Recognition for a career of service to the Central Washington State Fair

Chris McGann
Communications

WSDA Director Derek Sandison presents retiring Central
Washington State Fair Manager Greg Stewart with the
Director's Citation Award. 

Greg Stewart hired on with the Central Washington State Fair the same year singer songwriter Don McLean topped the music charts with his iconic song “American Pie.”

This year, after almost a half century with the fair, Steward announced his retirement as the fair’s general manager.

With his hit song, McLean evoked and payed tribute to a transformative era in music.

Likewise, it’s only fitting that with Stewart’s retirement, we take time to celebrate the man who helped transform the fair from a small, annual event to a year-round venue for wide-ranging events and continued to encourage kids to get involved and excited about agriculture.

Last week, WSDA Director Derek Sandison presented Stewart with the Director's Citation Award.

A patriotic spread of Washington produce at the fair.

“This award is a small token compared to what Greg has accomplished in his career, he moved the dial bigtime," Sandison said.

And through it all, Stewart never forgot where it all started.

"Greg made sure this fair stayed true to its agricultural roots and promoted agriculture as a core function,” Sandison said.

Stewart’s history and achievements are well known to most anyone who has been a part of the Central Washington State Fair. His impressive record and has resulted in the betterment of fairs not only in Washington, but across the entire fair industry.

Shortly after hiring Stewart in 1972, the Central Washington Fair Association promoted him to general manager of what was then a five-day fair, overseeing a fulltime staff of three people.
A lot has changed over those 48 years.

The Central Washington State Fair and the 120-acre fairgrounds, now known as State Fair Park, have grown considerably. The fair is now a ten-day event recognized as one of the premiere events in the Northwest. Fulltime employment has grown to 22 people who help oversee and accommodate some 222 annual event days.

From the small fair he took on 48 years ago, Stewart has built an entertainment hub for the entire region.

Stewart oversaw management of the Yakima Valley SunDome located at State Fair Park. The 8,000-seat SunDome, is a $20 million multi-purpose facility now home to concerts, rodeos, and numerous other events throughout the year.

He also oversaw the management of Yakima County Stadium which opened at State Fair Park in 1993. In 2014, Yakima County Stadium became the new home to the Yakima Valley Pippins, a West Coast League baseball team.

In 2000, the former Yakima Meadows horse race track located on the grounds was turned into a three-eighths-mile racetrack, now called State Fair Raceway.  The all-clay racetrack is used for sprint car and dirt-track car racing.

Stewart was also director and vice president of the Western Fairs Association 1979-1981 and a Hall of Fame recipient in 1995. He was the first recipient outside of California to be on the Western Fairs Association Board and to receive the Hall of Fame award.

Come one! Come all! Come tall!

In October 2018, Stewart received the Lifetime Achievement Award established in 2014 by the Washington State Fairs Association Board of Directors.  This award is to recognize an individual's accomplishments and contributions to the fair industry.

Stewart has been pivotal in establishing relationships with the Hispanic and Native American communities. In 2018, he helped Yakima create a Sister City partnership with Hadong, South Korea and their Green Tea Festival.

Born and raised in Olympia, Stewart attended Centralia College in 1963 and graduated from Washington State University with a degree in agricultural economics. He served in the U. S. Army 1966-1969, including a tour of duty in Vietnam.

Stewart and his wife, Karen, live in Selah, and in his spare time he enjoys traveling, boating, horses, fishing, and spending time with their daughter Tami and her family.

First-ever fresh hop beer for Seoul

Chris McGann
Communications

A can of Amazing Brewing's fresh hop beer. The Seoul-based
 brewery used Washington hops fresh from the field to bring
Korea that unique, fresh hop flavor.

It took several acts of reckless optimism, and help from WSDA’s International Marketing and Plant Services programs, but an ambitious Eastern Washington hops company has succeeded in supplying the key ingredient to enable Korean brewers to produce the country’s first-ever fresh hop beer made with U.S. hops.

Capturing the bright complexities of fresh hops in beer is a lot like trying to catch a fall flash of lighting in a bottle. For a true “fresh hop” beer – a nectar bursting with the flavors of cut grass, flowers, citrus or even pine trees -- brewers must add the delicate green hops cones to the brew within 24 hours of harvest.

That’s a tall order even for craft brewers in Washington state, where they have close access to some of the world’s top hop farms and almost three quarters of the nation’s total hops production.

