Reducing Sulphur Emissions and Better E. Coli Tracking

Reducing Sulphur Emissions and Better E. Coli Tracking plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

An audit by the Office of the Inspector General shows that the Food Safety and Inspection Service is not doing enough to catch E. coli in boxed beef that’s turned into ground beef nor in tenderized cuts of meat. The audit also says the FSIS needs to ensure accurate data and sufficient record-keeping in its new Public Health Information System for correct sampling of beef for E. coli testing and for traceback and recall purposes.

The EPA is once again proposing to further reduce sulphur in gasoline and tighten auto emissions starting in 2017. The last time EPA did so was seven years ago and it cost farms plenty. National Farmers Union Chandler Goule did not immediately know the farm cost impact of the latest plan - but argues for cleaner burning fuels.

GOULE: Moving forward with cleaner burning fuels i.e or biodiesel that’s grown in rural America, NFU is very supportive of and we feel certain that we will work with the EPA to make sure that any of these changes that they do don’t increase the cost of farming to the point that our producers can’t handle it.

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

Continuing Resolution HR 933 that President Obama signed into law last week was intended to prevent the federal government from shutting down when current funding was set to expire on March 27. One would not think of HR 933 as a target for food activists, but that’s where one would be wrong. Section 735 of the Continuing Resolution has some groups rallying the troops, referring to it as the “biotech rider”. The provision allows the USDA to override judicial rulings and grant temporary permits for farmers to plant and grow GMO crops while pending scientific or regulatory review, where before a judge could suspend the planting and selling of GMO crops during such review. Food activists are calling for the President to remove section 735 from the resolution, claiming that the provision “will enable biotech lobbyists to ensure new GMO crops can evade any serious review”. Those in defense of the provision interpret its language differently, seeing it merely as an attempt by Congress to give farmers the confidence that they will be able to harvest and sell crops they were given an okay by the USDA to go ahead and plant.

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