New Products from Waste & Personal Property Tax Issue

New Products from Waste & Personal Property Tax Issue plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Idaho is taking a look at a possible repeal of personal property taxes. A new bill addressing that issue is quickly moving through the Idaho Statehouse and may just be a big help to small and medium-sized businesses in the state. The bill is a compromise between local governments and businesses and would repeal the first $100,000 of personal property. In addition, items worth less than $3,000 will be exempt.

Sugar beet producers in the northwest may just have a new revenue stream off the waste product left over after it is converted to table sugar. Arland Hotchkiss of USDA's Agricultural Research Service says they have created a biodegradable plastic.

HOTCHKISS: It has some very good properties that can be used either as a flexible plastic material for either packaging or containers but it also has some valuable properties depending on how you make it whether you have polylactic acid present or not you can make it into a very firm plastic material so it can be used for containers or some of the structural elements that you would have in any kind of microelectronic type of equipment.

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

National Agriculture Week activities were in high gear last week. Now that that designated time to celebrate all things agriculture has come and gone it’s back to normal right? Wrong! Those within the ag community should continue to take every opportunity to reach out and share information about the agriculture industry, educating consumers about what’s really done on our nation’s farms and ranches. In other words, do some myth busting! Not to be cliche, but agriculture should be celebrated every day of the year. We all eat every day, don’t we? Right now more people want to know about the path their food takes from the farm to the dinner table than any other time in history. Social media makes it easier to get information out to the masses, but all too often that information can be misleading or downright wrong when it comes to agriculture. That’s because those who really know agriculture - the farmers and ranchers - are busy planting, growing, and harvesting, and don’t reach out to consumers like they probably should. But that can change. Farmers and ranchers should take every opportunity they can to be the “face of agriculture”, making sure that protecting and promoting the ag industry is part of their everyday routine.

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