For breweries in Seoul, Korea, trying to catch real lightning may be more realistic.

That didn’t stop Yakima Chief Hops. When they got the idea late last summer, they approached their Korean distributor to see if he would be willing to give it a try and with his nod, the bold adventure began.

The grower-owned network of family hops farms already supplies premium hops to brewers around the world in dried and frozen forms, but it had never attempted to deliver fresh product to Korea for a fresh hop beer.

The challenge was great

Though it seemed impossible, the siren call of a juicy new batch of India pale ale that would be brewed on the other side of the globe was just too intoxicating to ignore.

To pull it off, Yakima Chief not only had to ship the fresh hops cones from a field in the Yakima Valley to a brewery on the other side of the world in one day, they would also have to undergo U.S. export inspections and pass rigorous Korean Customs Service phytosanitary requirements on the way.

The company enlisted the help of WSDA International Marketing and Plant Services staff to help whisk an aromatic and highly perishable shipment out of Washington and through Korea Customs Service (KCS) fast enough for breweries in Seoul to hop up their beer.

Danny Kim, WSDA's trade representative in
South Korea worked with Korean customs
officials to help bring in fresh hops. 

To make it all happen, Yakima Chief Sales Representative Jim Lambert reached out to Julie Johnson at WSDA’s International Marketing Program.

"I took this crazy idea to Julie a few months ago and with her help and a lot of other great people, it all lined up," Lambert said.

Johnson worked alongside Yakima Chief throughout the process and looped in WSDA’s trade representative in South Korea, Danny Kim, who worked with the Korean customs officials.  Johnson also connected the company with Sherry Lagerstam in WSDA’s Plant Services Program to find ways to streamline the domestic inspections process.

Lagerstam said she worked with Lambert and Yakima Chief warehouse staff to decide if it would be better to meet at the hops fields or the warehouse. In a seamless swoop, she double-checked the requirements, inspected the hops (at the warehouse) and issued the Phytosanitary Certificates.

A big win

Lambert acknowledged the challenges of sending fresh hops to the other side of the globe, through a strict inspection process, before they spoiled.

“A huge thanks to all for the quick responses and willingness to accommodate our tight timeline. Everyone’s help was deeply appreciated and we are so excited the fresh hops made it through Korean customs in a timely fashion,” Lambert said. “Shout-outs to you guys at Washington State Department of Agriculture for your major contributions to this effort – on the inspection here in the U.S. and with customs in Korea. We could not have done this without you.”

"It was a big win for all of us," he said.

Korean breweries and fresh hop beer

Yakima Chief's Korean Distributor, Brewsource, lined up three breweries to receive the hops.

Seoul Brewery was the first to brew with the fresh “Mosaic” hops. The brewery adjusted its entire week’s schedule and planned for a 3 a.m. brew day to make a fresh hop version of their signature Salinger Rye India Pale Ale. The beer was so popular, they sold out in about a week. Those lucky enough to taste it said it was: “Amazing, super juicy and drinkable with tropical flavors that really shine.”

Amazing Brewery also received the fresh Mosaic hops. They produced a wet-hop IPA called “Yakima Express.” This beer was scheduled to be released Oct. 25 and will also be available in cans that showcase the Yakima Chief Ranches logo.

Finally, Playground Brewery brewed a double IPA called “Big & Certain Hoppiness.” This beer is scheduled to be released on Nov. 1.

New Frontiers

Thanks to this year’s success, Mike Goettl, Yakima Chief CEO, said he has a few new challenges for fresh hop beer next year. He’s added Taiwan and Japan along with Korea as challenges for 2020 fresh hops.

As Brexit looms, Sandison joins U.S. delegation in London to set the stage for new UK trade agreements

Chris McGann
Communications

WSDA Director Sandison visited U.K. sheep farm
 Baber Sheep Breeding and Consulting. 

WSDA Director Derek Sandison traveled to London with a small delegation of agriculture officials
earlier this month to explore new trade opportunities with the United Kingdom as it negotiates its post-Brexit relationship with the European Union.

The U.K. sponsored the seven-member team of American ag representatives through the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA). Sandison joined five other state agriculture directors and NASDA’s CEO Barb Glenn on an itinerary that included farm tours and dozens of meetings with senior British trade and agriculture officials, university leaders, research scientists, farmers and business representatives.

