New name for Spokane Ag Bureau; mission remains the same

Washington Ag Today September 20, 2010 The 120 year-old Ag Bureau of Greater Spokane Incorporated is changing its name.

Allert: “We are modernizing we think. Changing our name to the Agri-Business Council of Greater Spokane.”

That is Jay Allert of Aslin-Finch Feed and Pet, chairman of what is now The Spokane Agri-Business Council, which he says will continue to have the same mission as the Ag Bureau did, promoting the agriculture industry of the region.

Allert: “We are excited about it. We know we are involved with a very important industry. We think that needs to be recognized and you can‘t do that sitting on the sidelines. So we are appreciative of Greater Spokane recognizing the fact that agriculture is important to not only our region, but to the nation‘s economy and even the world. So, we are here to represent that and promote and support that.”

The Spokane Ag Bureau has been most well known for its annual Spokane Ag Expo, the largest ag equipment exhibition in the inland northwest, which in recent years has also included the Country Living Expo. The Pacific Northwest Farm Forum with its series of seminars and speakers is also part of the event.

Over its long history the Spokane Ag Bureau has had dozens of other accomplishments of importance to the region’s agricultural industry from a National Apple Show to a regional potato conference to the Spokane Wine Festival, even a state funded survey of the Columbia Basin in 1921 that led to the creation of the Northwest Reclamation Congress to promote the Columbia Basin Project. That is something the newly named Spokane Agri-Business Council still takes an interest in. Its monthly breakfast meeting last week featured a speaker from the Columbia Basin Development League.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Ag Info Net.

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