Farm Loss Pt 1

From the Ag Information Network, this is today’s Fruit Grower Report. In reaction to the recent Seattle Times editorial by the Washington Policy Center’s Pam Lewison about the dramatic loss of farms in Washington state over the past five years, Tenth District Senator Ron Muzzall hopes it moves more people to begin caring about agriculture in our state …

MUZZALL … “Well, they certainly should care because Washington now ranks number four in the nation for food costs.”

The loss of over 3,700 farms and 100,000 acres of farmland, Muzzall says get some attention …

MUZZALL … “As we look down the road, just as Pam had pointed out in her editorial, we’re losing farms at an alarming rate and we’re losing farmland in the United States at an astounding rate.”

And these, Muzzall says are almost all family farms …

MUZZALL … “So, what we see is smaller farmers going

out of business, the remaining farmers getting larger and, you know, 98.5% of farms, whether they’re corporations or not, are still owned by families. It’s still very much a family business. It isn’t like we’ve got large corporations.”

Caused primarily, Muzzall says by the economy …

MUZZALL … “They’re in a squeeze and I don’t know as I’ve ever seen the planet aligned so completely as they are right now to make it difficult to make money in agriculture.”

Tune in tomorrow for more on Washington dwindling farm numbers.

Here more of Muzzall’s thoughts on this in the latest Elephant in the Dome podcast.