05/29/07 Bush Wants Agreement & Low Fat Cow

Bush wants Agreement & low fat cow plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. President Bush wants to see the World Trade Organization come to an agreement on a trade deal before he leaves office. Negotiators have missed deadline after deadline ever since the Doha round was launched in November 2001. The newest deadline is the end of this year and Bush told reporters that he his hopeful to have something that congressional leaders can vote on. The President is pushing for an extension of White House trade promotion authority so the Doha Round can be completed many Democrats say they must see a major breakthrough in the Doha round before considering even a temporary extension of trade promotion authority. Well here's one from the scratch your head category. It seems that dairy producers along with scientists in New Zealand are working on the development of a cow that will give  skim milk. One particular cow was found that produced a lower fat milk than usual and have successfully bred calves that also produce a lower fat milk. Normal low fat milk contains between 0.5 and 3.3 percent fat while the milk from the cow names Marge checks in at about 1.0 percent. Now if the can only get one to produce chocolate milk! Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. The growth of Toyota has left US automakers in the dust. While GM and Ford kept rolling out the gas guzzlers, Toyota was quietly obtaining dozens of patents on hybrid technology and now&guess what, they hold the trump card. The company that was bent on producing that odd little boxy hybrid 10 years ago, the little car that couldn't, that ended up the but of jokes and typically in the bike lane on a hill, did and did it in a big way. 300,000 Prius's were sold this year and Toyota projects that they will break the million mark in Prius sales by 2010. Apparently Toyota executives don't share many analysts concerns that hybrids could be but a mere blip on the highway of transitional technology having just released a luxury Lexus LS hybrid last week in Japan that retails for $124,000. Is it kismet that Japans largest automakers' gamble on hybrids was perfectly timed with the booming global warming movement? If so, GM and Ford should be so lucky. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.