Farmers are used to challenges. There is always something that makes their job more difficult than the year before, or even the day before. But then it usually gets better again, at least for a time.
But, Save Family Farming’s Dillon Honcoop says the state of Washington has created an environment that is always challenging.
“As I heard one expert on this say just earlier today, this isn’t a cyclical thing, and that’s what a lot of people think. Well, farming has its highs and lows. It always has. But this is not a cyclical issue. This is a structural issue of what’s happening here in Washington state.”
And most of those challenges, Honcoop says, come from the state’s Capitol.
“And when you have that as background pressure already, you get something like trade wars with tariffs, or something going on with a conflict in Iran and high fuel prices, suddenly farming isn’t in a place where it can soak up any extra costs. And so those costs are pushing more farms out of business.”
Honcoop says it’s not like it’s a down year and we’re going to bounce back.
“We have multiple things down at the same time with, sadly, no end in sight as they continue to decline.”
Honcoop says we all need to get more on board with the messaging.
“Across the board, right or left, Democrat or Republican, this needs to be taken more seriously. It doesn’t necessarily set some of the long-term, I guess, tropes that are out there about politics in Washington state. And so, we all need to be thinking seriously about this.”