11/27/06 Beef Opportunity & Lame Duck Forecast

Opportunity for beef & Lame Duck Forecast. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. The U.S. Meat Export Federation says the bilateral trade agreement between the United States and Russia will provide some tremendous opportunities for the U.S. livestock and meat industry. Those opportunities will only be seized  though  if U.S. producers and meat exporters recognize the new opportunity. Convincing U.S. industry to participate in the market won't be cut-and-dried because of the delays and difficulties seen with opening and dealing with the Russian market. A lot of people in this industry have become discouraged. The Congressional Quarterly forecast is that the present Lame Duck session of Congress will not complete its work on the FY 07 Federal Budget. Informa's Jim Weismeyer believes only Stop Gap measures will make it through before the end of this year& WEISMEYER: Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. We are on our way and I guess, better late than never. Finally the term "flex fuel" will flow off our tongues like a shiny SUV. The big dogs in Detroit recently announced their plans to double production of flex-fuel cars by 2010. In fact some auto makers are already rolling out new models like the new Jeep liberty diesel that runs on a 5 percent Biodiesel blend. There is still a rocky road ahead for flex fuel vehicles, given the fact that only 700 out of 170,000 gas stations are equipped to sell the stuff. Wall-Mart commitment to biodeisel will help distribution and so does the fact that analysts estimate that if all of the flex fuel autos currently on the road today ran on E85 they would displace more than 3.5 billion gallons of gas a year. Think of it this way& that would equal a full year of gas consumption for either Missouri or Tennessee. That statistic alone should shake up some sheiks. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.