12/4/06 Pork Doing Well & USDA on ID

Pork doing well and USDA talks animal ID. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. During the first six months of 2006 - retail pork sales outpaced beef and chicken. The Pork Checkoff Director of Retail Marketing is Karen Boillot. She explains this sales report. BOILLOT: This is information from FreshLook which is a syndicated data source. They collect basically the scanner data so it is actual sales from supermarkets from across the United States and we saw that fresh pork tonnage is up 6% first half of 2006 vs. the first half of 2005. There`s been plenty of talk about USDA`s proposed National Animal Identification System. USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Bruce Knight stressed that NAIS never has been a mandatory program and it will remain voluntary. Knight said that USDA must earn the trust and respect of farmers and ranchers if they`re going to take part in the ID system and the only way that will happen is if USDA moves forward with a voluntary program. He said acceptance of USDA`s NAIS plan is growing in part because of statements that ensure participation in the program will in fact be the choice of the producer. But more is needed like education, information and one-on-one meetings to answer any remaining questions. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. With all the effort and hours it takes to make it to the NFR finals this week, (where I just happen to be), especially in the events requiring a horse for a partner, the recent news that Charmaine James successfully cloned her famous barrel horse Scamper leaves a bad taste in my mouth. By cloning Scamper Charmaine has opened a Pandora's Box that stands to forever change the sport of rodeo. Rodeo Blogger Ralph Clark asks us to imagine a line of several Mossy Oak Mudslingers or Little Yellow Jackets bucking out? How about 23rd century cowboys riding the same top stock that they ride now? When that happens there will be no serendipity left in rodeo, no wild rides on renegade stock, no barrel racers on ex-race horses. It is a travesty when $150,000 buys you a Scamper clone and it destroys the legacy of Scamper who was deemed unridable when Charmaines' father purchased him from a feed lot cowboy. Is it an insecurity or too much security that takes a one in a million horse and turns it into merely a millionaires folly? Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.