Moving Wolves & Micro Loan Changes

Moving Wolves & Micro Loan Changes plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

USDA will improve farm loans by expanding eligibility and increasing lending limits to help more beginning and family farmers. Judy Olson is the Washington State Executive Director with the Farm Service Agency.

OLSON: USDA is enticing more people to enter agriculture as a profession. One of the way we are doing this was recently announced as changes to some of our loan programs including the micro loan program. One of the changes is that has been increased to a maximum of $50-thousand dollars. This program has been really, really popular with beginning farmers because it has a faster application processing and more flexibility.

Well here is a unique way for ranchers in northeast Washington to deal with the wolf issue; pack them up and ship them to western Washington. The suggestion was made during a heated meeting last week in Colville, Washington. Of course the suggestion was a bit tongue-in-cheek but also a bit serious since western Washington leans towards the liberal side and supports restoration of wolf populations. As wolf packs have been growing in the northwest, so has predation with more and more frequent attacks on livestock.

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

It seems everyone, at one time or another, has had "Tim Taylor" disease. You know, where just like the Home Improvement character Tim Taylor, we think that when it comes to our gadgets we need to have the ones that have more power, more features and are the most complex. This seems to run true whether you're talking cell phones, computers, washing machines, televisions, or even thermostats. With the weather turning chillier we needed to reset our thermostat this past week, and as it turns out that's no easy task. First we had to locate the nearly inch thick operating manual, then work our way through clock settings, fan settings, energy star settings, program schedules and, well you get the idea. Whatever happened to on/off, heat or cool? We've even experienced this with something as simple as replacing a wood burning fireplace. Every company we contact wants to up-sell us to a unit that has all kinds of bells and whistles, and only costs a mere $4 to $5 thousand. We just want a simple, yet attractive, fireplace unit for our front room. We don't need or want the Lamborghini of fireplaces. Ah well, we better get used to it, because a cure for "Tim Taylor" disease doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.

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