Turkey Shortage & Vilsack On Ag

Turkey Shortage & Vilsack On Ag

Turkey Shortage & Vilsack On Ag plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Traditionalists pay attention. Butterball, the guys who produce this Thanksgiving turkeys says they are fewer turkeys this year and could possibly see a shortage. The company released a statement last week that there should be plenty of turkeys for the holiday but might see some shortages for the larger turkeys since there was a problem with fattening up this years birds. The national average is about a 16 pound turkey. Butterball says they are shipping about half the normal amount this year.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke with farm broadcasters about what we do at this years National Association of Farm Broadcasters convention in Kansas City. Vilsack gave the broadcasters some kudos.

VILSACK: Part of the frustrating part of this job is that so many of the media folks do not understand or appreciate what goes on on the farm, on the ranch, in the fields and in rural areas and it is important and necessary for not just folks in rural America to understand the important work that gets done in small towns and on those small farms and ranches but all of America.

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

When speaking with my 93 year old mom-in-law it's interesting to get her take on all the things throughout the last nearly 100 years that she has seen come and go. Her generation has seen the switch from outhouses to indoor plumbing, carriages to cars, and crank phones to cell phones. Our generation of baby boomers have seen a great number of our own vast improvements in everyday living. Technology in the last few decades has taken off like, well, like a rocket to the moon. What can be disturbing to ponder though is what we've seen slowly disappearing, such as the simple act of reading and writing cursive handwriting because of a growing dependency on technology. More and more schools no longer require cursive handwriting to be taught, as they deem it too time consuming for teachers to have to deal with. Sadly, my generation seems to be the ones that will see the demise of several things that we over the years have just taken for granted as fundamental, such as being able to read and write cursive, being able to tell time on a non-digital clock, tie shoelaces, count back change, or even the ability to memorize one's own phone number and address. They say all great things must come to an end. Sadly, they don't tell us what great losses we'll incur because of their passing.

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

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