05/11/07 More Asparagus & Big Apple Purchase

Asking for more Asparagus & Big apple purchase. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Washington State Congressman Doc Hastings and others from Washington and Michigan have sent a letter to Ag Secretary Johanns requesting an additional purchase of asparagus. HASTINGS: Asking them to once again purchase asparagus for the school lunch program. They have been doing that and obviously it gets consumed so that will help our asparagus industry as they continue to feel competitive pressure from asparagus imported from Peru. So I'm hopeful that the Agriculture Secretary will once again make that buy as they have in the past and that will help alleviate some of the pressure on the asparagus. And speaking of buying food products, the USDA announced yesterday that they plan to purchase 53.9 million pounds of apple products to be used for child nutrition and other domestic food assistance programs. USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service will seek the lowest overall cost by publicly inviting bids to supply the desired quantity of apple products. Shannon Schaffer with US Apple says this is great news. SCHAFFER: It's a win  win for everybody. It's a win for the apple industry, it's a win for the government because they're able to keep these programs going and it's a win for the people getting the products because they're getting great tasting, healthy apple products. Now here's today's Washington Grange Report. (GRANGE REPORT) That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.