Oscar Meyer Changing & Farm Bill Markup

Oscar Meyer Changing & Farm Bill Markup plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The Oscar Mayer brand recently announced it will work with pork suppliers to transition to alternative sow housing by the end of 2022. Their plan is to source all pork from suppliers who can provide pregnant sow housing that safely allows for greater movement for the animal - while ensuring their comfort. Oscar Mayer’s Associate Director of Corporate Affairs Sydney Lindner says they believe quality meat begins with quality animal care. The brand is working with animal care experts, suppliers and farm families to find alternatives to traditional gestation stalls.

The House Ag Committee is set to mark-up its version of the 2012 Food, Farm and Jobs Bill today (Wednesday). House Ag Chair Frank Lucas says he and Ranking Member Collin Peterson tried to draft a balanced, reform-minded, fiscally responsible bill. Lucas says the feedback he has received on the draft is pretty positive.

LUCAS: I do not anticipate a managers amendment and the draft that was released a few days ago is the draft we will work off of. We will go through the bill title by title. The titles will be open for amendment by members both in the majority and the minority. We’ll debate and discuss those amendments as they come up and vote on them and work our way through the process. I don’t know how many days this will take. We of course have to suspend markup when we have votes on the floor of the United States House.

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

There are “tiny houses” and then there’s tiny houses. There’ve been a lot of people in the news lately attesting to the fact that a person can lead a comfortable life in half or even a third of the amount of space that most of us are used to. It was only a matter of time that someone would come along and whittle it down even further. The “One SQM House” is just that, only one square meter of living space. That’s just 10.7 square feet. This itty bitty living space serves as a bedroom, or office, and if you are so inclined, it can serve as a storefront the size of a kid’s lemonade stand - utilizing its small window for money exchange. Not your cup of tea? Mine either, but it takes all kinds. It’s really more of a place to hang out rather than live in, for the obvious reason of the missing necessary amenities. Still, if a person needs a place to get away for awhile, one that they can move from location to location, this might be the answer. If my grandfather was still around, he’d probably tell me this was nothing new, that they had these in his day, a place where a person could get away on their own for a while, do a little reading, maybe even take a nap. And it even came installed with a very important amenity! They were called outhouses.

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