Farmers Get Warning From State Official Agriculture Forced To Deal With Changes In Water, Pest Control

The state’s agriculture chief put out a strongly worded warning to farmers Thursday that looming pesticide and water issues pose grave threats to their livelihoods.

“There is a basic point that without the tools to deal with pests in agriculture, you will not have an agricultural industry,” Jim Jesernig told several hundred growers gathered at the Washington State University Spillman Farm field day. “That point is being missed.”

Perhaps as important as the message was the messenger: a liberal Gov. Mike Lowry appointee from an urban district, whose farm experience does not go far beyond leasing out the family wheat ranch in Walla Walla County.

But the former Senate majority leader’s remarks fit in well with the crowd, echoing sentiments that have swirled through the state farm community after the Alar scare of 1989 and the more recent talk of river drawdowns to save endangered salmon.

On top of the usual challenges of poor commodity prices and the weather, farmers face the two-fold pressures of seeing certain pesticides pulled off the market and of having courts order changes in the use of irrigation water, Jesernig said.

He compared the challenges to those of Henry Rono, a former Washington State University distance runner and teammate who used to practice by running up the 2,000-foot Lewiston grade straight up.

Jesernig, whose agency regulates pesticide use in the state, said farmers of so-called minor crops stand to lose the use of several key pesticides because their manufacturers don’t want to go through the expense of having them recertified by the federal government.

Such pesticides act as “scalpels,” he said, letting farmers target specific pests. Without them, farmers must use broad-spectrum chemicals that kill a variety of plants, insects or fungi at once.

Urging passage of federal legislation that would speed up approval of minor crop posticides, he said: “We have a situation that in my opinion is at a crisis stage.”

“If we can’t change this law on the federal level,” he said, “… we’re going to keep having these kinds of crises into the future and agriculture’s simple ability to produce will be stopped.

”Farmers must also be wary of looming changes in water policy, said Jesernig, who urged them to have a hand in the changes instead of simply saying, “no and hell no.

”He encouraged farmers to get involved in the Washington Ag Communications Coalition, a fledgling public relations effort aimed at changing public perceptions.

No one group has the money for such a project, he said, “but collectively it can be done,” Jesernig said. “And I’m not talking about rhetoric. I’m talking about pure quality policy. It’s got to be driven in. Otherwise, agriculture into the future is going to have decisions based on rhetoric, emotionalism and headlines.”