Washington farmers and food processors contribute more than $50 billion to the state’s economy, or about 12 percent of the economic activity overall. Eastern Washington is famous for crops such as apples, wheat and hops, that are exported all over the world. But nearly half of the state’s farms are smaller operations, located west of the Cascades. More than a thousand of them make their livelihoods working the fertile soil of the Skagit Valley, where a river of the same name provides water and