Your Hometown News Source
Your Hometown News Source
Sorted by date Results 1 - 12 of 12
Pam Lewison published an opinion in The Seattle Times on April 15, 2024 sounding the alarm of diminishing farms and food producing land. By Pam Lewison Special to The Seattle Times Fourteen farms a week vanished from Washington state every week during the last five years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released data from the U.S. Census of Agriculture and the numbers are shocking. Between 2017 and 2022, our state lost 3,717 farms and ranches. It also lost more than 102,000 food-prod...
OLYMPIA–The function and administration of the federal H-2A farmworker visa program is one of the most utilized yet least understood employment programs in Washington state. The H-2A program provides visas to foreign-born workers to legally find temporary farm work in the United States for up to 10 months a year. Washington state is among the top five users of the program. House Bill 2226, and its companion Senate Bill 5996 – concerning collecting data on the H-2A worker program and from cer...
A great many farmers and ranchers identify with Paul Harvey’s iconic poem, “So God Made a Farmer,” but this time of year, I prefer the editorial from Francis B. Church, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” Whether you read Paul Harvey’s poignant poem or Francis Church’s editorial to set the tone for your holiday season, both point to the need for belief and hope. Harvey wrote, “And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker’ – so God made a Farmer....
In our currently partisan legislative landscape, it is momentous to see a bipartisan bill that takes into consideration the concerns of everyone at the table. The newest solution to salmon recovery and riparian habitat-HB 1720-is a mixture of ideas from both sides of the aisle and superior to the “buffer bills” from the last legislative session and the beginning of the current session. The bill sets out a plan for “fully voluntary, regionally focused” riparian habitat plans, acknowl...
Outdoor work – agricultural, construction, natural resource, or otherwise – is rarely done by people with dangerous health conditions, people older than 65 or younger than 18. Yet, the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries is setting the wildfire smoke safety guidelines based on potential risks to people who have health problems, are older than 65 or younger than 18, and who work primarily outdoors or with high exposure to ambient outdoor air during our annual fire seasons. The pro...
The cost of meat, poultry, fish, and eggs has increased 5.9 percent since 2020 and more than 15 percent since 2019. A lawsuit recently filed by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office would have us all believe that is because of a “conspiracy to inflate and manipulate prices” in violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act and Washington antitrust laws. Despite how things might appear, there is no conspiracy. Food prices have increased substantially because of a series of misfo...
There’s an old adage, “You will need a doctor and a lawyer at least once in your life, but you will need a farmer every day.” Some Washington state lawmakers have forgotten that lesson. In this year’s regular session, legislators adopted an illegal capital gains income tax. Although supporters claimed it would only hit the super-rich, the definition would also impact famers. Recognizing this was a political problem, legislators created talking points to justify taxing farm families. The message...
There’s an old adage, “You will need a doctor and a lawyer at least once in your life, but you will need a farmer every day.” Some Washington state lawmakers have forgotten that lesson. In the just-completed session, legislators adopted an illegal capital gains income tax. Although supporters claimed it would only hit the super-rich, the definition would also impact famers. Recognizing this was a political problem, legislators created talking points to justify taxing farm families. The messa...
Despite the fact that Washington’s wolf population has grown rapidly in recent years and are near a recovered-population level, state agencies are considering increased restrictions on ranchers. This decision would put the success of wolf recovery at odds with ranchers – a bad precedent for the long-term success of recovery efforts. During a recent meeting of the Wolf Advisory Group (WAG), the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced a potential change in grazing per...
OLYMPIA–When lawsuits are filed on behalf of agricultural workers, often, the first question should be: how will this lawsuit affect all workers and are all workers on board with those potential consequences? Thursday the Washington State Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 opinion removing the overtime pay exemption for dairy employees in Washington state and opened the door for the consideration of retroactive payment of overtime for the last three years. The results could be that dairies face h...
Food prices have gone up in recent months, but farmers are not getting paid more. While farmers and ranchers are in the business of producing food for consumers, it is a long way from the farm gate to a dinner plate and the in-between is where costs start to pile into the cost equation. So, before anyone who read the recent story outlining the rise in food costs seen in Seattle equates that to farmers and ranchers making a profit, let’s take a look at farm prices for some of those original c...
No ag producer likes to see their work go to waste. Whether it is a crop, milk, or livestock, no one involved in agriculture wants their products to go anywhere other than to consumers. That is what makes the COVID-19 crisis particularly difficult for agriculture–food continues to be produced but, in many cases, it is not reaching its intended destination. In April the president of Tyson meats warned of a nationwide meat shortage. Milk producers are working to find the middle ground between k...
