Moving Ahead & NASS Survey Begins

Moving Ahead & NASS Survey Begins plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The Senate last week voted for cloture, getting the ball rolling on Farm Bill negotiations. As it stands the bill represents significant reform of American agricultural policy. By ending direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, the SURE program and the ACRE program, the bill achieves billions in savings while strengthening responsible, market-based risk management tools that prevent farmers – and farm jobs — from being wiped out because of weather disaster or market volatility. All this led Senate top ag Republican Pat Roberts to warn on the Senate floor.

ROBERTS: It would be a disaster in rural America if we do not pass this law before we revert back to the permanent 1949 law. That law in no way reflects current production or domestic and international markets and I would say even if we extend the current law it really does not reflect what we need as of today.

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service is currently contacting farmers and ranchers across the country to gather information for some of its most important surveys of the year. During the first two weeks of June, NASS is gathering information about U.S. crops and livestock through three simultaneous surveys focusing on agricultural acreage, crops produced and stored, and hog inventory. 

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

Food activists continue to blame meat for the nation’s rising obesity numbers even when the science clearly shows Americans consume less meat today than they did thirty years ago. So why is the rate of obesity in this country so much higher now than it was then, and why is meat still getting the smear campaign? Some animal science experts believe the attitudes of the 1980’s have continued to linger on in the back of people’s minds - we eat more meat, it has more fat, it causes heart disease, but this just doesn’t hold up anymore. Like the big hair and leg warmers of the 80’s we need to let this unsupported “meat makes us fat” theory go. This narrow minded approach by food activists as to what causes obesity in this country fails to acknowledge the many different causes behind obesity. The lack of physical activity should be right at the top of the list. A former FDA commissioner stated that, “ actual levels of caloric intake among the young haven’t appreciably changed over the last twenty years.” Their physical activity levels though are a different story. Today, only half of American youth regularly participate in vigorous activity, and one quarter of them report that they have no vigorous activity whatsoever.

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