No Salmon Disease & Cattlemen Fight Back

No Salmon Disease & Cattlemen Fight Back plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has completed a two-year intensive testing initiative and found no evidence of infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) or infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN) in wild salmon on the west coast. All tests were negative. The tests were performed using internationally recognized and validated testing protocols. The CFIA is currently testing farmed salmon in B.C. for non-pathogenic ISA to confirm they are free of the disease. Testing for other diseases in wild and farmed finfish in B.C. is also planned.

The National Cattlemen' Beef Association stands opposed to the USDA proposal for a secondary beef checkoff program. Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Friday USDA would seek comments from producers and producer groups on creating an additional checkoff that would be overseen by USDA's Agriculture Marketing Service. NCBA President Bob McCan said the new checkoff would prove costly to producers.

McCAN: The secretaries plan is just duplicative and would only kind of prove wasteful of our producer dollars. That would have to be additional overhead , additional boards, additional costs running parallel with a checkoff that has been very successful and enjoys a very high approval rate and by the producers that pay into it.

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

At least one good thing comes with the end of the political season, the removal of political signs! There are numerous things in this world that cause me irritation: cell phone users in restaurants, dog walkers who leave "presents" in my yard, public rest rooms with no tissue, soap, or towels, and politicians who fail to take down their campaign signs after elections. Most cities have a time frame in which politicians have to remove their campaign signs before being fined. Whether or not fines are ever issued remains to be seen; as it appears most of these signs are still quite visible long after the elections are over. I understand the necessity of these signs and will even go so far as to say political signs offer a visual testimony to our country's greatness and our right to free speech. But it would behoove politicians to realize that it would be an even more magnanimous gesture to their opponents, and speak volumes of their true character to their constituents in how quickly they take down their signs after the election; regardless of whether they've won or lost.

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