Wheat Grower fly-in to D.C. to focus on research
Farm and Ranch A group of wheat growers will be going to Washington D.C. in early February with just one purpose in mind. Darren Padget of Oregon, who chairs the National Association of Wheat Growers Research and Technology Committee explains. Padget: “There is going to be a fly-in February 8th and 9th. There‘s about 20 growers that are going to be coming in. We are going to lobby hard for research dollars. As we know everything is on the chopping block right now. This will be just for that purpose so this is pretty exciting.” Padget says growers are going to have to be there fighting for every dollar given the federal budget situation. And then there are a lot of new faces in this Congress too. Padget: “Well this has been one of the biggest switches in leadership we have seen in some time. The House of Representatives especially. It is very important to get the new people on board with our talking points and our issues. They will have been seated and just getting the ball rolling so the timing could be excellent to be there when they are just getting started and get our point of view across right off the bat.” Padget was speaking at the recent NAWG winter meeting in Washington D.C. At the meeting the organization’s board adopted a resolution on wheat breeding. That resolution reads, “We urge all public universities with wheat breeding programs to adopt the concept behind the Wheat Workers’ Material Transfer Agreement, MTA, being developed by the hard winter wheat region for exchanges of germplasm between public breeding programs.” I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net. ? ? ? ? ? ?