The trade mission came at a time when U.K. leaders are trying to find ways to minimize economic disruption associated with the nation’s push to leave the European Union (EU).

Depending on the outcome of the negotiations, the U.K. will need to explore and expand new agricultural markets to feed its citizens and keep its farm economy afloat.

“As they move towards Brexit, they are very much interested in entering into a free-trade agreement with the United States,” Sandison said.

The meetings were a chance to set the stage for discussions with U.S. trade representatives in the future.

“They wanted to learn more about U.S. agriculture – what some of our issues are, what products we might be interested in exporting and what products we might be interested in importing,” Sandison said.

Sandison toured a UK beef farm on a recent trip to the U.K.

Washington already exports products such as hops and wine to the U.K. But the discussions revealed an opportunity to expand that relationship. Sandison said British officials and producers expressed interest in exporting more lamb, cider and other beverages to the U.S.

The delegation, which represented individual states, was not there to try make a deal, rather they wanted to get a better understanding of the landscape.

“We were there to understand what our producers will be facing when they want to sell products to the U.K. and what the U.K.’s bottom line is,” Sandison said. “A lot of what we talked about are the standards, phytosanitary standards for example, that are imposed currently under EU restrictions and what we can expect if they are free of European Union restrictions.

Compared to U.S. standards, the European Union’s standards are often stricter in areas such as pesticide use, veterinary medicines, and decontamination techniques. This is especially true for food safety standards associated with new technologies in agriculture and food processing such as genetically modified organisms (GMO), growth hormones and lactic acid treatments.

“We were trying to understand what we can expect,” Sandison said. “We wanted to know if they would deviate from the EUs current restrictive approach and liberalize their standards a bit.”

Sandison said British officials expressed interest in moving towards less restrictive import policies, they did not discuss any specific standards.

The U.K. is currently negotiating the terms by which they would conduct trade with the EU after Brexit. The two most likely scenarios at this point include one in which the U.K. comes to an agreement that will allow it to continue to do unrestricted business within the EU. In this case, standards would likely align closely with current EU standards.

Sandison with delegation at Thatchers Cider orchard. The UK
seeks to expand its export markets. 

Another possibility would be a situation in which the U.K. does not reach an agreement with the EU but leaves the union anyway. In this hard-break scenario, Sandison believes they would be more open to adopting standards that would facilitate more trade with U.S. producers.

“If it’s a hard break, then I think they are going to be more interested in getting to a solid agreement with the United States, something that would promote the ease of trade and movement of goods,” Sandison said.

At this stage in the process, the Brexit outcome remains highly uncertain. But whatever the outcome, Sandison’s work with his NASDA partners could well lead to export opportunities in the future.

Visit the WSDA International Marketing Program webpage to learn about other activities WSDA conducts to promote Washington agriculture abroad.

Eggs crack top 10 list and other highlights

Chris McGann
Communications

Eggs cracked this year’s top 10 list last year with
a 70 percent jump in production value.

Washington’s agricultural production top 10 list featured ups, downs and a new listing in the annual U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report released this week.

Our state produced an estimated $9.67 billion of agricultural commodities in 2018, down 2 percent from the previous year.

Notable rankings 

The value of all Washington grape production, second only to California’s, hit a record high with an estimated value of $361 million, a 13 percent increase from 2017.

The value of grape production in Washington hit a record high.

The $2.19 billion estimated production value of apples was a 10 percent drop from the previous year, but apples remained Washington’s top commodity and our state maintained its status as the nation’s number one apple producer.

And eggs cracked this year’s top 10 list with a 70 percent jump in production value estimated at $241 million. Pears fell off the list as the 2018 value declined 15 percent to an estimated $211 million.

The 2018 top 10 list

The rest of the list remained largely unchanged with the following rankings.

 1. Apples              $2.19b
 2. Milk                  $1.13b
 3. Wheat $845m
 4. Potatoes            $788m
 5. Cattle                $652m
 6. Hay                   $519m
 7. Hops                 $428m    (ranked 8th in 2017)
 8. Sweet Cherries $426m  (ranked 7th in 2017)
 9. Grapes              $361m
10. Eggs $241m

Apples remain at the top of the list for production value. At
an estimated valued of $2.19 billion, they make up 23 percent
 of our total agricultural value.

The heavy hitters

The top five commodities for 2018 had a combined value of $5.60 billion, or 58 percent of the year’s value for all commodities.

