State of the taters: Convention highlights potato industry

KENNEWICK — Potato growers in Washington and Oregon are “true leaders in agriculture” in both states, able to wield an influence well beyond their numbers, according to Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Yakima.

“And that’s hard for me to say because I don’t raise potatoes,” Newhouse said during an impromptu speech at the Washington-Oregon Potato Conference in Kennewick on Jan. 26.

Newhouse, who was not on the published agenda, was invited to address the annual Washington-Oregon Potato Conference — held in-person at the Three Rivers Convention Center — said that while as an apple, pear, grape and hops grower, he knew those organizations would represent his interests, he also knew the state’s potato growers worked extra hard on farm issues.

“You guys should know that,” Newhouse said. “When I was director of (the Washington State Department of) Agriculture, I could always count on the potato industry to be leaders in whatever effort that we were engaged with at the time.”

Newhouse said the work done by the potato growers and their associations in both Oregon and Washington not only helps potatoes but all other Washington-grown crops.

This highlights how important it is for farmers, no matter what they grow or where they grow it, to work together to protect and advance the interests of agriculture.

“We need to have people telling our story, making sure other people understand what it is we face every single day and why it’s important that we are successful,” he said.

Newhouse explained that’s one of the things he tries to do every day in Congress when he meets and works with other legislators, and he highlighted some of the things he’s currently working on, such as expanding the ability of U.S., negotiators to make farm trade deals, keep the Snake River dams standing and get immigration and farm labor reform passed.

“Reform efforts on our ag labor laws are long overdue. We haven’t had major change since 1986, when Ronald Reagan was president,” he said.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which Newhouse co-sponsors, would give a path to citizenship to farmworkers who have lived and worked in the United States for 10 years, changes the H-2A visa program and creates an electronic verification process to certify whether someone can work legally. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in March 2021 but remains stalled in the Senate.

Kam Quarles, the CEO of the National Potato Council, said many are expecting Republicans will win back their House majority in this fall’s off-year elections, especially given how low President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are.

Quarles said when the party controlling the White House also controls both the House and Senate, they lose about 25-28 seats in the House in off-year elections.

“The real question is, if the Republicans take back the majority in the House, do they have a governable margin?” Quarles asked. “Or do they look like the Democrats and basically only have about three votes?”

The size of a majority determines how easy — or hard — it is to get legislation passed.

Quarles said the NPC is also very concerned about ensuring the quarantines of potatoes grown in Canada’s Prince Edward Island province, where potato wart fungus is endemic, remain a photo-sanitary issue and not become a subject of political haggling over accusations of protectionism.

“We sympathize with the growers of PEI,” Quarles said. “Whenever you have these quarantine challenges, regardless of where you’re talking about, it’s impactful for the growers,” he said.

But PEI growers who want to sell their potatoes to the United States need to keep the data to show their fields are clean, rather than make allegations of unfair trade practices, Quarles said.

“If you’re not testing, you don’t know where the disease is,” he said.

Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington Potato Commission, said a lot of the work the commission does is defensive, such as working against proposed state legislation that would expand buffer zones around rivers and streams that would effectively deprive farmers of arable land and take acreage out of production.

“It’s very concerning,” Voigt said. “All of agriculture in Washington is really united behind this.”

Voigt also said the potato commission is lobbying to try and get a harvest-time exemption from the state’s new farmworker overtime rules.

“We’re asking the legislature for essentially a 12-week window where we would be exempt for agriculture,” he said. “We’re struggling with it, we can’t get a hearing on the bill yet. But we’re working on it.”

Voigt also highlighted work the potato commission has done with Washington State University to move WSU’s potato research facilities following the demolition of Johnson Hall and the budgeted-for construction of a new research center, as well as making sure research positions are filled with qualified scientists.

“That’s often a struggle for a lot of agencies like USDA and WSU,” Voigt said.

Newhouse noted that even with all they face, from uncertain and unpredictable markets to tightening regulations, farmers are generally an optimistic group. Or else they wouldn’t farm.

“We always look forward to starting over every year and a good year and everything is going to fall together,” Newhouse said.

And he related a saying he once heard, that there’s always hope when snow on the mountains.

“Well, guess what? There’s snow on the mountains this year,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.