State Ag Department Meeting
State Ag Department Meeting. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture.
July 21st through the 24th the Washington State Department of Agriculture will play host to the Western Association of State Departments of Agriculture in Leavenworth, Washington. The WASDA is made up of the 13 western states and is a chance for the ag directors in these states to discuss key policy issues affecting the region and nation. Rianne Perry is the coordinator of the meeting.
PERRY: We really tried to put together a good agenda to allow for people to talk about policy issues, but also to get people out to see Washington's agriculture. Most of these folks are coming from out of state, and most of them are major decision makers, and this is a great opportunity for us to show them some of our ag - some of the issues that they are facing, especially since we're going to be in the Wenatchee area we can show them a lot of the tree fruit sector and how some of these policy decisions are affecting them.
Perry talks about some of the issues the ag directors will be discussing.
PERRY: The Food Safety Modernization Act is a big one. That's definitely going to be on the agenda. We're having some folks from FDA come out to specifically talk about that implementation. The ag labor issue: we have Mike Gempler coming from the Growers League. Transportation issues, rail especially, we have somebody coming from Burlington Northern. And then on the last of the conference the focus is more on climate change and really how ag can adapt.
That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