Other upticks

There were several commodities that did not make it into the top 10 production list, but showed significant increases in value from the previous year.

These include onions, which saw an increased value of 10 percent to $178 million in 2018. Blueberries also increased, by 21 percent from 2017 to reach $139 million in 2018. Barley value of production increased 55 percent to $21.5 million in 2018 and the value of canola, at $20.3 million, increased 23 percent from the previous year.

A few slips

Five of the top 10 commodities declined in value from the previous year, including apples, cattle and calves, hops, and sweet cherries. In addition to pears, other commodities that declined in value in 2018 were raspberries, down 38 percent to $35.9 million; and green peas, down 21 percent to $22.8 million. 

A ground-up approach to baking

Chris McGann
Communications

Sage Dilts talks about her baking philosophy with WSDA
Director Derek Sandison in front of the Barn Owl Bakery's
wood fired oven. Dilts won a NASDA Foundation contest
for women in agriculture. 

When Barn Owl Bakery owner Sage Dilts explains the potential health benefits of the wild sourdough starter and heritage grains she uses in her artisan breads, she astutely points out -- the digestion process begins when you smell the food.

“That’s when you start salivating,” she says.

Walk into her tiny Lopez Island bakery and you’ll see what she means. The rich aroma of her craft bread, fresh out of the wood-fired oven, is sure to make your mouth water.

Wild Starter

Dilts says the yeast and bacteria in her wild leaven (or sourdough starter) provide the complex flavors that make the bread taste so good, and they also help break down parts of the grains that can be hard to digest, allowing the body to better absorb the nutrients.

WSDA Director Derek Sandison followed through on his
promise to visit Dilts' Lopez Island bakery after she won
a NASDA Foundation award in February. 

She is committed to using locally grown and milled grains and even grows her own specialty and heritage varieties of wheat, rye and barley that add to the distinctive flavors in her loaves.

In the 200-square-foot bakery she and her husband Nathan Hodges built in 2012, she has established a thriving niche market on the islands with baked goods made in ways she believes are healthy for the body and the planet.

Farm to Food Competition

This year, Dilts won the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) Foundation’s Women’s Farm to Food Competition. The contest is dedicated to fostering growth among women producers (i.e., farmers, fishers, ranchers) and women entrepreneurs with food and beverage businesses in Oregon and Washington.

Sage Dilts started baking bread on Lopez Island 8 years ago.
Now it's time to expand the Barn Owl Bakery.  

When competitors presented their business plans at NASDA’s Winter Policy Conference in Washington DC in February, WSDA Director Derek Sandison presented Dilts the $20,000 Grand Prize and promised to visit to the Barn Owl Bakery.

Barn Owl Bakery employee Ona Blue tends to the wood-fired
oven and some of the locally-grown ingredients.

Last week he followed up on his commitment and made the trip to the remote island in Northwest Washington.

Sandison said this type of competition and the awards are important because they help promote diversity in agriculture.

 “We are trying to encourage women to enter agriculture and for them to thrive once they are in it,” Sandison said.

A big challenge

“Particularly for small-scale operations, you have to develop your own markets,” Sandison said. “It’s not just that you have to grow or produce something, but you then have to find a way to market that product.”


Moving to the country

Sage Dilts bakes with locally grown and milled grain. She
recently won the National Association of State Departments
 of Agriculture (NASDA) Foundation’s Women’s Farm to Food
 Competition  

Dilts and her husband Nathan Hodges moved from the San Francisco Bay area eight years ago and set up shop on this laid-back island known for its artists, craftspeople, farmers, and fishermen. The area’s tight-knit, open-minded community was the perfect business micro-climate to start a bakery embracing ancient baking and farming methods, and adhering to Dilts’s ideals about health and nutrition.

Dilts makes her bread by hand from scratch using no commercial yeast or chemical leavening. Instead she maintains and relies on a wild leaven, rich with bacteria and yeasts, to impart flavor and nutrition to her breads and pastries.

A world of wheat varieties

Hodges, her husband, zealously experiments with heirloom grains trying to identify varieties that grow well in the area and taste good in the bread.

“There’s all these crazy flavors,” Hodges said. “It takes three or four years for us to get enough seed to mill up to actually taste the grain. So there’s always that moment where it’s like, what’s this one going to be? Sometimes it’s not that interesting but other times it’s really wild!”

