Checking in with the Washington State Director

Checking in with the Washington State Director. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. While attending the Washington Cattlemen's Association meeting this last week I ran into Washington Department of Ag Director Dan Newhouse and had a chance to find out how things are going. NEWHOUSE: Well we're just happy to be here with the cattlemen this year. It looks like a good meeting. We're pretty big partners with this industry. We do a lot of things with the cattle industry so it's important for us to be here so just talking to folks and listening to see what they're thinking for the upcoming year and trying to talk a little bit about what's coming up in the legislative session as well We are just getting into a lame duck session in Congress and Newhouse says it's the same on the state level. NEWHOUSE: Well, kind of similar. We've got a pretty big budget deficit that legislature's going to have to tackle the first day, maybe even before the regular session. There's rumor, potential of doing something before that so we'll see. It's going to be a big job. A lot of tough decisions coming up and it's going to impact every state agency, agriculture included so we're going to be having a lot of conversations with our stake holders, with agriculture industry and make sure what we see as important we can do our best to continue providing. Newhouse recently accompanied Washington Governor Christine Gregoire on a trade mission. NEWHOUSE: In September we took a trip to China and Viet Nam, two of our trading partners and it was not just an agricultural trade mission but I got to tell you it went really, really well. Of course China, we already send a lot of products to China, they're a big trading partner. Viet Nam we could probably characterize as a more developing trading partner. We don't send a lot of stuff their yet but there's a lot of interest in some of our products. He says that Viet Nam is going to be an up and coming market. NEWHOUSE: We had some great meetings with people and I think we're going to see some great results from those conversations we had. In fact the very first container load of potatoes is scheduled to arrive in Viet Nam in December so we're looking forward to big year in cherries next summer. Just a lot of good things I think are going to start happening in that part of the world for us. I can't tell you the exact number but about 60 to 70% right in there of the population was born after the Viet Nam war, or they call it the American war so it's a very young population. No real memory of that conflict and with that younger population they're all looking for products that everyone else in the world has. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.