WSU: School, Students Will Benefit From 2018 Farm Bill

Washington State University say researchers, students and farmers across the Northwest will benefit from the 2018 Farm Bill signed into law in late December.  Glynda Becker Fenter, Director of Federal Relations for WSU, said the Farm Bill will help a wide variety of the over 300 commodities grown across the state.  She said the legislation will not only benefit Washington’s best known commodities like apples, wheat and potatoes, but others as well.

“We’re way up there on Raspberry production, cranberries, organic some of these niche industries around the state.  And not just on the eastside of the state, but across the state.”

In addition to research and development, funding is established to provide rural broadband service to rural Washingtonians, which she says will help growers remain competitive on the international scene.

Becker Fenter said the 2018 Farm Bill is a good example of broad collaborative work with the Washington State Dpartment of Agriculture, Director Derek Sandison and many others.

“We can to our [Congressional] delegation with one package of requests when it came to the Farm Bill.  We worked with our stakeholders, we had several large scale meetings with stakeholders representing groups around the state to make sure they had input into this process too.”

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