Nathan Hodges shows Sandison a sample of the grain he is
drying at Barn Owl Bakery's granary.

In the past four years he had planted more than 50 varieties in search of a seed like the Ethiopian Blue Tinge emmer wheat, for example. His crop notes describe it as grain that threshes easily with an intriguing dark purple seed that makes a dough that darkens to the color of chocolate.

“In our baking trials, this is always a crowd favorite for taste,” he notes.

Hodges and Dilts hope to cultivate the connection between food and the land as part of their business model.

“Modern wheats tend to be ill-suited to our form of agriculture here,” he said. “We don’t water our wheats, we don’t fertilize our wheats, and our soils are relatively poor. But the older wheats, like the Landrace varieties, are perfectly suited to that form of agriculture because that’s the way they were grown for thousands of years.”

Locals pick out hand-made baked goods themselves and pay
on the honor system. 

The right niche

The Barn Owl Bakery’s business model may not be suited to other bakeries. They run a bakery with no counter help and customers pick out their own purchases and pay on the honor system in an open bowl on the baking rack.

But on this low-key, high-minded island, it seems to be working.

In fact, the bakery is expanding. Dilts can make 25 loaves an hour in her Allan Scott style wood-fired oven, but even with 13 hours of baking a day, that’s not enough bread to keep up with demand.

With the prize money from the NASDA Foundation competition, she is upgrading to a Bassanina wood-burning deck oven that will allow her to quadruple output.

“We really needed to expand to make this work for us as a family,” Dilts said.

Deadly deer virus detected in Western Washington yak

Chris McGann
Communications

The state animal disease lab confirmed a case of EHD in a
 Whatcom County yak this week.

Last week, a Whatcom County veterinarian  euthanized a six-year-old yak cow showing symptoms of Epizootic Hemorrhagic disease (EHD), a potentially deadly virus that primarily effects wild deer populations, but occasionally crosses over to cattle.

A subsequent Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (WADDL) necropsy confirmed the animal had EHD.

Two other yaks from the herd died in recent weeks after displaying similar clinical signs such as stiff gate, drooling and nasal secretions that are consistent with EHD.

According to the owner's report, the euthanized yak began showing signs of illness on Sept. 30.  It appeared to isolate itself from the herd, developed a thick-mucous runny nose, and had difficulty moving. The owner also observed small droplets of blood coming from possible fly bites near its eyes. They called the vet.

The clinical signs of EHD are similar to the much more devastating foot-and-mouth disease, so it is important to report suspected cases to the State Veterinarian.

EHD is not a threat to human health.

The the owners took the euthanized animal to WADDL in Pullman, where lab reports confirmed the EHD diagnosis.

The outbreak in Western Washington comes on the heels of a confirmed EHD diagnosis in four cows from Franklin and Walla Walla counties.

Biting midges or Culicoides gnats, commonly known as “no-see-ums” are the main way the disease is spread. Female biting midges can ingest blood from infected animals and then feed on uninfected animals. These midges typically breed near mud, so EHD outbreaks often occur when cattle and other ruminants congregate in wet areas.

No vaccines are available for EHD, so controlling the midges by eliminating standing water from areas used by cows, applying insecticides around water areas to decrease the swarms, or using bug repellent on the cows is the best defense.
.

For more information visit WSDA’s Animal Services Division webpage.

Taste Washington Day celebrates farm fresh food in schools statewide

Christopher Iberle
Regional Markets

First Lady Trudi Inslee visits with students in the Cordata
 Elementary school garden, supported by Common Threads.

Imagine all the all the good things you could do if people got together to connect school lunchrooms with local farms that grow the food.  You could:

• Feed thousands of school children with nutritious, local foods. 
• Teach students about where their food actually comes from. 
• Connect farmers with a growing local market.
• Begin to bridge the gap between our urban and rural communities.

First Lady Trudi Inslee visits with students in the Cordata
 Elementary school garden, supported by Common Threads.

Here in Washington, partners and advocates for children’s health and education, agricultural business vitality, farmland preservation, environmental protection, and poverty alleviation have made that vision a reality with farm to school -- and it’s flourishing.

Today’s Taste Washington Day event brought a wide-ranging group of people together – everyone from school lunchroom staff to Washington State First Lady Trudi Inslee - in celebration of the farm to school collaboration.  

