12/27/06 Drought Early-Warning and S. Korea Beef M

President Bush has signed legislation to establish a drought early-warning system that will help state and local officials mitigate the effects of drought. Experts say - the National Integrated Drought Information System will remove some of the unpredictability of drought. Nebraska U.S. Senator Ben Nelson introduced the bill that he says  will allow us to avoid some of its devastation. South Korea is saying bone fragments found in three shipments of U.S. beef is not the only problem they are having with U.S. beef shipments. South Korean officials say the third of the three shipments of U.S. beef also contained dioxin levels exceeding South Korea's norm. A South Korean Agriculture and Forestry Ministry official says Washington has been asked to explain why the beef in the third shipment contained dioxin. This latest problem came to light as representatives of South Korea and the United State discussed the bone fragment issue. But if South Korea would open up, the question becomes, what size of market would they really be? USDA Livestock Analyst Shayle Shagam says three years ago it was a big market. SHAGAM: We shipped about 590 million pounds to Korea which represented about 23% of U.S. export. That year actually they had just nosed out Mexico for our second most important market. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. If you buy organic foods to support our small "sustainable" farmers it's time for a wake up call and a closer look at those organic labels. You see, the family with the lovely organic orchard, whose darling children work the fruit stand could be getting trumped by Latin American "organic" exports set to reach $250 million this year. While your neighbor must typically wait three years to become certified after farming with conventional chemicals, his counterpart in Peru can become certified almost immediately by virtue of being poor. Do you trust who is doing the Certification? Check the labels on your next apples pears, cherries, nectarines and plums, odds are, they are coming from the leader of South American organic exporting; Argentina . These aren't always "small" substance farmers. Dole foods, among others now imports organic pineapple from Costa Rica and bananas from Colombia, Honduras and Ecuador. Our organic movement is moving a direction never intended but as consumers we have the power to bring it back on course Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.