Roundup Ready Alfalfa & Bison Retured to Yellowstone
Roundup Ready Alfalfa & Bison Retured to Yellowstone plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.
USDA has decided to grant non-regulated status for Roundup Ready alfalfa. Steve Welker with Monsanto says thanks to the timing of USDA’s decision this option is available to producers for the 2011 growing season.
WELKER: We were very glad that USDA acted in this time frame because it still gives farmers time to plant the product in the spring and gives them some time to plan as well.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has determined, after conducting a thorough and transparent examination, that Roundup Ready alfalfa is as safe as traditionally bred alfalfa.
Livestock officials say they have captured and returned to the border of Yellowstone National Park 13 wild bison that had been allowed to roam into parts of Montana for the first time in decades. The animals captured Friday had repeatedly left a 2,500-acre grazing area on the Gallatin National Forest. Bison have been barred for decades from leaving Yellowstone over fears that they will transmit the disease brucellosis to cattle. But 25 were allowed to leave the park last week under a pilot program that cost $3.3 million.
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.
Like the song says, “you can’t have one without the other”. Since talks between food makers, the White House, and the FDA haven’t progressed on how to proceed with food package nutrition labeling, in fact they’ve completely stalled, the food industry decided to move forward on nutritional labeling of their products on their own. Michelle Obama has been the initiator of such labeling in her campaign against obesity, wanting the food industry to make package front labels listing nutrients that may be considered unhealthy to some consumers; salt, fat, corn sugar, and caloric content being high on her list. Food makers countered with labeling that includes both beneficial nutrients and nutrients consumers might want to consider avoiding. This has left Mrs. Obama more than a little unhappy; claiming that to make front package food labels include negative and positive nutritional information would be too confusing for the consumer. Please, Mrs. Obama, give the American consumer a little more credit than that. Let the consumer have all the info. Of course there will have to be a committee formed to decide how to get people to read the nutritional info on labels!
Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
