FDA Cracks Down & Final Ag Push

FDA Cracks Down & Final Ag Push plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Agriculture is making its final push to head off increases in the Estate and Capital Gains taxes in the Lame Duck Congress. The way American Farm Bureau Tax Chief Pat Wolff sees it - without Congressional action by January 1st - there will be a huge increase in Estate and Capital Gains Taxes. And AFBF is holding back nothing as it fights to preserve breaks critical to agriculture.

WOLFF: Farm Bureau is engaged in a grass roots campaign. It’s targeted at the next couple of weeks when Congress will be making critical decisions and farmers and ranchers from all over the country are sending emails to their Senators and Representatives saying keep the law as it is now.

The company responsible for the salmonella recalls on Trader Joe’s peanut and other nut butters has ceased operation after the FDA intervened. Sunland Inc. is the nation’s largest organic peanut butter processor. The operation was shut down by the FDA using the new enforcement authority the agency gained in a 2011 food safety law. FDA officials found salmonella all over Sunland Inc.'s New Mexico processing plant after 41 people in 20 states, most of them children, were sickened by peanut butter manufactured at the Sunland plant and sold at Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Safeway, Target and others.

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

Something happened this year that hasn’t happened at our house in nearly twenty years - I didn’t have to make Thanksgiving dinner. We had the pleasure of being invited to our son’s significant other’s for their family get together. This meant no long hours spent over a hot stove for me, or the inevitable sliced fingertip for my hubby who does most of the prep work when it comes to the veggies. We had a wonderful time asThanksgiving guests and the food was delicious, but there was a problem, no leftovers at our house! That would seem to be a good thing, but as many know, the whole point of the holiday is the leftovers. Alas, no midnight turkey and stuffing sandwiches for us, no turkey soup, no sweet potato dumplings, no left over corn for fritters, or potatoes for potato pancakes. I guess there’s really only one thing for me to do, and that’s make a turkey dinner. Of course it won’t have to be on the usual grand scale, it will just be a small bird, a few sweet potatoes, some stuffing, and maybe some fresh cranberry relish. Oh, who am I kidding? It’s all or nothing, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to clear out all the leftovers just in time to do it all again for Christmas!

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