12/15/06 Farmer-Senator rx to gov`s ag plan

Washington Ag December 15, 2006 The top ranking Republican on the Senate's Agriculture and Rural Economic Development Committee is expressing some disappointment in Governor Gregoire's Working Lands Initiative for Agriculture she announced this week. The governor proposed an 81 million dollar package for the next biennium for preserving farmland and forests, energy independence, water needs and promoting Washington products. What was disappointing to Senator Mark Shoesler were non-budgetary items Gregoire did not include in her plan. Schoesler: "The governor had pledged during the campaign to work on fixes to the problems that generated Initiative 933. Those were clearly lacking as well as things like the ag minimum wage that certainly makes us less competitive." If the governor's proposed office of Working Farms and Forests, which is supposed to provide more options for landowners who want to remain in farming is her answer to 933, Schoesler has his doubts. Schoesler: "I find that hard to believe because the nuisance problems that many producers have around the state is not going to go away because we have a lands preservations office. Nor will problems like the Critical Areas Ordinance like King county passed solve the problem either." Schoesler believes profits are the bottom line in preserving farmland not another bureaucracy. I'm Bob Hoff.