In a call with reporters Wednesday morning, National Farmers Union President Tom Buis called for a "national summit" of major agricultural groups and leaders from President-elect Barack Obama's agricultural team.
"I think we ought to invite everyone who has a stake in the rural economy and get their input, including elected people, including the representatives in the new administration," Buis said.
Buis recalled a similar summit was held about a decade ago in St. Louis.
"When you have that type of communication, you have a better product," he said.
Buis said he is going call other leaders from rural groups and gauge the interest to see how quickly such a summit could be put together. It should be noted that December really kicks off the season for agricultural meetings of all types, generally starting at the state level for every major commodity organization.
Chambliss Off Point
It might reflect the screwed up nature of some laws more than anything else, but the New York Times reports Thursday morning that Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss could fall just below the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff election Dec. 2. Ballots were still being counted, but Chambliss appeared to have 49.9 percent of the vote to 46.7 percent for Democrat Jim Martin. Georgia law requires 50 percent to avoid a runoff.
According to the article, at least 14,000 absentee ballots had not been counted, and neither had 40,000 others.
While I understand the premise of the law, if Chambliss falls .1 percent below the threshold needed to avoid a runoff, what Georgia then creates is a huge waste of money. The battle would continue with more ads and outside money pumped into the state to swing one more race, even though Chambliss appeared to have a clear-cut victory.
http://www.nytimes.com/…
Wednesday morning my wife got out a pound of stew meat and since country-of-origin-labeling is an area I try to keenly pay attention to, we looked for the label. It took some time, and almost a magnifying glass. Finally, on the back of the package, in an amazingly small font was "Product of the U.S., Canada and Mexico." I wasn't happy about that. It was one pound of beef, but the packer effectively told us this meat could have come from anywhere. This came from a Wal-Mart label, Amana Beef. I haven't actually been able to find out the plant where it originated, but I'm going to have to pay closer attention. I also pulled out a pound of boneless chicken breast from Tyson out of the freezer and across the front of the package was "Product of the U.S."
