Needs in Olympia for Agriculture
From the Western Ag Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. With an election around the corner and the potential for new voices in Olympia next year, the ag industry is pleading for help.
Save Family Farming Executive Director, Ben Tindall says they’ve been harping on this for months that we are losing two farms per day in Washington, and those aren’t just numbers …
TINDALL … “A lot of these are not just, you know, mom and pop farms, you know, where one or two people are working. These are whole operations that families are dependent on.”
So, when lawmakers get back to Olympia in January, Tindall says you can bet agriculture will come knocking …
TINDALL … “And this is where, from Save Family Farming’s perspective, we need to see solutions. That really has been kind of the mantra that we have been shouting for the last, maybe, six months, really since the legislature left last March or so, that we really didn’t see the results and the actions, the pro-action that we needed in agriculture.”
Tindall says what we don’t need is a repeat of last year …
TINDALL … “There was a whole lot of talk, a whole lot of feel-good comments and just felt in many ways like a lot of pandering. But what we need to see is action. We need to see actual, practical solutions when it comes to labor, when it comes to water, when it comes to holding agencies accountable that are going rogue and misusing their authority.”
Again, that’s Ben Tindall, Executive Director at Save Family Farming.
