06/18/07 FSA County Committee nominations start

Washington Ag June 18, 2007 Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has announced farmer and rancher candidate nominations have begun for local Farm Service Agency county committees. The nomination period runs through August 1st. Elections will take place this fall. To be eligible to serve on an FSA county committee, a person must participate or cooperate in a program administered by FSA, be eligible to vote in a county committee election and reside in the local administrative area in which the person is a candidate. FSA county committee members make decisions on such things as disaster and conservation programs, emergency programs, and commodity price support loan programs. Washington's cherry harvest got underway last week in the Tri-Cities area and is expected to go into full swing this week as picking of Bing cherries starts around Yakima and Wenatchee. Joe Ross of the Washington Agricultural Statistics Service says the State's sweet cherry crop is expected to be down about nine percent from last year. Ross: "Washington's cherry crop experienced a relatively cool spring with some damaging frost in low lying areas of the Yakima Valley, Tri-Cities and Columbia Basin. Overall, fruit quality is expected to be very good." The Ag Statistics Service also reports that as of June 1st potatoes stored in Washington were estimated at seven-million hundredweight, 2.4 million less than in storage a year ago. I'm Bob Hoff.