Washington lawmakers get reminder of potato industry importance
Farm and Ranch February 12, 2010 The Washington State Potato Commission held its annual Potato Day in the state’s Capitol this week. Voigt: “It is a wonderful opportunity to remind the legislature how big our potato industry is and it is also a chance for them to taste our final product. We served over 16-hundred baked potatoes to those folks who were passing through the Capitol.” Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Potato Commission who says potato growers also worked some issues with legislators. Voigt: “We met individually with close to 30 legislators among us and we were talking about key issues like we can‘t afford any new taxes or fees on our industry and also to preserve agricultural research. There is an effort to possibly to eliminate over 20 million dollars in funding at WSU for agricultural research. And that is really the only thing that is keeping up competitive today. If we did not have that we would lose a lot of business to Canada or even China.” Lawmakers have to find a way to eliminate a 2.6 billion dollar budget deficit in the current biennium. Voigt: “It is just not pleasant. There are going to be some really tough decisions that are going to have to be made in Olympia whether you increase taxes or whether you find opportunities to make more cuts. So it is not pretty but we hope we can work with the legislature and help them make the right decisions.” The legislature is in day 33 of its 60 day regular session. That’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff on the Northwest Ag Information Network. ? ? ?
