One of the authors of the 2014 and 2018 farm bills will be on hand at the 2024 Tri-State Grain Growers Convention to give his perspective on ag policy in the coming year. Bart Fischer may still be heavily involved in the operation of his family’s wheat farm in Oklahoma,…
In August, the Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG), in partnership with the Washington State Potato Commission, The McGregor Company, and Northwest RiverPartners, brought more than a dozen U.S. congressional staffers from Washington, D.C., to Lewiston, Idaho, to tour Lower Granite Dam and learn why the Columbia-Snake River System is…
New Orleans might be the Big Easy, but there was nothing relaxed about this stretch of the Mississippi River. Where transportation and recreation shared the river in La Crosse, the lower river (below St. Louis, Mo.) was almost entirely dedicated to industry, with little to no recreation, especially around New…
Driving south from Memphis, the group arrived at Ergon Marine & Industrial Supply in Vicksburg, Miss., located on a big bend of the river, where Port Captain Lee Hogue talked about some of the issues users on the lower Mississippi River face, such as channel maintenance and strong currents and…
The group, now joined by Upper Mississippi Waterway Association leaders, Gary Williams, executive director, and Jeremy Putnam, president, arrived in Memphis. While this was mostly a travel day, the group was able to fit in a last minute tour of one of American Cruise Line’s (ACL) vessels that was docked…
After arriving in Minneapolis the night before, the Columbia-Snake River System group traveled to La Crosse, Wis., to attend a meeting of the Upper Mississippi Waterway Association (UMWA). At the UMWA meeting, the Pacific Northwest group spoke about the issues on the Columbia and Snake rivers, specifically the efforts to…
At the end of June, a group of Columbia-Snake River System stakeholders returned from a tour down the Mississippi River impressed with the need for collaboration among all U.S. river systems and a reminder of how much of the nation’s commerce relies on these river highways. “While there are many…
Last month, Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) Past President Andy Juris joined a roomful of agricultural stakeholders to examine how the regulatory burden affects Washington state farms. Juris participated on a panel at the 2024 Washington State Agricultural Viability Conference in Kennewick, Wash. The Washington State Department of Agriculture…
If you’ve followed the controversy over the Columbia-Snake River System, you might have wondered who was representing the people and businesses that are dependent on the waterways for their livelihoods. That would be the Inland Ports and Navigation Group (IPNG). IPNG is a subgroup of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association…
One of the most important highways in the Pacific Northwest isn’t paved, but that doesn’t stop billions of dollars of goods and services from flowing up and down its length. Marine Highway 84, or M-84, is comprised of portions of the Columbia, Snake, and Willamette rivers and stretches from Lewiston,…
