Free Site Recommendations & Russian Sanctions

Free Site Recommendations & Russian Sanctions plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Everyone has been keeping an eye on what Russia is up to these days when it comes to Crimea. If Russia retaliates for U.S. travel and asset sanctions over Crimea - Senator Chuck Grassley says it will come against U.S. investment interests - not agriculture.

GRASSLEY: Several economists are saying that the crisis there in the Ukraine will be only small factor in the rise or fall of commodity prices. The changing political environment obviously still has a chance to impact future prices but for the time-being the effect has been marginal.

For ag producers potentially affected by the Wanapum and Rock Island Pools issue, the Conservation Commission and Cascadia Conservation District are performing site assessments free of charge using their "pump and pipes" design expertise to make on site recommendations to the landowners who are requesting assistance through Ecology and the PUD. Following the assessment, if a Joint Aquatic Resource Permit Application or JARPA application is needed, the Conservation Commission and Cascadia Conservation District will also be helping the landowners fill out the JARPA applications that the permitting agencies need for the changes. To start the site assessment process, contact Teresa Mitchell with the Department of Ecology in Washington State.

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

Aganetha Dyck is a Canada based artist who creates art out of honeycomb. For more than twenty years Dyck has been working with honeybees to make her own unique style of art using specially designed apiaries that allow her to place a foreign object inside the hive without disturbing the bees' natural everyday activity. The result is a delicate honeycomb sculpture. Dyck uses such man made objects as porcelain figurines, shoes, dolls and sports equipment. The entire process can take several weeks or months even. While Dyck has been carrying on her relationship with bees for more than two decades, more recently her artwork has garnered worldwide recognition and attention due to the onslaught of colony collapse disorder. Dyck's artwork with its rather erie webbing of delicately woven yet remarkably strong honeycomb now takes on a whole new meaning from its first inception, bringing new attention to the importance and beauty of bees to our lives. The honeycomb sculptures have been called exquisite, beautiful, humorous, haunting and even disturbing. One thing is for certain, Dyck's unique artwork created through the utilization of bees and their hive building skills can't help but draw attention to how truly remarkable bees are.

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