Free Trade Hang Up & Sea Lions Feast
Free Trade Hang Up & Sea Lions Feast plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.
The Free Trade agreements are still on the table and no one knows when they might be ready. Of course that is causing considerable frustrations in the ag community. U.S. Wheat Associates Director of Policy Shannon Schlecht says there are several reasons the agreements aren't signed. But he says the biggest, most egregious point that has stopped the agreements is political.
SCHLECHT: The trade adjustment assistance is the one that’s the political process of moving the TAA together with the FTA as really been the stumbling block here recently to try to bring these forward and just how that will happen among the administration; among the members of Congress.
Sea lions in the Columbia River are continuing to feast on migrating salmon and Oregon, Washington state and Idaho have formally asked the federal government to resume killing those sea lions at the Bonneville Dam. The federal fisheries agency says it's considering whether to form a task force. In 2008, the states won approval for killing the hungriest of the sea lions. But that ended after a federal appeals court questioned how the agencies would say the sea lions are a threat to the survival of threatened species but don't take any steps against fishing by humans -- which takes many more salmon and steelhead.?
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.
Sadly, we found out that we are going to loose a good long time neighbor. He recently put his house up for sale after some major life changing events. With the inevitable sale of the house next door we found ourselves with decisions to make, not the least being whether or not to install a fence along our connecting property. Fences are often an essential part of the urban as well as rural landscape. Over the last ten years there have been times when a fence would have been a godsend; even the best of neighbors don’t like feeling obligated to wave hello every time they step out the door. After much consideration the choice was made to go ahead and put up a fence before the arrival of new neighbors; an existing fence would be much easier for them to adjust to rather than one put up after introductions. We’ve decided to go with a living hedge wall that will offer the privacy we seek, plus a living fence will add natural beauty, enhancing our landscape and offering shelter to the native quail that frequent our yard. I concur with Robert Frost and will quote his famous poem when I say that yes indeed, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
