09/26/07 Helping Agriculture

Helping Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. If a farmer doesn't have a market for their product it's pretty obvious they won't be in farming very long. That's where the Northwest Agriculture Business Center comes into play. BAUERMEISTER: We're a 5 county non-profit organization that was created to assist farmers in having a positive impact on their bottom line. In other words, making a profit. That's David Bauermeister, President of the Northwest Agriculture Business Center. The group works in the extreme northwest part of Washington State. BAUERMEISTER: It was a grass roots effort in the 5 counties, I think the initial effort was in Whatcom county but several different groups combined their efforts to have a response to development pressure that exists in this area from the Puget Sound population center and the key to preserving farmland is to make sure the farms are making money in the face of higher land values. The group does that by working with farmers to help develop additional farm income. In cooperation with WSU Extension, the Center is hosting a development course for production-ready farmers. BAUERMEISTER: It's an intensive course actually that will take  our goal is to get 36 producers to sign up and will actually go through from step A to Z if they have a product idea, how do we make a sale for them  for that product. How do they produce the product, what are the regulations, going through step by step how to get that product to market and actually not just be a seminar situation but it's working through the process? We'll be calling, making visits on farm so that we through to the stage where they have an opportunity to sell the product. The program is free to Ag businesses in the five counties of Island, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom but you must complete an application request. Bauermeister says the program is more like a mentoring program. BAUERMEISTER: We have people from industry coming in to give presentations and then we have consultants available to actually give them the technical advice that they need. And we have three tracks; nursery and greenhouse is one, livestock production for meat products is the second and then the third is food products  other food products. For more information on the program visit their website at www.agbizcenter.org. BAUERMEISTER: Our deadlines still a couple of weeks away but we still need more people to sign up. We want to be sure we have people who are ready to do a product so that's our goal is to have those farmers and producers come in that actually have an idea ready to implement. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.