12/29/06 Stories of the Year

Stories of the Year. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. With the final days of 2006 quickly ticking off we look back at the past year in the Ag business. I'm not one that has to rate things but it has been an interesting year with everything from drought and immigration to high commodity prices and e. coli outbreaks. So as the last few days pass up by let's look back at 2006 in the Ag industry. HAZELTINE: We are doing targeted surveillance on live wild birds. We're concentrating on Alaska. We are also putting more emphasis on investigating disease outbreaks in wildlife around the country that we significant mortality rates with. That was Department of Interior biologist Sue Hazeltine talking about the outbreak of avian influenza. While the outbreak has yet to make it to the US that we know of, there have been nearly 200 deaths reported worldwide. 2006 also saw a number of bovine JOHANNS: They concluded that the most likely number of BSE cases present in the United States is between 4 and 7 animals out of a herd of 42 million cattle. Those would be adult cattle. USDA experts conclude therefore that the prevalence of BSE in the United States is less than 1 case per 1 million adult cattle. The end of July brought a crushing blow to the ag world as the Doha Round of the World Trade negotiations came to a halt. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy called for the suspension of talks and it was unclear if negotiations would resume. And as mentioned, one of the biggest stories this year has been the immigration issue. In May, President Bush rolled out his 5-point strategy for immigration reform. BUSH: This program would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for jobs Americans are not doing. Every worker who applies for the program would be required to pass criminal background checks and temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay. A temporary worker program would meet the needs of our economy and it would give honest immigrants a way to provide for their families while respecting the law. Of course a political shift after the November elections has put a twist in the future of the new Farm Bill, immigration and world trade talks. Stay tuned&2007 could get very interesting. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.