2021 Legislative Session

Starting this weekend, overtime rules for the farming community in Washington change. As of January 1st, overtime kicks in once an employee works more than 55 hours in a week. It’s the first step in legislation that will require overtime pay for work over 40 hours starting in 2024. Pam ...

Elin Miller with the Oregon Wine Council takes a look back on the recently concluded state legislative session and it's impact on the industry. If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail gvaagen@cherrycreekmedia... Read More ...

Incase tending to the 2021 crop is not enough, Washington wheat growers have a lot of their plat in both Olympia and D.C. these days. Michelle Hennings, Executive Director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers says one of the most pressing issues they’re watching in the virtual session Senate Bill 5172, which looks at requiring overtime pay once farm workers pass 40 hours a week. She ..

2020 was a difficult year for the Washington Dairy Industry. Not only did producers deal with the pandemic and supply chain disruptions, but the then came the November Supreme Court ruling on the Ag overtime exemption. Washington Dairy Federation Communications director, Scott Dilley, said things are tough on dairy farmers right now, because milk prices are not great and typically, and producers

Both Oregon and Washington are conducting their current legislative sessions remotely because of ongoing coronavirus restrictions. And those remote efforts are highlighting, according to many in the agriculture community, the lack of rural broadband in lightly populated areas of the Northwest ...

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 has been a year with more questions than answers for the Ag industry across the Northwest and across the country. And as farm county looks ahead to 2021 and the hope of life after the pandemic new questions arise ...