Preparing red peppers for Taste
Washington Day lunch at
 Bellingham Public Schools. 

“Taste Washington Day is a great way for students to make the connection between farmers and the healthy food that is critical in helping them to learn, grow and develop,” said First Lady Trudi Inslee. “It’s also is a fantastic opportunity to spotlight the hundreds of crops we have here in our state and to recognize the people who grow them.”

Governor Jay Inslee issued a proclamation for the day recognizing the values of school meal programs and the contributions made to them by Washington state agriculture.

WSDA Regional Markets works with dozens of partners to help connect farmers with school districts. Working with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the Washington School Nutrition Association, they coordinate the annual Taste Washington Day promotion of farm to school connections. This year more than 40 school districts statewide served a Washington grown meal to help celebrate how Washington farmers provide food for schools year-round.

Farmers statewide participate in Taste Washington Day

The Washington Apple Crunch!

Eighty-seven farmers signed up to take  part in this year’s Taste Washington Day and partnered with a school to provide seasonal, local ingredients for breakfast or lunch, or visit a school for lunch. About 240,000 students at 43 participating schools ate a locally-sourced meal, learned about Washington agriculture, worked in a school garden, or did other farm to school activities.

Many schools also did a “Washington Apple Crunch” to celebrate one of Washington’s top crops, by simultaneously crunching into farm fresh apples all across the state at noon.

"We love the rich impact that community food systems offer our society”, said Eric Abel, owner of Bellewood Farms which sells to multiple districts in Whatcom County. “We believe it's important children learn how food gets to the table. By selling to schools, we hope kids will discover the difference that ‘local’ can have—providing fresh food, great taste, improved nutrition, all while supporting farms in the local community in which they live."

First Lady Trudi Inslee joins the celebration

Students, teachers and staff in Bellingham Public Schools welcomed a few special guests for their Taste Washington Day events. First Lady Trudi Inslee visited Bellingham Public Schools’ (BPS) new Central Kitchen, which is serving locally sourced, scratch-cooked meals across the district.

On the menu: salmon cakes, bean salad, pilaf with
 farro, apples, and milk.

The Central Kitchen is a facility years in the making, with support from BPS administration, school board, food service staff, students and parents, Whatcom Farm to School, WSDA Farm to School, Whatcom Community Foundation, Common Threads, and other local partners. The new scratch cooking kitchen and menu allows BPS to use a wider variety of seasonal ingredients from Washington farms. On the menu for Taste Washington Day were salmon cakes with Lummi Island Wild salmon and Cloud Mountain Farm Center onions, pilaf with farro from Bluebird Grain Farms and beets from Joe’s Garden, farm fresh apples from Bellewood Farms, and a local cabbage and kale on the salad bar.

First Lady Trudi Inslee tours Bellingham Public Schools'
Central Kitchen with Director of Food Services and
Executive Chef Patrick Durgan on Taste Washington Day.

Mrs. Inslee also visited Cordata Elementary to see food and agriculture educators from Common
Threads giving lessons in the garden. Produce from the 19 school gardens supported by Common Threads is also served in cafeteria salad bars during the school year. To top off the visit, Mrs. Inslee visited the new Sehome High School to tour BPS Career and Technical Education (CTE) sites related to food and agriculture education.

School market in Washington State

The USDA Farm to School Census estimates that Washington school districts spend more than $17 million on Washington grown foods each year. But this only makes up about 9% of an average school’s food budget. There’s plenty of opportunity to grow the school market for Washington farms - especially in a state that grows over 300 different products, many available year round.

Keith Carpenter from Lummi Island Wild, Chef Patrick Durgan
 from Bellingham Public Schools Central Kitchen, Eric Abel from
 Bellewood Farms, Chris Iberle, WSDA Farm to School Specialist,
 Mataio Gillis, Bellingham Public Schools Central Kitchen, fisher
 Ellie Kinley from Lummi Nation, and First Lady Trudi Inslee
 visit Sehome High School’s CTE kitchen classroom.

For smaller and direct marketing farms, schools can be a particularly meaningful market that provides a regular, larger volume buyer.  Many farmers find it personally rewarding to know their food is being eaten by people in their local community.  Farmers selling to schools also make an impact by teaching kids about agriculture in urban and rural districts of all sizes, and helping schools put nutritious, fresh meals on the tray for students each day. About half of school districts in the state participate in farm to school in some way each year.

