Oil Cleanup & Tire Shortage

Oil Cleanup & Tire Shortage plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Agricultural tires continue to be in short supply and prices are increasing. Phil English with Titan Tire says farm tire manufacturers are having trouble keeping up with the growing demand. Part of the problem - English says - is that farm tires just keep getting bigger.

ENGLISH: We can’t produce as many in a day out of mold as what we could back when - and I’m sure most people will relate to a 15-5-38 or an 18-4-38. We might could be able to produce 20 or 30 tires a day out of one press and one mold where today you are looking at 900-60-32 on a combine we might get 6 or 8.

English says rising costs for raw materials, energy and transportation are behind the price increases on farm tires.

A sinking barge began leaking oil and crews from several agencies worked to contin the spill. The dredging barge was discovered in a tributary on Moses Lake in Washington. The barge was discovered on Saturday. A Seattle-based company was recruited to raise the sunken barge which was carrying about 600 gallons of diesel fuel and 300 gallons of synthetic oil. Officials say only a small amount of the oil spilled into the water, and most was contained. The ecosystem along the shore was reportedly unaffected.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

The United States Department of Agriculture and the American Meat Institute are at odds when it comes to the USDA’s recent announcement that the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA will begin classifying six strains of non-O157 E.coli as ‘adulterants’ when found in ground beef. The disagreement does not stem from the desire to eliminate these toxin producing E.coli completely from the nation’s beef supply, both the USDA and the AMI share that desire. No, the issue that the AMI has with the USDA’s decision is the mere fact that these strains are naturally occurring, the opposite of “adulterants”, and to date have only been responsible for one outbreak involving three illnesses. With the annual number of ground beef servings in the United States being more than one billion it would imply that the USDA is pursuing what will prove to be an expensive witch hunt in an area that already has an excellent safety record. On the other hand, to the general consumer this makes the USDA appear to be the pro-active food safety “hero”, when in reality what they are offering up is nothing more than an old fashioned dog and pony show.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.