Nearly a year into the Biden Administration, efforts focusing on climate, clean energy and carbon markets continue to ramp up. The Washington Association of Wheat Growers works through the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG), the national wheat industry organization, to monitor these efforts and to provide feedback. Jacob Westlin,…
Benjamin Franklin famously stated, “Nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes.” The last two years could be summed up in many ways, but certainty is not one. Paycheck Protection Program loans, Employee Retention Credits and Farm Service Agency payments popped up seemingly overnight, sending producers and practitioners…
Big Iron Repair owner Scott Carroll has shifted gears in his career nearly as many times as he’s rebuilt heavy equipment transmissions and engines. His journey began in the late 1970s on his father-in-law’s Eastern Washington farm. Carroll was born and raised in Ephrata, Wash. After high school, he found…
Well, as this is my last president’s column, I want to pause for a minute and thank a number of people and reflect on the past two years. When I became the current Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) president at our convention in late 2019, COVID-19 was a foreign…
In an industry where keeping the family farm in the family is often paramount, Jan Abrams’ father, George M. Miller, gave her a gift. “My father made it clear that the farm is a business. He said, ‘I don’t want you, out of some sense of sentimentality, to hang onto…
More than 60 legislators, legislative staff and industry stakeholders descended on Walla Walla in late September to take part in a two-day food and farm tour that highlighted issues facing agriculture and celebrated the region’s many farms. Stops on the tour included a wheat farm, a grain elevator, a vineyard,…
What is a family farm? Definitions vary, depending on the person answering, but one thing is for sure—it shouldn’t be based on the farm name. “I think most people don’t realize that every business they interact with on a daily basis is in a legal entity of some kind,” said…
In Eastern Washington, cover crops hold promise, but growers are still weeding out some issues. Ryan Poe, a grower from Grant County and president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, ran into one of those issues in 2019 and 2020 when he planted a cover crop at the same…
The song, “On the Road Again,” by Willie Nelson would be very appropriate for my summer travels engaging with producers, lenders and agribusinesses. The spectrum of audiences and events ranged from multiday young farmer and rancher conferences to lending schools, online events and the occasional strategic planning venue where I…
When you meet Stacey Rasmussen, a few things quickly become clear. She is a true Type-A personality, she likes to keep busy, and she is quite adept at handling many tasks simultaneously. One of her mottoes is “why have one job when you can have four?” Raised on the family…
