This Is Not A Good Time For Growers In Washington

The farm economy nationwide is not in good shape. Add to that, Washington’s ranking of 50th in the nation when it comes to farm profitability, this is a difficult time for farmers and ranchers in the Evergreen State.

Michelle Hennings, Executive Director for the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, said the news statewide is not good, and she hasn’t really had anything encouraging to share for a while.

“I just sense that farmers have been more nervous than usual, on what their crop's gonna look like," Henning said. "So, they need those bushels to be able to pay their bills. Our break even doing a calculation, we figured is $7.71. and our market price is, in the $6 range. So, we are below break even, as you have heard.”

So Much Is Out Of The Grower's Control

Hennings noted when talking about the economic challenges, there are still many who don't understand that growers can’t control the market price; "farmers are prices takers not price makers". And when producers face input costs that continually exceed the global price growers get for the commodities, it’s not a good combination.

But, despite the many ongoing challenges, Hennings said they continue efforts to educate lawmakers in Olympia and D.C. about the realities of this farm economy.

"This isn't sustainable for very long and so there's just a lot of different costs coming in every way," Hennings said. "And so we recently just held an ag tour with state legislators and we talked about various issues that are going on like our labor and the gas prices, the [Climate Commitment Act], all these things that hit farmers at once on their bottom line and has caused this spiral for farming.”

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-9791, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com