New Food Initiative and Bees Killed. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The USDA, Corporation for National and Community Service and White House have teamed to help combat hunger by implementing the President’s United We Serve: Feed A Neighbor initiative. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reported that the current level of hunger in America is at the highest it’s has been since 1995.

VILSACK: These really aren’t just numbers. It’s important to recognize these are people, they’re children who are at risk of going to bed hungry every night.

This initiative provides individuals with the tools to identify needs in their community and ways they can ensure that their neighbors have enough to eat.

VILSACK: Which will engage families and communities throughout the United States because the reality is these families and these children we’re talking about who are hungry could very well live right next door to each of us and as a result we all have a role to play.

Thousands of bees are doomed to die on a cold southern Idaho highway after their hives spilled from a truck. Sixty-four hives tipped onto the asphalt in Burley after one of the straps holding them onto a truck snapped. The bees, from Belliston Brothers Apiaries Inc., were being transported to a cellar for storage over the winter. Each hive contains about 30,000 bees. Hive boxes and other equipment shattered when it hit the road, and the bees that couldn't be recovered will likely die in the cold. The hives were part of the company's rental business and had been due to be taken to California in February to pollinate some of that state's almond crop.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange Report.

(GRANGE)

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.