09/15/06 Organic wheat grant: FB open house

Washington Ag September 15, 2006 Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns this week announced USDA is awarding more than 4.5 million dollars in research grants to address organic agricultural issues and priorities. Among the recipients are Washington State University and the University of Idaho which are getting over 690-thousand dollars to develop wheat varieties for organic agricultural systems. The Washington State Farm Bureau held an open house yesterday at its new nine million dollar office building in Lacey. During the festivities Farm Bureau president Steve Appel spoke with us about what the new facility means to the organization. Appel: "It replaces a building that was built some 25 years ago down in Olympia. We just simply out grew that building, probably three years ago, to where we just didn't have enough space to keep all of our folks in one office. This gives us the ability to have all the employees of Farm Bureau under one roof. It gives us a great meeting facility for when we have other Farm Bureau members in town. So it is just going to make us a much better operation and hopefully will make a statement about ourselves and the future of the organization. " Farm Bureau currently occupies a third of the building and will rent out the rest. I'm Bob Hoff.