Ag's Impact on Economy
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. When it comes to agriculture’s impact on Washington’s economy, food production doesn’t get nearly the recognition it deserves.
The Washington Policy Center’s Director of Agriculture, Pam Lewison says the food supply chain in our state gets overlooked and is underappreciated …
LEWISON … “That’s the other part of this whole thing that I think is really interesting, is that we punch well above our weight when you look at how many people are employed in agriculture in Washington versus what our output is. There’s a huge disparity between those two.”
When you look at them, Lewison says the numbers are
impressive …
LEWISON … “You figure there’s, at peak, there’s maybe 200,000 people employed in food production in the state. But what we return on investment is in the billions. I think the last report was $13 billion poured into the economy by just 200,000 people.”
Lewison says the state gets a lot of bang for our buck …
LEWISON … “So, we have this huge disparity between the number of people who work in ag and the amount of money that they pour into the economy. So much so that ag, right now, ranks second in economic production for the state of Washington.”
Lewison says we all have to eat, we’re all part of the food production cycle, so we should all appreciate that more than we do.
