CETA Agreement & Shipper Pulling Out

CETA Agreement & Shipper Pulling Out plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Canada and the European Union have announced a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement or CETA. The deal will give Canada duty-free access to the E.U. for up to 50,000 metric tons of beef, 80,000 tons of pork and 3,000 tons of bison. It also removes nearly all of the European tariffs on Canadian agricultural products like wheat and canola oil. In return, the Europeans get to double the amount of duty-free cheese, up to 31,000 metric tons that they can sell in Canada.

The decision by Hanjin Shipping to pull out of the Port of Portland is going to have an immediate impact on the region. Hanjin cited higher costs as the primary reason for the move. The Ag Networks David Sparks has more.

SPARKS: Hanjin is the largest container carrier that calls the Port of Portland's Termial 6 home. To put it in perspective Hanjin represents about 80 percent of container business throughout the terminal with an average of 16-hundred containers per week carrying Northwest goods. Many businesses may be forced to truck goods to Seattle.

Thanks David. Hanjin is currently reviewing alternatives with the port. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray.

The eleventh hour deal to avoid a fiscal meltdown has become Congress' modus operandi; this is what they do now instead of simply doing their job in the first place. We just continue to kick the can further down that dusty old road. If members of Congress thought that this latest "last minute save" was going to garner them kudos from their constituents they are sadly mistaken. Public opinion polls show that both parties ratings are still in the skids. The last three weeks have been something none of us want to go through again, and we are all fed up with the political rhetoric. Of course the House and Senate have agreed to convene a conference committee to try and reconcile both chambers' FY2014 budget resolutions, but any hopes of the conference committee actually reaching an agreement are extremely low, given the track record. Anyone remember the "super committee" from a few years back? I'm not trying to be a "wet blanket". Perhaps there is hope. Perhaps this conference committee will actually be able to reach a "groundbreaking bipartisan deal" before Christmas. And perhaps we will be able to end world hunger and have true world peace usher in the new year. I guess anything is possible.

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