Trade Mission

Governor Jay Inslee and a delegation of officials from a variety of business sectors have left for a 9-day trade mission to Korea and Japan. The trade mission will focus on a number of areas including agriculture and that includes potatoes. Chris Voight with the Washington State Potato Commission will not be attending this time but says the industry is well represented.

VOIGHT: Matt Harris and Ryan Holterhoff from our office plus our chairman, Mike Dodds are traveling over with the Governor. They'll be in Korea and Japan and we've got some great promotions lined up over there for potato and potato products.

Voight says they lost a lot of ground earlier in the year due to the port issue.

VOIGHT: We're looking forward to some fruitful results and trying to build back some of that business that we lost from the labor unrest that we had in the ports so we're looking forward to trying to get those markets back.

The 9-day trade mission includes the directors of the state agriculture and commerce departments, as well as 60 leaders from the business, education, economic development and local government communities. Japan is Washington's third largest export customer with $7.4 billion in sales, $1.6 billion of that in agricultural products. South Korea ranks sixth at $2.8 billion in trade, with $469 million in agriculture. In addition to potatoes both the blueberry and wine industries are traveling with the Governor in hopes of also expanding their market access.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.