Getting Together on the Same Page
Getting Together on the Same Page. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.
I often wonder if the people who are making the decisions for the masses even know what the score is in the game or even who is playing. Sometimes there is a disconnect between these people and many times the burden falls to us to help educate them. Bruce Grimm, Executive Director of the Washington Apple Commission says they recently hosted a number of lawmakers in an effort to help them understand industry challenges.
GRIM: One thing we need to be doing on the legislative side of things is trying to get legislators to have a better, clearer understanding of what the tree fruit industry means to the State of Washington, what it means to central Washington in general, to the communities that are north to south – Tri-Cities north to the Canadian border, how important it is and what the industry is all about.
They brought legislators into the
GRIM: We had in-orchard visits scheduled with them that afternoon. Pear harvest, a pear packing facility, talked about organics, talked about marketing, had a dinner session with them that evening where there was a lot of give and take and a question and answer type session.
Grim sees this as a big plus for both the industry and the legislators.
GRIM: We really had a great opportunity to explain and teach them more about and educate them more about our industry and what kinds of issues and problems we have and I think that will pay dividends in the future by those folks who are making the laws will after having been here and see what goes on, certainly having a clearer understanding of what we’re all about.
That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
