Potato Conference Underway & Port Update

Potato Conference Underway & Port Update

Potato Conference Underway & Port Update. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

The 2015 Washington-Oregon Potato Conference got underway yesterday in Kennewick, WA and features a number of workshops and industry updates and a large expo filled with vendors. The conference runs through tomorrow at the convention center.

Yesterday, 85 agriculture and forest products exporters including potatoes, hay, wheat, french fries, lumber and more - met in Portland at the Agriculture Transportation Coalition Transportation Ag Shipper Workshop. Lacy Gray has more.

GRAY: The purpose of the meeting was to review the current port situation and try to figure out how to get policymakers to intervene more forcefully to get the ILWU and PMA to resolve the remaining issues as well as how USDA and service providers, both truck and rail, can help mitigate the catastrophic impacts. An update from yesterday morning showed that the ILWU Local 8 informed the group that they would not work yesterday. ILWU local 8 has not sent any labor to the terminal. Even as progress is being made in the negotiations between the longshoremen and West Coast terminal operators, injury to exporters is mounting, and political and press scrutiny is building.

Thanks Lacy. The longer term outlook shows import managers of the big consumer goods companies are already abandoning the US West Coast. Only one distribution center has been built in Southern California in the past 18 months, while dozens have been or are being built in the US South East.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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