Wolf Deal & Lower Food Inflation
Wolf Deal & Lower Food Inflation plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.
USDA's latest Food Price Outlook revealed some good news for consumers. Economist Ricky Volpe explains how lower food price inflation for dairy products, and cereal and bakery goods, have impacted the latest food price inflation forecasts.
VOLPE: Probably the biggest is - in terms of dairy products, we were looking at dairy price inflation to be on the order of about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2% on the year which is pretty substantial. But it’s increasingly looking like we’ve already seen the bulk of the impact of the drought on fluid milk prices. We’ve revised our forecast down for dairy products to 2 1/2 to 3 1/2% on the year which is roughly in the range for normal. Another one is for the cereals and bakery products. That’s a big one that accounts for almost 9% of consumers grocery shopping and we revised that downward to 2-3%.
The Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission voted unanimously to establish an emergency rule to allow farmers to legally shoot a wolf caught in the act of attacking their livestock or pets. The department said they will use a broad definition of the word "attacking" to include wolves that are chasing or pursuing livestock or pets. Until the federal government delists wolves statewide, the rule will only apply to the eastern third of the state where wolves have been federally delisted. The emergency rule is only in effect for 120 days, and can be reinstated one time.
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.
Most of us have heard the old saying, “that’s like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted”. The EPA is under fire for the release of personal data on concentrated animal feeding operations to three different environmental groups. Earlier this year, the EPA gave out details on CAFOs to the groups in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. Out of the twenty-nine states that were part of the release information for ten of those contained personal data, which included individual names, phone numbers, personal addresses, e-mail addresses, and facility names. The EPA admitted this information should not have been disclosed under the FOIA request, and asked the environmental groups to return the original information. This reminds me of a judge asking a jury to disregard a witness’s last statement. You can ask, but it’s already out there. The damage has been done. The EPA now has to answer questions on why privacy protection protocols weren’t followed in the first place. The environmental groups did return the discs with the personal information on them, but they were under no legal obligation to not make copies of those discs.
Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
