A look back at the past year

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Just the other day, someone asked me if there was anything that surprised me in my year of being WAWG (Washington Association of Wheat Growers) president. I answered that I was a farmer, and that I’m used to things sometimes going sideways on the farm operation, and I’m used to having to make adjustments. It’s…

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Another harvest, another trip around the sun

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Whew! Another year around the sun that we have harvested and seeded! Now it’s time to wind down and watch the wheat grow. As my late dad would say, “It’s time to round up all the scrap iron and put it in one pile,” which meant getting all the farm equipment back to the shop.…

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Honor tradition by making new ones

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Traditions. We all have them. From Christmas traditions, to wearing the winning game socks (religiously) in a high school Friday night football game, to flipping aebleskivers every Sunday morning for the family. People love their traditions, and it’s no surprise that farmers have their own. When I was farming with my dad, when my mom…

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The joy of being a farmer’s wife

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For the July issue of Wheat Life, I’m handing the President’s Perspective reins over to my wife, Teri, to talk about being a farmer’s wife. —Howard McDonald There is an old saying that goes, ”happy wife, happy life,” but in the case of the farmer’s wife, it is equally important if your farmer is happy…

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Talking about mental health awareness

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Way back in the day of my father and generations before him, farmers didn’t talk about mental health because most folks were too proud or embarrassed to talk about their struggles. It was viewed as weak. But farmers have the enormously stressful job of “feeding the world,” which comes with the daily gamble of weather,…

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Why don’t you just…

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Myself and the rest of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers leaders have been doing a lot of press lately. One of the questions we get asked over and over is why we don’t increase the price we sell our grain for to deal with the rising cost of inputs, such as fuel and fertilizer,…

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Planting potential in the midst of concerns

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According to the calendar, spring has sprung, but as I write this, we are still freezing up here in Douglas County, so our winter wheat hasn’t woken up yet. Even though the crop is still dormant, I’m needing to make decisions that will greatly affect the upcoming growing season. This year is already starting off…

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Why you should contribute to the PAC

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How hard would it be to grow your wheat without applying fertilizer? You’d get a crop, but it probably wouldn’t be a great one, and with the rising cost of inputs, you’d be lucky to break even. Continue trying to raise a crop year after year without using fertilizer, and pretty quickly, you’ll find yourself…

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Reaching out to the younger generation

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There’s a lot of issues on WAWG’s (the Washington Association of Wheat Growers) agenda right now that need immediate attention—preserving the lower Snake River dams, the disastrous mandatory buffer bill at the state level, keeping conservation efforts voluntary. Those issues are important, obviously, but there’s another issue that I can’t stop thinking about. It’s not…

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Some big shoes to fill at Lind

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Every new year brings changes and challenges, and this year is shaping up to be no different. In December, we learned that Bill Schillinger, director of Washington State University’s (WSU) Lind Dryland Research Station, will be retiring this month. Bill has spent nearly three decades at the station, dedicating his studies and research helping farmers…

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