Save Family Farming

The latest data is painting a clearer picture of what Washington’s farming community has already been feeling in recent years: farming in this state is struggling more than ever. Ben Tindall, Executive Director of Save Family Farming, joins Dillon with more on what the statewide farming advocacy group is working on to elevate the awareness of the growing problem, and ultimately spur state le...

The Whatcom County Dairy Ambassador and her alternate are about to wrap up their term and pass on the torch. Ambassador Maddie DeLange and Alternate Sarah Van Berkum join Dillon to share what it’s like to advocate for dairy farming and dairy products in schools and at events all over the local community.

Five to 10 years in prison was the penalty lawmakers in Olympia considered enacting for people who break certain water or air quality laws in Washington state. Farmers feared a mistake on the farm could be mischaracterized as a deliberate criminal act under the proposed change. Thankfully, the misguided proposal failed to move forward in Olympia’s current session, and John Stuhlmiller, Washi...

For 10 years, the Whatcom Conservation District has been hosting the Whatcom Farm Expo. Alexi Guddal, District Outreach & Education Specialist, joins Dillon with details on the annual local event that’s grown bigger than ever.

The State of Washington’s false accusations and abusive tactics against King Ranch caught the eye of top federal officials, including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and other state attacks on farming are also getting the attention of leading national authorities. Shad Sullivan, a 5-th generation Texas rancher and farming advocate with the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund U...

In their quest to get rid of Columbia River dams, activists are suing to force a dam management plan that would create river conditions deadly to endangered salmon. Adam Ratliff, Executive Director of the Center for Sustainability and Working Rivers, joins Dillon to explain anti-dam activists’ real motives behind the latest bizarre turn in the ongoing battle over the federal dams on the Colu...

With the political controversies and community conflict that have too often surrounded the issue of salmon recovery, many in the Washington farming community want to know: what do salmon actually need to recover and thrive? Scott Schuyler, a tribal elder and the Natural & Cultural Resources Policy Representative for the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, joins Dillon to explain how many issues affect...

A troubling proposal for “card check” farmworker unionization and collective bargaining –that would harm farms as well as farmworkers –is still alive and moving in the 2026 legislative session currently underway in Olympia. Scott Dilley, the WA-based Worker and Farmer Labor Association’s Public Affairs Director, joins Dillon with an update on the process and more deta...

Farmers are asking questions after Seattle’s mayor has abruptly replaced Skagit River dam operator Seattle City Light’s leader with anti-agriculture lawyer Dennis McLerran, who boasts connections with a laundry list of manipulative and unethical attacks on farming in Washington state. Jay Gordon with the Washington State Dairy Federation joins Dillon to detail McLerran’s troublin...

Some experts are warning that the new card-check collective bargaining system proposed in Washington state won’t be the good deal for workers that proponents promise. Alma Torres-Jones, a former farmworker who now operates her own family’s orchard, tells Dillon she fears that both farmers and farmworkers aren’t aware of the quickly-moving proposal, and won’t have time to co...

President Trump’s Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, is coming down hard on Washington State’s Department of Ecology for its attack on an Eastern Washington rancher. And now even the EPA’s Seattle chief Emma Pokon is adding to the federal criticism of Ecology’s abusive approach. Toni Meacham, one of the attorneys helping King Ranch in the fiasco, joins Dillon with an up...

The pressures on family farming in Washington state and across the country continue to mount, but the urban public remains largely unaware of the realities farmers face. Ben Tindall, Save Family Farming’s Executive Director, joins Dillon to encourage anyone interested in preserving a future for family farming in our state to speak out in support, committing to providing more and more opportu...

A slate of proposals up for debate in Olympia would roll out a new system of unionization and collective bargaining for farmworkers in Washington state. But, farmworker advocates Enrique Gastelum, of the Worker and Farmer Labor Association, and Jesse Rojas, formerly of Pick Justice, tell Dillon the devil is in the details, with aspects of the plan that would actually harm farmworkers, not help the...

Hundreds of Whatcom County high school students will get to learn more about what their futures could look like at Whatcom Family Farmers’ upcoming career fair focusing on agriculture and the trades. But, event organizer Ellie Steensma Corbin tells Dillon the event needs more local businesses to step up and host a booth or even educational presentations to give the students a well-rounded lo...

The announcement of a completely revamped “food pyramid” from the Trump administration’s US Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is putting a new focus on milk and dairy. Lee Mielke, longtime dairy markets columnist and commentator, joins Dillon with details on how the new federal health advice elevates dairy foods, and what it could mean for markets and th...

An 85-year-old lifelong Washington state farmer near Spokane could lose his entire farm if the Washington State Department of Ecology gets its way. The Department of Ecology is threatening to take Bob Greiff’s Deer Park-area property in an ongoing dispute over a minor water rights technicality. Greiff joins Dillon to explain how he’s tried to do everything Ecology has asked in order to...

Homes, businesses and farms in Whatcom County are reeling after sustaining devastating damage in the second major Nooksack River flood in four years. Alexandra Williams, a Deming-area blueberry farmer and President of the Whatcom County Farm Bureau, joins Dillon to share the impacts this month’s flood had on her family’s farm, and ask hard questions about what authorities are doing to...

All-new documentary “Farming on the Brink” provides an unfiltered look at the increasing challenges confronting local farming, particularly the rising costs necessary to sustain operations. Launched publicly last week, this upcoming film chronicles the journey of Manuel Imperial, a committed second-generation farmer whose family immigrated from the Philippines over 40 years ago and beg...

Whatcom County has a long and storied history of farming, and what farming looks like in the county now is much different than many decades ago, often with only old barns remaining as landmarks of the farms that once were. Jeff Barclay, a retiree with a longtime love of photography, joins Dillon with details on his passion project to document all the old barns in the county–an effort that so...

Embarrassing revelations from internal documents are exposing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s true motive behind legal attacks against three Washington state dairies in the Lower Yakima Valley–and it’s not protecting public health or the environment. Jay Gordon, Policy Director at the Washington State Dairy Federation, joins Dillon to call out the ugly truth behind the EPA’s and...

It’s the 15th year of the Lynden Ag Show , and over 500 farmers, farm support businesses, university researchers and others are expected to attend the show Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 3-4. Chris Benedict, Professor and Regional Extension Specialist with Washington State University, joins Dillon with details on the event, which includes the Washington Small Fruit Conference and the Northwest...

Even though we just celebrated Thanksgiving, most of us didn’t think much about the struggles that farmers–who grew the food that we ate–are facing not just to produce food, but to stay in business at all. Pam Lewison, Director of the Center for Agriculture at the Washington Policy Center, joins Dillon with a breakdown of those pressures and struggles that she shared in a  recent article , and how...

Not only does her legal declaration against Washington dairy farms have  major scientific problems , but new documents show University of Wisconsin-Madison environmental professor Rebecca Larson was  paid over $200,000  to produce the flawed testimony for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s lawsuit. Ben Tindall, Save Family Farming’s Executive Director, joins Dillon with a look at how the t...

Local farmers are calling out the Washington State Department of Ecology for adding to local confusion about its Whatcom water rights adjudication lawsuit with a recent attempt to correct “rumors” and “misinformation.” Fred Likkel, Whatcom Family Farmers’ Executive Director, joins Dillon with a breakdown of Ecology’s inaccuracies and an update on the ongoing adjudication court case.

Recent data shows Washington state’s net farm income has plummeted to among nearly the worst in the nation, following years of state measures ratcheting up a long list of farming costs. Randy Fortenbery, an agricultural economist at Washington State University, joins Dillon with the data and what it indicates may be involved in the big change.