Humane Society of the United States Files Suit Against USDA & NPPC

Monday the Humane Society of the United States filed a lawsuit against USDA and the Ag Secretary over the National Pork Board’s purchase of The Other White Meat registered trademark. They charge the Secretary should not have approved the sale of the trademark six years ago for 35-million dollars.

The National Pork Producers Council is reviewing the complaint. However – CEO Neil Dierks says the lawsuit appears to be retaliation against their organization for opposition to the deal HSUS struck with the United Egg Producers on animal housing…

“We are still reviewing the case. It appears to be without merit. We view this as an effort by HSUS as a continuation of things they have been doing for quite some time. It also goes back to NPPC’s opposition to impose federal regulation on the farm production of eggs.”

Dierks says this is a mere bullying tactic by HSUS.
 

Cotton Moving Back to Edible Status
 

Recently, at the 2012 Cotton Field Day, Tom Wedegaertner, director of cotton seed research & marketing for Cotton Inc. was demonstrating a cotton product that’s not the first thing you think of when you think of the fluffy fiber; flavored cotton seed oils.

Wedegaertner explains that cotton seed oil is commonly used, just most people don’t know it:

“Cotton seed oil is a great oil for cooking and for salads. It has a light texture and a great mouth feel. People are not familiar with it because they don’t see it on the store shelves. It is used in the food service industry and in packaged snack foods.”
 

Cotton seed oil will be making a reappearance on the grocery store shelves soon as a premium oil product.
 

Mid-Atlantic State Soybean Producers Named to Board
 

Morris L. Shambley, of North Carolina, and Robert W. White, Jr. from Virginia were among 16 members appointed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the United Soybean Board. Vilsack explained that these appointees represent a cross section of the soybean industry and he is confident they will serve the soybean producers well.
 

Finally, a Jump in Consumer Confidence
 

The Consumer Confidence Index rose 9 points from August to September. Conference Board Economist Ken Goldstein says people may be feeling better about their employment prospects:

“What we were looking at was a drip, drip, drip of consumers looking at the lousy job numbers and getting more pessimistic. What we see in the latest survey is a reversal of some of that.”

Goldstein says today's 70.3 figure is about where we were last February, and the number is still far from 90, the indicator for a healthy economy.

Rural Voters in Swing States Prefer Romney

A poll released by the National Rural Assembly shows Republican Mitt Romney holding a 14 percentage-point lead over President Barack Obama among rural voters in nine swing states. According to the poll – 54-percent of the rural voters in the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin favored Romney. Forty-percent of the 600 likely voters in nonmetropolitan counties surveyed said they would vote for President Obama.