06/19/07 Another Try & Prices Continue Up

Another try and Prices Continue Up plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Prices continue to go up. Everything from gasoline to produce prices are up and according to Ephriam Leibtag, USDA economist, farm product prices and rising energy costs are the big factors driving food prices up. LEIBTAG: Certainly corn prices have been up quite a bit the last 9 months or so. That's raised feed prices for livestock and poultry producers and that's started working its way through the system. That has an impact certainly on corn syrup, corn meal and corn cereal so higher commodity costs are starting to work their way through retail the last couple of months. Wheat prices have been up as well so breads and those types of products have been increasing. Of course we've had higher energy prices so that contributes to the overall inflation rate as well and that's kind of across the board for all food. It appears the Senate has come up with a way to get the immigration debate fired up again. Republican and Democrats are working on bringing the debate back to the floor before the July 4th break. But first the Senators must complete an energy bill. President Bush has been pushing hard to get the immigration bill done before he leaves office. His plan would make the biggest changes in immigration law and policy in more than 20 years. It would increase border security, crack down on companies that employ illegal immigrants, establish a guest worker program and offer legal status to most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. The media, (China's and ours) would like us to believe that the tainted products flooding into our country from China are the result of a few 'oops's " from the working class sector. Is the gaunt illiterate peasant typically depicted in our papers the cause of these shipments tainted with banned pesticides, filth and toxic chemicals? Hardly! That is why our government and multi- national corporations want this s story to go away, and that is why papers like the Times tend to bury this outrage deep in the business section. China now makes half the aspirin in the world and 70 percent of the world's penicillin. 90 percent of our vitamin C comes from China as well as the majority of A, B-12, and E. Consumers are never privy to this information by virtue of the fact the US doesn't require drug companies to note the origin of ingredients and the press who relies on pharmaceutical ad dollars aren't going to rock the boat, neither are politicians milking off shore accounts because they all recognize the face behind China's dirty secret as theirs! Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.