The Spokesman-Review’s agriculture project ‘A Year in the Fields’ on display at fair

Washington farmers and the state’s diverse agricultural industry will be on display at the Spokane County Interstate Fair beginning today.

The Spokesman-Review’s “A Year in the Fields” project, featuring farmers who grow everything from wheat to oysters, will be displayed today in the North Pavilion next to the newspaper’s Northwest Passages stage.

And don’t worry: The late summer rains won’t hurt this slice of agriculture. The reporting project is under a roof and featured on more than a half-dozen television screens, where reporters talk about their stories along with videos about the planting and harvesting of crops.

The newspaper’s staff began this ambitious reporting and photography project in the spring of 2017 and the stories were published until the summer of 2018, earning national and regional awards.

Late last, year the project was collected into a 160-page book called “A Year in the Fields: The State of the Washington Farmer.”

Fair visitors to the pavilion may be rewarded with a free poster featuring the photography that helped tell the story of the state’s agriculture.