Support For Organic Teaching Farm & Farm Bill Hearings

Chuck and Louanna Eggert, WSU college alumni and founders of Pacific Natural Foods, have generously donated $5 million to Washington State University to expand the university’s organic farm from four acres to nearly thirty. WSU will now have the largest organic teaching farm on a university campus in the nation. Eggert talks about the need for organic training.

EGGERT: The critical thing in the industry is having trained people that are coming out of the university that can do the quality control jobs, and do the production jobs, and work as agronomists and herdsmen, and without that then you stifle your ability to grow and you stifle your ability to develop new thought and new applications.

Pacific Natural Foods is a global leader in natural food development, sustainable and organic farming and land stewardship that supports farmers and ranchers.

April 20th was the final day for the House Agriculture Committee’s field hearings. The hearings have been held around the country so that legislators could listen directly to producers in order to gather information that will help them in writing the 2012 Farm Bill. One of the main threads throughout the hearings has been witnesses stressing the importance that the Farm Bill provide opportunities for effective risk management for all of agriculture. This week the House Agriculture Committee is initiating another series of hearings on the Subcommittee level to gather information from national ag leaders and stakeholders. It is possible that a 2012 Farm Bill could be completed on time, and in a bipartisan manner - possible, but not probable.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.