“Local agriculture plays an important role in Child Nutrition Programs in Washington State”, said Leanne Eko, Director of Child Nutrition Services at OSPI. “Learning about where their food comes from and getting to taste local foods in school meals promotes lifelong healthy eating to our children and supports local farmers.”

Plan now to manage manure and water this winter

Kerri Love
WSDA Dairy Nutrient Management Program

Cement blocks and fences hold manure
 and cows back from wet, muddy areas. 

As the days grow short and bunkers are loaded with the summer’s crops, it is also time to ensure manure lagoons are empty and ready for winter rains and storage.

Don’t lose valuable nutrients to rain

Late season nutrient applications have special risks. Fields may be compacted from harvest and application equipment. The dry summer may have reduced forage crop density. Applying nutrients where they may run off or pool in low spots of your field after our first big rainfall wastes your time and money, and is a risk to water quality.

Apply nutrients in the right place and at the right rate to ensure they enter the soil where your crops need them most.

Following best practices, a tractor
 incorporates manure after an
 application.

• Use expanded buffers, avoid bare soils or slopes, and apply at a rate appropriate for the field and soil conditions.
• Do not pasture animals or apply nutrients to flood-prone areas of fields.
• Incorporate solids into bare fields, especially after corn harvest where soils can be highly compacted from silage trucks.

To evaluate weather and run-off risk, check the three-day forecast for rainfall.
• A great tool in Western Washington is the Manure Spreading Advisory tool. Click on the map on a location near you and see a 72-hour weather forecast with an associated risk rating for applying nutrients.
• Pro tip – you can print the weather forecast or save a screen shot, and use it as part of your application record keeping.

Pastures and heavy-use areas (HUAs)

Move cows off pastures before they get wet.

• Remove animals before fields are saturated, then drag a harrow behind your tractor to distribute manure.

• Reseed animal lanes or HUA’s with winter wheat, while there is still light and warmth to get seeds going.


Facilities

You should always have at least 12-15 inches of freeboard from the top of your lagoon or 12 inches from the top of an upright tank, to allow for a 24-hour (25-year) rain storm.
If you have more nutrients than storage this fall, work with neighbors, custom applicators, and your local conservation district to locate appropriate application locations or storage structures.

Do not direct silage leachate to the ground or water.
• Feed-bunker leachate should be collected and transferred to storage.
• Vegetated treatment areas (VTA) must be designed to treat the volume of runoff expected, and must be healthy enough to trap and absorb the nutrients carried in the runoff.
• If not designed well, concentrated runoff from the feed area can “burn” the grass and destroy these treatment areas rendering them ineffective and requiring diversion to storage.
• Conservation district planners can provide guidance on whether your VTA is adequate for preventing a water quality issue.

Small fixes now go a long way

Check your gutters and downspouts to ensure they are clean and connected.
• Did you know that an inch of rain on a 10,000 square-foot roof amounts to 6,000 gallons? If clean water isn’t properly diverted, then it’s being collected and is transferred to storage. Collecting clean water will fill up your lagoon and may cause you to lose sleep come March!
Know where water flows.
• Park manure handling equipment (scrapers, manure spreaders tankers and hoses), away from surface water and storm drains.
• Avoid manure track-out, and keep manure off surfaces that may run to ditches or storm drains.

Be prepared

To prevent a manure spill:

• Maintain a 12-inch freeboard in lagoons, plus an extra 4-6 inches to accommodate rain from a 25-year, 24-hour storm.
• Inspect storage structures regularly for signs of leaks or problems.
• Inspect valves, pumps, hoses, and other manure conveyance equipment before and during use.
• Conduct routine maintenance and repair to prevent failure.

Have a plan!

Post emergency numbers where they can be easily seen and found in a hurry - on the wall in your office, in the milk house, and/or in the breakroom. Post the farm address including the numbers below, so callers know exactly where to direct responders.

Numbers to include:
• Emergency first responders - 911
• Farm managers/operators cell and home numbers
• Ecology – Spills to water 1-800-258-5990
• WSDA – To report a spill 360-746-1249
• CAFO permitted facilities-- 1-800-407-6600; call within 24 hours of the spill


If you have questions about winter manure management, please contact your local conservation district or Kyrre Flege with WSDA’s Dairy Nutrient Management Program at 360-746-1249.