Dealing with Ag Theft and Fraud

Dealing with Ag Theft and Fraud. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

One thing every farmer wants to make sure they get for all their hard work...paid! Bob Radke, Investigation Supervisor for the WSDA Investigations Program works with his team to make sure you get paid.

RADKE: It’s one of these things when you have a commodity such as hay and cattle that are really kind of high priced things - then what happens is you get folks that are unlicensed and they want part of the action so they come up out of the woodwork and it’s our job to protect the producers of the State of Washington. So we are out there trying to locate these guys and getting them legal so that they don’t take advantage of the producers.

And as Radke point out, they cover a lot more than hay and cattle.

RADKE: We actually cover just about every agricultural commodity in the State of Washington that’s produced in the state and so it goes from apples to cattle. It’s a huge gamut. All the tree fruit industries, we protect the growers there. We work with the packers and shippers to make sure that everything runs smoothly, everybody gets paid.

He says a lot of what they do is education to just make sure people know they need permits and so forth but has a very important tip for producers.

RADKE: If you’re going to deal with somebody that you don’t know or they haven’t got a history, if they haven’t got their ag plates on their trucks or whatever give us a call and ask us about whether they’re licensed and bonded. A two minute call can save you thousands of dollars.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.