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.

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. 

Beyond Wheat: Dry Farming in the Pacific Northwest

Karla Salp
Communications

While growing wheat without irrigation is common on expansive farms in Eastern Washington, growing vegetables without supplemental water is rare.

Tomatoes, zucchini and even pumpkins – one of the most water-dependent crops – are being grown without irrigation and it's being done right here in the Pacific Northwest.

What is dry farming?

Weather

Dry farming consists of raising crops in areas with wet winters and dry summers. Most dry farmers agree that you need at least 15-20 inches of rain annually to dry farm. Certain areas of California, Oregon and Washington have the required weather pattern to dry farm successfully.

Soils

The right soil is also needed to dry farm. The soil depth should be a minimum of 60 inches and should have good water-holding capacity. Maintaining soil moisture during long dry periods is critical and requires tillage, soil protection and the use of drought-resistant varieties.

Seed varieties 

The final factor to consider is crop variety. As dry farmers are learning, there is a wide variance in yield from one crop variety to the next. For example, one type of watermelon may have a productive yield on a dry farm, while other varieties lag far behind. Finding these drought-tolerant varieties is key to dry farming success.

Photos courtesy of Oregon State University

Should you dry farm?

The most obvious benefit of dry farming is that the farmer does not have to irrigate the crop. This can be very appealing in areas where there are water right issues or a risk of drought. Overall, dry farmers say that not irrigating means less work and fewer weeds.

In addition to the sustainability factor, many dry farmers claim the produce tastes better with flavors more concentrated in the dry farmed produce. Blind taste-testers have tended to agree.

Why doesn’t everyone dry farm?

While dry farming may appear to be the future in areas with the right weather and soil, there are challenges.

Yield

Interestingly, with the right variety, the yield per plant of a given crop can be as high as, and sometimes higher than, irrigated plants. However, dry farmed plants must be spaced much farther apart so as to reduce competition for water. Fewer plants per acre means a lower overall yield.

This may be the Achilles heel of dry farming. In a world where farmland is being swallowed up by urban areas every day, the future challenge for farming is to produce more food – not less– on shrinking farmland.

Currently, farmers are primarily paid on yield. Dry farming yields for vegetables will likely be too low to financially sustain a farmer unless the produce itself demands a much higher price, for example by having superior flavor compared to irrigated crops.

There are also very few areas in the world with the proper weather and soil to make dry farming feasible. So while there are opportunities for dry farming, it isn’t applicable to much of the world.
Another challenge is that very little research has been done to determine what varieties perform best with dry farming. Most seeds today have been developed with the advantage of irrigation, resulting in few varieties that are adapted for drought tolerance.

Opportunities and Adventure

In the areas where dry farming is feasible, it is an exciting time to be involved.

Through work at Oregon State University, a Dry Farming Collaborative group has formed on Facebook for those interested in learning about and supporting the development of dry farming. For example, members work on trials of various crop varieties and share their success and failures with the group. They also influence and even participate in field research.

Dry farming will never work on many farms, but it does present an interesting opportunity for those with the right climate and soil.

And agriculture as a whole may benefit from dry farming research as well. From the development of dry farming practices and drought-resistance plant breeds may come better tools, methods and plant varieties that may enable many farmers to decrease their reliance on water.

In the end, dry farming may lead to more sustainable agriculture for everyone.

Visit Oregon State University's website for more info.

agri.CULTURE - The woman behind the camera

Karla Salp
Communications

Sue Tebow with her horse. Photo courtesy of Sue Tebow.

For Sue Tebow, inspiration struck as she scrolled through her Facebook newsfeed.

She came across a post by Humans of New York – a project begun by an amateur photographer in New York featuring a street portrait of New Yorkers accompanied by a few of their own words sharing their stories. The photographs became a social media phenomena and the project’s Facebook page now has more than 18 million followers since its inception in 2010.

To Sue it was clear that the simple interface of a photo and a few words from the subject had resonated with people around the world. She decided to try her hand at a similar project in her community, combining two of her passions – photography and helping people reconnect with farmers. That’s when agri.CULTURE was born.

Her goal: to photograph and post one picture and story of someone in agriculture each day on her Facebook page. Her husband thought that would be too much, but Sue knew that with just her neighbors in the Block 40 area near Moses Lake she had 300 potential farmers to feature.

