Saturday, February 11, 2012
Click here for RSS feedThe potato commissions of Idaho, Washington and Oregon have joined to hire a regional director of potato research. Andy Jensen assumed the position Feb. 1. According to a news release from the three commissions, Jensen will coordinate the planning and receipt of all research proposals, and m ...
Friday, February 10, 2012 4:37 PM
Sentiment for reform of the H-2A guestworker program is building in Congress, lobbyists for the U.S. apple industry say. Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement agree the H-2A program is flawed and they didn't a year ago, Nancy Foster ...
Friday, February 10, 2012 3:56 PM
LONGVIEW, Wash. -- Representatives of the EGT grain terminal and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have signed a collective bargaining agreement, marking an end to a months-long dispute. The agreement, signed Feb. 10, addresses landside and shipside operations at EGT's new $200 milli ...
Friday, February 10, 2012 1:55 PM
A farmworker advocacy group wants to end the federal H-2A guestworker program for sheepherders, a move that threatens the U.S. sheep industry, a representative of the Western Range Association says. Washington, D.C.-based Farmworker Justice has targeted the sheep industry's H-2A exemption, which ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:00 AM
OLYMPIA -- Even though buffers have been removed from legislation on pesticide spraying, Washington farmers still take issue with the notification requirement in House Bill 2413. Between 150 and 200 members of the Washington State Farm Bureau came to the state Capitol on Feb. 8 to talk with legi ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:00 AM
MOXEE, Wash. -- Members of the Martinez family have raised sheep in Central Washington for about 75 years and sometimes wonder how long they will be able to continue. Like sheep ranchers across the West, they face many challenges. Declining grazing leases, hiring sheepherders through cumbersome H-2 ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:00 AM
LONGVIEW, Wash. -- The first shipload of grain from the new EGT grain terminal will be on its way to South Korea by this weekend. EGT officials and members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union stood at the Columbia River waterfront to watch the ship, the Hong Kong-registered Full So ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:00 AM
SPOKANE -- Economist John Mitchell says the farm sector is in good shape for the coming year, as the nation continues to climb out of the recession. Agriculture has a solid base at a time when debt is going down, Mitchell said. If farmers aren't taking on debt and getting highly leveraged, they w ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:00 AM
WENATCHEE, Wash. -- The Southern Hemisphere apple harvest is just getting started and while it looks like a large crop, fruit size is small, a factor that should bode well for U.S. apple producers. Small apples don't sell well in the U.S., and Washington has enough small fruit from its 2011 crop ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:00 AM
KENNEWICK, Wash. -- The Washington wine industry has worked hard to establish a reputation for quality. It needs to continue to build that reputation to reach the next level, a noted wine economist says. "To communicate the image, that's the way to winning the wine wars," Michael Veseth, Unive ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 12:44 PM
KENNEWICK, Wash. -- Winter freezes and lack of summer heat took a toll on Washington wine grapes the last two seasons and it likely will be another year before grape volume returns to normal. That's because the buds for a given crop start growing the year before, Wade Wolfe, winemaker for Thur ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 12:34 PM
KALAMA, Wash. (AP) -- Workers at the Bennu Glass plant have chiseled away tons hardened glass from the crippled melter of the wine bottle plant here, and a new furnace and 100 employees should be ready to restart the shuttered plant in July, company officials say. "After being in a h ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:05 AM
KENNEWICK, Wash. -- Washington's top wine company, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates of Woodinville, has given another $1 million toward a new Washington State University Wine Science Center in Richland. Ted Baseler, president and CEO of Ste. Michelle and chair of the WSU Board of Regents, announced t ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 8:44 AM
KENNEWICK, Wash. -- Washington State University President Elson Floyd thanked grape growers and wine makers Feb. 8 for their $7.4 million commitment to support a new WSU Wine Science Center. The state's wine industry agreed late last year to generate the funds for the Wine Science Center through a ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 8:34 AM
KENNEWICK, Wash. (AP) -- Washington wine grape growers are holding their annual meeting and trade show through Friday at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick. Some growers told KNDO (http://is.gd/Dsqqzk ) they hope the mostly mild temperatures and decent snowpack this winter w ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 8:34 AM
Weather expert Art Douglas predicts drier conditions and development of an El Niño pattern this spring and summer. Historically, El Niños tended to form later and last longer, causing the Pacific Northwest to be dry all fall, winter and spring. Currently, the weather pattern suppor ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:00 AM
Fires, thinning likely to be recommended, expert says PULLMAN, Wash. -- Bighorn sheep in northern Washington are not thriving as much as state biologists think they should and Washington State University faculty are working to figure out why. Bighorn sheep were reintroduced into the Sinlahekin Wil ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:00 AM
ELLENSBURG, Wash. -- Labor lawyers believe they have found a potential breakthrough for providing guestworkers to Washington's short-handed tree fruit industry. Last December, after the Obama administration announced a change in immigration policy to aid individuals applying for a green card (per ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:00 AM
OLYMPIA -- A handful of bills intended to modify the state's minimum-wage law have failed to make it out of committee. Prime sponsor Rep. Cary Condotta, R-East Wenatchee, said the five bills were intended to encourage the hiring of more employees. In introducing his legislation to the House Labor ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:00 AM
Oregon Potato Co. will pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a $66,235 penalty for failing to report an anhydrous ammonia release at the company's facility in Warden, Wash. "When unintended chemical releases occur, every minute counts if it is an emergency," Wally Moon, an EPA manager in Sea ...
Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:00 AM
A Washington congresswoman says it's too early to speculate whether she would be a possible contender for vice president. Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway named Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., as a possible contender for a spot on the ticket in an article in the Daily Caller, a news ...
Wednesday, February 08, 2012 4:13 PM
The Washington Grain Commission holds its annual wheat and barley research review next week. The review begins at 10 a.m. Feb. 15 at the Holiday Inn Express in Pullman, Wash. Mary Palmer Sullivan, program director for the commission, said the review provides an opportunity for Washington Sta ...
Wednesday, February 08, 2012 4:03 PM
Weather expert Art Douglas predicts drier conditions and development of an El Niño pattern this spring and summer. El Niño will bring dry conditions to the Pacific Northwest later this year, Douglas said. Historically, El Niños tended to form later and last longer, causin ...
Tuesday, February 07, 2012 5:52 PM
The grain export terminal at Longview, Wash., gives Northwest grain growers an edge in marketing their crop, a representative of the company that built the $200 million complex says. The EGT terminal's assets include the fastest unload times on the Columbia River, at 120,000 bushels per hour, c ...
Tuesday, February 07, 2012 5:22 PM
OLYMPIA -- With the first cutoff date passed, several important pieces of ag-related legislation are still in play, among them bills related to managing wolves. Off the table are proposals to require labeling of genetically modified foods. Feb. 3 was the date by which bills had to emerge fro ...
Monday, February 06, 2012 2:49 PM
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Closing unproductive state tax loopholes and holding down health care costs would help pay for education programs that have suffered deep cuts in recent years, U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee said during an appearance at a small Spokane aerospace company on Monday. The proposa ...
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