Flu Deaths & Census Glitch

Flu Deaths & Census Glitch plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

About one quarter of all surveys sent out for USDA's latest Census of Agriculture have been collected so far and Census officials are adding more people to handle the overwhelming flood of phone and email questions from farmers according to Chris Messer, the U.S. Census Planning Office chief.

MESSER: So we would really like to ask for people’s patience. We will definitely get back to everyone who has left a message or who has felt like they couldn’t stay and wait on the line and they’ve given up. Or if they’ve left an email for us, we will get back to those people but it may take us a little bit longer because of the volume we’re receiving right now.

It is definitely the cold and flu season. Everyone should be taking extra precautions to limited your exposure. Wash your hands and/or keep hand sanitizer convenient. The influenza virus has been causing a lot of illness around the northwest and has even resulted in up to 15 deaths in Idaho with most of those coming from the southwest corner of the state. Six deaths have been reported in Washington.

Well here’s an interesting fact,there are four times more wineries in the United States than just ten years ago. Rod Bain reports.

(USDA Report)

The number of wineries here in the northwest has also skyrocketed in the last few years mirroring the national stats. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.