need to Happen & Organic Week

Did the Egg Recall Need to Happen & Organic Week plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Organics are getting their day or week as it is. Lacy Gray has more. GRAY: Washington Tilth Producers created Washington Organic Week, or WOW!, as a week long campaign connecting consumers to Washington organic growers and products. WOW! provides the public with opportunities to learn more about the healthiest, freshest and most environmentally friendly food available. Recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture demonstrated that the nation's organic farms and ranches enjoyed higher average sales in 2008, with 44 percent of sales taking place less than 100 miles from the farm, keeping that money in the local economy instead of sending it elsewhere. A Wall Street Journal report says that USDA experts knew about sanitary problems at one of the two Iowa farms at the center of a massive nationwide egg recall, but did not notify health authorities. The Food and Drug Administration, which has overall responsibility for egg safety, said it never heard from USDA about problems such as dirt and mold in the Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, facility. USDA said it didn't give notice because - the conditions at the egg plant packing facilities were routine. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Mr. Potato Head would be happy indeed, but not to such an extent that he would switch from his pleasant smile to a full toothy grin. With Mexico dropping the tariff on U.S. frozen potato products down to five percent from twenty percent the potato industry here will have a better chance of recouping some of the business that has been lost to Canada. Canada still has the advantage with no Mexican tariff on potatoes in place there, but it also costs them more to ship their product. While the fifteen percent drop in the tariff certainly helps ease the pressure on potato growers the removal of high tariffs by Mexico on apples, onions, sweet corn and other commodities grown in the U.S. remains up in the air. With basically every major agriculture organization being hit by this issue and hit hard, one would hope the Obama administration would quickly realize growers cannot continue doing business this way and step up to the bartering table with a solution. Sadly it's looking like there's not going to be a quick fix for this issue anytime in the near future and it has every ear mark of turning into a long term problem. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.