06/11/07 Easing The Rules & Beef Ban Lifted

Easing the Rules & Beef Ban Lifted plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Friday was a good day for travelers and beef producers. First, South Korea finally lifted their ban on U.S. beef. The market had been closed back in September 2003 following the mad cow scare, then partially reopened until a shipment of meat that was only meant for the domestic market were accidentally shipped to Korea. Ron Rowan, Marketing Chair for the Oregon Cattleman's Association says the Korean market uses different parts of the beef. ROWAN: One of the advantages of the export market is that they use products that we typically don't use within the United States and they can really add value to the animal. And of you have some travel plans pending because of the backlog of passport applications, good news. U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda who have applied for but not yet received passports can travel by air with a government issued photo ID and official proof of application for a passport through September 30, 2007. The back log of passport application has been causing headaches for many travelers and the government decided to ease those restrictions. This does not affect entry requirements to other countries. You must still have a passport for entry into those countries. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. Count all the horse trailers traveling our highways and it is easy to see that there are a lot of people, like myself into horses. There are even more horses today than there were in the horse and buggy era, a fact that sheds an interestingly light on human nature. As Ronald Reagan liked to quote, "there is nothing so good for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse." And I might add& good for the economy as well. While the number of horse owners climb, the cost of horse ownership is simply skyrocketing and a recent American Horse Council study found that recreational horse owners now contribute 32 billion to our gross domestic product. As Marguret Henry the author once said. "It excites me that no matter how much machinery replaces the horse, the work it can do is still measured in horsepower.....even in this space age. And although a riding horse often weighs half a ton, and a big drafter a full ton, either can be led about by a piece of string if he has been wisely trained. This to me is a constant source of wonder, and challenge" . It is pretty obvious that thousands of Americans share her sentiments. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.