“No one is going to tell their story better than they are,” Sue said. “Who is going to tell their stories if they don’t tell it themselves?” 

It has not been easy. Sue works hard to capture photos that she can feature on each and every day, and sometimes struggles to find willing subjects.

Still, in a matter of a few months, she has managed to post a new photo each day of the week except Sunday since last April, along with the a few words from the people she’s featured. Her Facebook page has grown to more than 5,000 followers just by word of mouth and sharing. By comparison, WSDA’s Facebook page has about 4,000 followers, though it was created in 2012.

Like many in the agriculture community, Sue believes that those who work in agriculture need to reconnect with the vast majority people who are no longer familiar with life or work on a farm.
To make farm life real, Sue insists on photographing people as they really are. No makeup prep needed for this photoshoot – Sue wants to catch people doing what they really do on a day-to-day basis on the farm.

As quickly as her project has grown, Sue hopes that one day it will be a national effort.
“Washington, the Pacific Northwest, then beyond,” she said.

If you work in agriculture, might be a willing subject for Sue, or are just interested in connecting with her, you can email sue.agriculture@gmail.com. You can also visit Sue’s Facebook page to see the photos and view the stories of farmers she meets.

A look at WSDA's key accomplishments in 2016

Mike Louisell
Communications

Before 2016 fades into memory, today we’re noting examples of how our agency supported Washington’s agriculture and food industries, highlighting the work of our five divisions.

Animal Services Division
Our Animal Services Division hired an assistant state veterinarian and state veterinarian, key positions to protect livestock.

Assistant State Veterinarian Scott Haskell started in August and one of his first tasks was to support efforts to contain equine herpesvirus. Dr. Haskell worked with Washington State University and horse owners to contain the outbreak. Twenty-seven cases of West Nile virus in horses also kept veterinary personnel busy this past year.

Dr. Brian Joseph started in December as the new state veterinarian. He has connected with WSU and met with Oregon officials and livestock market representatives to review ongoing animal disease traceability efforts. Our work emphasized advances in the ability to retrieve livestock records in the event of a disease investigation.

Commodity Inspection Division
Don Potts, with our Spokane Grain Inspection Office, received a Director’s Citation Award for brokering service standards that attracted a contract with a corporation comprised of five grain companies.

In the Fruit & Vegetable Inspection Program, apple inspection standards were rewritten in “plain talk” for easier interpretation. We maintained goals to meet customer expectations for services.

The International Marketing Program participated in export promotions, including a trade mission to Vietnam.

Food Safety & Consumer Services
The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) involves a major update to FDA food laws to prevent and detect safety problems. Our Food Safety Division has adopted federal FSMA rules under state code. Our staff members have begun outreach and education efforts on food, feed, and produce safety that are fundamental to the successful implementation of the FSMA.

Our agency also supported efforts to reduce childhood obesity and provide access to healthy foods in schools and to low-income families through the Food Assistance Programs and Farm to School activities, which also generated new markets for farmers.

Pesticide Management Division
Employees managed the disposal of 95,000 pounds of pesticides that owners no longer needed, enforced state and federal pesticide laws and confirmed compliance with laws that cover manure from livestock operations.

Informed the ag industry of new worker protection standards required by the Environmental Protection Agency. It was a major effort. The demand to train pesticide handlers increased and the agency’s Farmworker Education Program conducted numerous workshops. Training included hands-on exercises, demonstrations, illustration and videos.

Plant Protection Division
After conducting its second largest gypsy moth eradication ever this past spring, the Pest Program management announced there would be no spraying for the pest in 2017.

In other pest management, WSDA developed a regulatory approach for transporting municipal green waste to Eastern Washington based on a pest risk analysis for apple maggot.

WSDA’s efforts to sample and certify the largest state hop harvest ever brought us kudos, with reporters covering some of our work.  And the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board partnered with WSDA, committing to purchasing testing equipment and funding staff dedicated to testing pesticide levels in marijuana products.

Stay connected with WSDA
These highlights barely scratch the surface of all the work accomplished by WSDA personnel. To stay up with the latest news, sign up to follow us in 2017 through this blog, on Facebook or Twitter (our Twitter handle is @WSDAgov).