Organic Week & Ag Tourism Liability

Organic Week & Ag Tourism Liability plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Washington State will be celebrating Organic Week this next week. Governor Inslee has declared WOW, Washington Organic Week to be a a weeklong celebration of organic agriculture. In terms of annual sales of organic products for crops and livestock, Washington ranks second in the U.S. with sales of $284 million in 2011. A lot of farmers are finding another revenue stream in their farm. Tourism. A lot of people are interested in finding out first hand what farming is all about. But Rusty Rumley of the University of Arkansas's National Agricultural Law Center explains the level, and examples, of agrotourism landowner liability to keep customers safe. RUMLEY: Their basic duty is their suppose to make the premises reasonable safe. Bringing somebody out to a farming operation, there's a lot more risk involved. Bees for example could be one risk. And it is something a farmer could go out there and check for bees but there's no guarantee that a farmer is going to be able to take care of every single bee, wasp , hornet on the property so there is no real way to go out there and make the premises perfectly safe. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Contrary to a Yahoo article here while back, pursuing an education and career in agriculture is a wise choice for college bound students. According to a new report, starting salaries for recently graduated college ag students are five percent more than they were for those who graduated in 2012, and the demand for qualified grads just continues to rise. The USDA has reported that through 2015 there will more jobs available in the renewable natural resources, and agricultural and food industries than there will be qualified graduates to fill them. Whether it's good news or bad news, agriculture is in the news constantly. This has resulted in a peeked interest in ag careers. Most within the agricultural community would agree that it is a rapidly growing field, branching and spreading out into areas far beyond the traditional "cows and plows"; there's agribusiness management, agricultural and natural resources communications, agriscience, food packaging, food science, horticulture, and resource development - just to mention a few. The list of rewarding and challenging careers in agriculture is quite extensive and impressive. Almost makes me wish I was college bound again. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.