Marci Green, past president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers and a Spokane County producer, joined more than 100 industry stakeholders at a recent House Agriculture Committee Listening Session on the 2018 Farm Bill. The listening session was in Carnation, Wash., and was hosted by Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.). During her two minutes, Green talked about the importance of crop ... Read More »

From NASS There were 7 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington, up from 6.8 days the previous week. Statewide temperatures were mostly normal. In Snohomish County, berries were running late, but crops were looking great. Cool weather crops were flourishing. Cucurbits started to take off, but tomatoes and peppers struggled. In central Washington, the weather was hot and dry. Canola ... Read More »

From the American Farm Bureau Federation Going back almost 100 years, the history of the farm bill largely tracks the history of food production in the United States as the legislation evolves to meet the needs of its modern-day constituents – farmers and consumers. Agriculture’s role in providing food security, and in turn national security, to the United States is ... Read More »

From Progressive Farmer Larger farmers would leave the crop insurance program if Congress went along with proposals to cap crop insurance premium subsidies or means test farmers, industry leaders told members of the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday. Read the rest of the article here. Read More »

From NASS There were 6.8 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington, up from 6.3 days the previous week. Statewide temperatures were above normal. In western Washington, crops looked great with the recent summer weather. With all the ground moisture, grass and recently planted crops were doing well. Additionally, some hay was baled. In Klickitat County, the weather was much warmer, and there was ... Read More »

Michelle Hennings, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers; Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission; and Rob Rich, vice president of marine services at the Shaver Transportation Company, recently appeared on The Business of Agriculture podcast, hosted by Damian Mason, to talk about the importance of the Columbia-Snake River System. Mason and his guests discuss how ... Read More »

By Michelle Hennings Executive Director, Washington Association of Wheat Growers Repeat after me, “FOOD SECURITY IS SAFE, RELIABLE FOOD; AND SAFE, RELIABLE FOOD IS FOOD SECURITY!” With everything going on in the world today, this has been on my and many other farmers’ minds lately. Everything we do and accomplish is for this, but the challenge is how do you ... Read More »

By Xianming Chen The stripe rust season is over for winter wheat and almost over for spring wheat and barley in the eastern Pacific Northwest (PNW). We have completed stripe rust data collections in the germplasm nurseries of both winter and spring crops in all locations. In the experimental fields, we have not seen very odd reactions for commercially grown varieties ... Read More »

From the Capital Press Agricultural industry representatives have roundly criticized a pair of White House draft reports on breaching four lower Snake River dams, saying the documents fail to consider the greater impact on the environment and the economy. Read the rest of the article here. Read More »

The Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) today expressed disappointment with the draft “Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead” report released by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which included recommendations to breach one or more of the lower Snake River dams (LSRD).  “Unfortunately, the report released today fails to consider the impacts breaching the lower Snake ... Read More »