Glyphosate Resistance & More Chicken Troubles

Glyphosate Resistance & More Chicken Troubles plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee held another hearing last Thursday on the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds in fields growing Roundup Ready crops. Monsanto Vice President of Global Regulatory Phil Miller said the company is aware of the concerns regarding the off-site movement of Dicamba and is working with multiple stakeholders to address this issue. MILLER: Our focus is to continue to bring weed free cropping systems to our producers in corn, soybean and cotton as well as serve the interest of fruit and vegetable producers and we've got a significant amount of research going on with their input to insure when that product comes in the market that it's successfully implemented. Organic chicken farms are supposed to provide "access to the outdoors" for the birds but there's huge lobbying going on from industrial agriculture trying to force the National Organic Standards Board to get rid of the concept of any outdoor access. The board's latest documents, to be used for discussion this month, suggest 2 square feet per chicken outdoors. The NOSB makes recommendations to an arm of the USDA that issues final rules on everything from organic corn to honey to milk. Rule-making takes years, and the battle over chickens and the outdoors has been particularly protracted. It will reach fever pitch later this month, when the NOSB considers the matter at an Oct. 25 meeting in Madison, Wis. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. One can fall victim to brainwashing, whitewashing, or hog-washing but greenwashing? Yes, greenwashing, which tends to be a bit of the other "washings" all wrapped into one deceptive package of false green self promotion; all to make the unwitting consumer think that a certain product or company policy is environmentally friendly. The term "greenwashing" has been around since the mid eighties but has really begun to take center stage in just the last couple of years as more and more companies have become quite adept and creative in their marketing of products environmental friendliness while disregarding any and all non-beneficial aspects. It seems that everybody is doing it now days; banks and credit card companies that are "green" because they offer "paperless" statements and online financing, hotels with their "save the environment, reuse your dirty linens and towels" greenwashing, or how about those pretty pictures of trees on products that actually contain dangerous chemicals. You get the not so green picture. Of course not all environmental advertising is dishonest; sometimes it's just harder to see the forest for the trees. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.