USDA has reached agreements allowing U.S. beef and pork producers greater access to consumers in Mexico and Peru. The agreements will allow U.S. producers to export slaughter cattle to Mexico and expand access to consumer markets in Peru for U.S. fresh and chilled pork. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says Mexico is an important market for U.S. cattle producers - with the potential to import 15-million dollars of live U.S. cattle per year - and USDA expects Peru’s market could generate 5-million dollars each year in additional pork sales.

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Hydrologist David Garen says almost all of the West Coast continues to have record low snow-pack. March was warm and dry in most of the West - and as a result - Garen says snow is melting earlier than usual. He says the only holdouts are higher elevations in the Rockies. Due to early snow-melt - Garen says Western states will have reduced stream flow later this spring and into the summer. Stream flow in those states consist of accumulated mountain snow that melts and flows into streams in warmer temperatures.

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