I-594 Challenges & Rail Prices Up

I-594 Challenges & Rail Prices Up

I-594 Challenges & Rail Prices Up plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

The National Rifle Association has gotten into Washington's I-594 arena, challenging the initiative as dishonest. 594 calls for universal background checks for gun purchases. Brian O'Neill, a former law enforcement officer from the west side is a spokesperson for The Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility.

O'NEILL: What I saw during that time, especially in my last assignment as a gang task force investigator, I saw guns get into the wrong hands. Certainly not every single one of those situations was preventable but I think that 594, in my opinion, would have made it a lot more difficult for a number of these situations to occur where bad people got guns and did bad things.

Moving ag products overseas is getting more expensive. On October 1st, Union Pacific Railroad implemented a new heavy-weight surcharge on westbound export containers in excess of 22 tons for a 20-foot container and 26 tons for a 40- or 45-foot container. Some sources are calling the extra cost a fuel surcharge, while a Union Pacific spokesman, said the surcharge is a "handling fee." Bottom line is it will mean an additional $200 for 20-foot containers and $300 for 40- to 45-feet containers being charged for each International Standards Organization container bound for a West Coast port. Union Pacific says these containers are special and not designed to be stacked two-high as are lighter containers.

Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray.

According to the new Global Agricultural Productivity report released by the Global Harvest Initiative global agricultural productivity is not accelerating fast enough to meet the expected demand for sustainable production by the year 2050. For the first time in several years the report shows that ag productivity in high income countries is actually declining and not keeping up with trend lines. This means that if this trend continues on its present course over the next thirty years world food demands will quickly outpace sustainable world food supplies. So how do we tighten the gap between supply and demand? Dr. Margaret Zeigler, Executive Director of GHI, told the group gathered at the recent World Food Prize Symposium that "To realize the promise of new global revolutions in agriculture we need greater investment in agricultural research and development, better trade agreements for facilitation of global and regional trade in agriculture, and a commitment to apply information and science based technologies." Zeigler also pointed out the importance of promoting and empowering more women in ag production, saying that "their contributions will be key to lifting up the nutritional status of the next generation."

Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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