If the kind of weather we had today (May 7, 2009) prevails next week, then riding your bike to work will be a blast.

Any way, riding a bike is good for you.

Here are five good health reasons for riding a bike from about.com

—Increased cardiovascular fitness

—Increased strength

—Increased balance and flexibility

—Increased endurance and stamina

—Increased calories burned

It can be done by people of all ages, from childhood up even through the adult years when achy joints don’t allow for more stressful exercise like jogging.

To encourage more trips to work on a bicycle, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services together with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and the Nebraska Department of Roads are celebrating May as National Bike Month and May 11-15 as Bike to Work Week.

Nationally, transportation on a bicycle is low at about 1% of all trips. In Nebraska, the rate is less than half that.

“Nebraska has a vast network of scenic rural roads, trail systems and pleasant weather conditions, making the Cornhusker state a favorable place to bike to work and to get physically active,” said Dr. Joann Schaefer, Chief Medical Officer for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. “Increased bicycle riding will promote health and wellness and help to become or stay fit, avoid overweight and obesity, and reduce the risk of many chronic diseases and conditions.”

Here are some tips that will help you enjoy biking to work more:

• Have your bike checked over by your local bike shop
• Always wear a helmet to protect your head in the event of a crash
• Ride the right-most lane that goes in the direction you are traveling
• Obey all stop signs, traffic lights and lane markings
• Look before you change lanes or signal a turn; indicate your intention, then act
• Be visible and predictable at all times
• Wear bright clothing and signal turns

Now that the flu scare is abiding, here comes the bed bugs. They are those little critters that come out at night and feed on you while you’re in bed sleeping. And according the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, you won’t even know it until you feel the effects later.

According to UNL, bed bugs have become such a problem that University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension is trying to teach people more about them. Extension has joined with the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department to present the workshop “Bed Bugs: What You Need to Know” on May 21 at the Lancaster County Extension Center, 444 Cherrycreek Road.

The workshop is open to the public but is targeted toward landlords and property managers, said Barbara Ogg, extension educator.

“That group isn’t as aware of how difficult it is to treat these and how fast they spread,” Ogg said.

Bed bugs, a one-fourth-inch long reddish brown insect, hide in cracks and crevices of mattresses, box springs, sofas and chairs, Ogg said. Females can lay three to five eggs a day, and the white eggs about the size of a pin head can be difficult to see.

Usually people don’t know they have a problem with bed bugs until after they have been bitten, Ogg said. The nocturnal bugs crawl onto sleeping humans and bite, feeding on blood. The bite is painless but the result is red, swollen, blotchy skin that will itch for several days.

A resurgence in bed bugs was noticed in the United States in the late 1990s and the problem has been growing, Ogg said. It can be an especially difficult problem in apartment buildings, where the bugs can be brought in by one person and affect nearly everyone, crawling from unit to unit.

Travelers sometimes pick up bed bugs while staying in hotels. The bugs will crawl into suitcases and be brought to homes. They also can be brought into the home through the purchase of used furniture.

“Landlords and property managers need to be able to recognize the problem and take subsequent management tactics, including thorough treatment by a pest control company,” Ogg said.

With global climate change an immediate threat and the world population increasing and crowding more and more into urban areas, pandemics are going to be a likely result.

And because of modern agricultural practices, such as large animal confinements, pandemics are especially dangerous to the world food supply. With more and more people crowding into urban areas, large animal confinements because a necessity to feed a hungry population.

This week the National Pork Producers Council sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture urging help for the U.S. pork industry to deal with the negative effects of what initially was misnamed “swine” influenza and is now known as the H1N1 flu or Influenza A.

Pork producers, who prior to the announcement of the current flu “outbreak” already were losing money, have seen losses accelerate to an average of $17.69 on each hog marketed as of May 1. Total losses reached $7.2 million a day between April 24 and May 1.

“Given those loses and based on May 1 futures prices,” said NPPC President Don Butler, “a bad situation for pork producers has been exacerbated and could get worse unless the industry gets some relief.”

To help stem the losses U.S. pork producers are incurring, NPPC has asked USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to:

—   Implement a USDA purchase program for $50 million of pork products to help boost cash hog prices. Products can be put into federal emergency food programs, food pantries, senior/elderly feeding programs, hunger programs and other non-commercial food channels.

