The Farming Show

"Washington had a unique opportunity to return salmon to our streams and rivers and build a model for moving forward on thorny and critical environmental issues. But Gov. Jay Inslee's opposition doomed it.," Bill Bryant writes in a new column for the Inlander. The Nisqually River Foundation founding board member, former Seattle Port commissioner and 2016 WA gubernatorial candidate joins Dillon to talk about the deeper harm Inslee's actions are causing.

Today's Whatcom Farm Expo features dozens of farms, suppliers, agencies and others hosting exhibits and providing educational talks for anyone interested in small farming. Aneka Sweeney, Whatcom Conservation District Education & Outreach Coordinator,

An advocate for Washington's Latino community says Hispanic farm workers are less likely to engage in Washington state's political process after state Senators disrespected and discounted the testimony of a dozen workers who testified before the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee.

Maia Espinoza, founder of the Center for Latino Leadership, joins Dillon and shares how she was in the room when state Sens. Rebecca Saldaña and Karen Keiser suggested the workers didn't understand the issue on which they were testifying, and allowed a biased and editorialized translation of workers testifying in Spanish.

Despite a bi-partisan effort--embraced by tribes and farmers--to create a program to help protect streams and salmon, WA Gov. Jay Inslee's opposition to the concept appears to have killed the proposal.

Fred Likkel, Whatcom Family Farmers Executive Director, joins Dillon with details on the political confusion that remains after the broadly-supported bill was torpedoed in Olympia.

Dillon shares audio from the Feb. 9 WA state Senate Labor & Commerce Committee hearing on SB 5476, where Sen. Rebecca Saldaña mistranslated and editorialized farm workers' testimony, effectively suggesting they didn't understand the issue on which they were testifying.

Will Honea, Skagit County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, joins Dillon with an update on the ongoing battle by farmers, tribes and other local interests working together to stave off a greenwashed land grab by Seattle City Light.

Incensed after Hispanic farm workers were disrespected by State Senators Rebecca Saldaña and Karen Keiser during the Feb. 9 Senate Labor & Commerce Committee hearing on agricultural overtime, Enrique Gastelum tells Dillon his farm worker father would be outraged. Gastelum, head of farm labor organization wafla, called Saldaña's and Keiser's handling of the hearing "disgraceful," calling out how the state Senators not only suggested the farm workers testifying were ignorant on the topic of the hearing, but also deliberately mistranslated and editorialized their testimony while denying access to the certified translator in the room.

Small, Latino-owned farms and their workers are reeling after Washington state's new agricultural overtime law hurt workers' earning potential during busy seasons, and made it hard for small farms with labor-intensive crops to stay in business. Maria Rodriguez, CEO of Vizions Economic Development Center in Yakima, which runs the Center for Latino farmers, joins Dillon to explain how a law intended to help workers is actually creating new challenges for both workers and small farmers.

Farm workers are being harmed by Washington state's new agricultural overtime law, and former farm worker Enrique Gastelum, now head of farm labor organization wafla, says state lawmakers need to do something. Gastelum talks with Dillon ahead of a Feb. 9 hearing over a new proposal being heard by the Washington state Senate Labor & Commerce committee that would begin to undo that harm.

While Washington state’s new mandate for overtime pay for farm workers was supposed to benefit workers, it’s had the opposite effect. Dillon talks with Maggie Pérez, an employee at an Eastern Washington apple and cherry farm, to learn what she is hearing from many of her co-workers about how the new law has affected them, and why they’re deeply frustrated with Olympia over the change.