Ports Still Tense & Specialty Crop Analysis

Ports Still Tense & Specialty Crop Analysis

Ports Still Tense & Specialty Crop Analysis. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

There was a collective sigh of relief this last week when news of the agreement between port workers was announced but that doesn't mean there is goodwill at the ports. Just the contrary. Tensions continue to run very high and could have serious long-term consequences. Longshore workers and International Container Terminal Services, Inc.'s Oregon officials constantly blame each other for the remarkably slow pace of loading and unloading ships in Portland. One thing is for sure, the ports need to be up and running efficiently for agriculture and other business in the northwest and all along the west coast to survive.

A snapshot of the nation's specialty crop growers is seen in a USDA report using 2012 Census of Agriculture data and according to analyst Lance Honig the category is very diverse and not always growing.

HONIG: Washington another key state increasing more than 68-thousand acres but you know not everybody goes up every year. Florida is another key state but we actually saw nearly an 8% decline in acres. But also if you look at that specialty crop definition you include the pulse crops and in pule crops we saw a big increase in Montana this year. The number of farms growing specialtyy crops was actually down about 1% from what we saw back in 2007.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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