Advocacy for Washington wheat growers doesn’t happen just at the state level. The Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) also spends time in Washington, D.C., visiting with the state’s congressional delegation and working with the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) on concerns at the national level. Wheat growers’ first…
Last month, wheat representatives visited state legislators and agencies to talk about the industry’s priorities during the Washington Association of Wheat Growers’ (WAWG) annual Olympia Days trip. Cookies were involved. “Growers spent two impactful days in Olympia, advocating for critical issues like tax exemptions and the Climate Commitment Act fuel…
On Jan. 13, 2025, the Washington State Legislature will be back in session. There will be a lot of new faces, including a new governor (Bob Ferguson), commissioner of public lands (Dave Upthegrove), and a couple dozen new legislators. The Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) will need to do…
A big part of the annual Tri-State Grain Growers Convention is educational breakout sessions that aim to educate and inform growers. At this year’s event, one super-sized session focused on Marine Highway 84, or M-84, and included a panel of stakeholders representing the entire Columbia-Snake River System, from Astoria, Ore.,…
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…
