11/6/07 Wine Grant

Wine Grant. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers was recently notified that they are the recipient of a grant. Vicky Scharlau, Executive Director of the Association explains. SCHARLAU: We were just notified and we received our contract from the Washington State Department of Agriculture that they received a USDA specialty crop grant and among the many grants that they were awarded, we received one of the grant projects. Scharlau says the grant will be used for education of an existing program for growers. SCHARLAU: We have received funding to go have growers walk through the Vinewise self assessment program so they can follow through the checklist to determine how sustainable they and their business are as compared to their peers but also then to set a benchmark so we can establish our sustainability for wine grape growers in the state of Washington. The Vinewise program is an online guide and resource for growers that is being used all across the U.S. According to Scharlau they will be looking for someone to work with the growers. SCHARLAU: The total grant is $30-thousand dollars so what it will allow us to do is to hire someone that can work on-on-on and in small groups with wine grape growers throughout the state of Washington with the idea that were going to try and get over half of our wine grape growers to actually walk through this self assessment. They hope to then do an action plan to help drive sustainability. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.