— Urge President Obama to work with U.S. trading partners to remove all restrictions on exports of U.S. pork and pork products and to maintain U.S. pork export markets around the world.

— Develop a comprehensive surveillance program for swine diseases, which will provide an early warning for emerging diseases that affect human and animal health. Mandatory premises and animal identification would be necessary for an effective surveillance program.

—  Work to keep open the border between the United States and Canada – in the wake of a report that pigs on a Canadian pork operation contracted from a worker the H1N1 flu – to allow hog movements.

NPPC told Sec. Vilsack it would identify and bring to his attention other actions USDA could take to assist the U.S. pork industry during the current situation.

By Robert Pore
robert.pore@theindependent.com
On Tuesday, President Obama issued a presidential directive today to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to “aggressively accelerate the investment in and production of biofuels.”
Vilsack also announced Tuesday that he will help lead an unprecedented interagency effort to increase America’s energy independence and spur rural economic development.
Vilsack said Obama’s announcement demonstrates “his deep commitment to establishing a permanent biofuels industry in America.”
“Expanding our biofuels infrastructure provides a unique opportunity to spur rural economic development while reducing our dependence on foreign oil – one of the great challenges of the 21st century,” he said.
According to the USDA, increasing renewable fuels will reduce dependence on foreign oil by more than 297 million barrels a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 160 million tons a year when fully phased in by 2022.
Also, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will  establish four categories of renewable fuels, some of which would be produced from new sources. To address lifecyle analysis, the EPA said they are soliciting peer reviewed, scientific feedback to ensure that the best science available is utilized prior to implementation.
“Producing clean, renewable energy in our country is a powerful rural development tool that creates jobs domestically while generating new tax revenues for local, state, and federal governments,” Vilsack said.
Obama directed Secretary Vilsack to expedite and increase production of and investment in biofuel development efforts by:
— Refinancing existing investments in renewable fuels to preserve jobs in ethanol and biodiesel plants, renewable electricity generation plants, and other supporting industries; and
— Making renewable energy financing opportunities from the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 available within 30 days. These opportunities include:
— Loan guarantees for the development, construction, and retrofitting of commercial scale biorefineries and grants to help pay for the development and construction costs of demonstration-scale biorefineries.
— Expedited funding to encourage biorefineries to replace the use of fossil fuels in plant operations by installing new biomass energy systems or producing new energy from renewable biomass.
— Expedited funding to biofuels producers to encourage production of next-generation biofuels from biomass and other non-corn feedstocks.
— Expansion of Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements Program, which has been renamed the Rural Energy for America Program, to include hydroelectric source technologies, energy audits, and higher loan guarantee limits.
— Guidance and support for collection, harvest, storage, and transportation assistance for eligible materials for use in biomass conversion facilities.
The USDA, Department of Energy and EPA are forming a Biofuels Interagency Working Group that will develop the nation’s first comprehensive biofuels market development program.
Vilsack said the increased collaboration between federal agencies “will accelerate the production of and access to sustainable homegrown energy options by coordinating policies that impact the supply, secure transport, and distribution of biofuels, as well as identifying new policy options to improve the environmental sustainability of biofuels feedstock production.”
The Biofuels Interagency Working Group will also work to develop policies to increase flexible fuel vehicle production and assist in retail marketing efforts while also taking into consideration land use, habitat conservation, crop management practices, water efficiency and water quality, and lifecycle assessments of greenhouse gas emissions.
National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson applauded the creation of a Biofuels Interagency Working Group.
He said the purpose of the working group is to continue to analyze contentious issues such as indirect land use effects while the administration moves forward with other components of the proposed rule implementing the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2).
“There is currently no scientific agreement or certainty to quantify domestically produced ethanol impacts on land use change,” Johnson said. “I commend the President’s plan to have the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency work together in a comprehensive manner to guide the continuation and growth of the biofuels industry.”
Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation said the president’s commitment to renewable fuels will economically help rural America by producing more green jobs, while allowing the U.S. to become less dependent on foreign oil.
“Farmers and ranchers are at the forefront of producing clean, green, renewable energy,” Stallman said. “We support a comprehensive energy policy that creates a more diverse energy supply, including renewable sources such as ethanol, biodiesel, biomass and wind.”