05/02/07 Tracking the Contamination & Bush On Ethanol

Tracking the Contamination and Bush on Ethanol plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. The USDA and FDA have jointly announced that byproducts from pet food manufactured with contaminated wheat gluten imported from China have been used in chicken feed on some farms in the state of Indiana. The announcement comes on the heels of pork contamination in California and the recall of pet food products over the last several months. The FDA's David Acheson, Chief Medical Officer, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. ACHESON: We believe the situation with the poultry is very much like that of the swine, we do not believe that there is any significant threat of human illness for this from consuming poultry that may have been given very low levels of the contaminated pet food for exactly the same reasons as with the swine. President Bush says that ethanol production in the U.S. cannot be supported by corn and says we need to look elsewhere. BUSH: The spread of ethanol in the United States is not going to be achievable if we rely only upon corn. There is a limit to the amount of ethanol we can produce with corn as the feedstock so our research dollars are going to what they call cellulosic ethanol and that means the ability to make ethanol from switch grasses or wood chips and we are spending a lot of money to that end. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. Bring up the topic of country- of -origin labeling, otherwise known as COOL with cattle producers and you get a response as varied as cuts of meat. Some regard COOL as an Orwellian Big Brother tactic while others are proud to slap a USA made label on their product. One thing is certain; COOL will increase the work load of the cattle producer by requiring detailed herd inventory records, receipts, calving books and tagging systems. Currently Congress is getting pressured to implement COOL for meat and peanuts prior to the original date scheduled to become law on September 30. 2008 but so far COOL has been received coolly by seafood consumers. The 2 ½ year process to label seafood has according to the Food Marketing Institute cost the supermarket industry 10 times more than the original USDA estimate and we all know who absorbs that extra cost , meaning in many cases consumers will forgo national pride and opt for less expensive imports. Let's hope Cool isn't simply another means by which competitors can gain a foot hold in the US beef market. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.