Educating Legislators Pt 1
I’m Bob Larson. Among the worries Washington ag producers have to deal with currently is a legislature that doesn’t seem to know or care about the impact of laws and regulations on today’s farmer.Michelle Hennings, Executive Director at the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, says it’s possible we’ll have a lot of new legislators in the next session so we need to start educating lawmakers …
HENNINGS … “Yes, it’s so vital that during the interim that we educate all of the legislature. It’s been to where we don’t have a lot of support for agriculture it seems. We’re targeted constantly, recently, for different issues.”
Hennings says it’s important for the farmers AND for the different markets we ship our grain to …
HENNINGS … “We need to get into their offices and we need to be able to educate them. We feed the world. We export 90% of our wheat to other countries that rely on our commodities to eat. Then, we also need to educate those that don’t understand, you know, where their food comes from.”
Hennings says we have to show them how much farmers care …
HENNINGS … “It’s so vital that we educate them. You know, farmers are good stewards of the land and they want to do what’s best because they cherish that land from generation to generation and it’s difficult to get across to those who don’t quite understand farming.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on why it’s more important than ever that our legislators become educated on how their food is produced.