Wheat All About It

You’ve attended the long range forecasts of the man known as “The Weatherman”—Art Douglas—for decades. Now listen to “The Other Weatherman”. Jeremy Wolf is a meteorologist at the National Weather Service located outside Spokane in Airway Heights. He sat down with Scott Yates, director of communications and producer relations for the Washington Grain Commission, to discuss the reasons behind last winter and spring’s abundance of moisture. Hint: it all started southwest of the Hawaiian islands.

In “Shepherding a Grain Connection,” Scott Yates, director of communications and producer relations talks with farmer and seedsman Fred Fleming as well as other individuals associated with Shepherd’s Grain, a flour company that originated in Eastern Washington and touts soil, farm and farmer sustainable in addition to a traceability. Listen to a millennial explain why knowing where food comes from is so important to her generation.

In “There’s Nothing Basic About It!”, Michael Neff, Washington State University professor of crop biotechnology, and Scott Yates, director of communications and producer relations with the Washington Grain Commission, discuss the need to continue to make basic research a priority. Neff makes clear that Crispr Cas 9, the gene editing technique he describes as a game changer with the potential to revolutionize plant breeding, grew out of simple scientific curiosity.

A snowy winter and wet early spring has set Eastern Washington wheat farmers up for a good harvest, but the weather--plus the 14 week closure of the river system to repair locking systems--wreaked havoc on transporting grain into Portland with cargo ship loading delays stretching for as long as a month. In "One For the Record Books!" Scott Yates, director of communications and producer relations for the Washington Grain Commission, visits the Pacific Northwest Grain & Feed Association meeting in Spokane and speaks with three grain professionals about the delays and their impact, as well as how companies that depend on the river, survived the three month shutdown.

Wheat’s Ups and Downs, devotes its first segment to a presentation given by Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission at Farm Forum held in Spokane last February. He looks at present and future opportunities for the Pacific Northwest’s wheat industry in the Philippines, Japan, Korea and Latin America. The second segment, from the same meeting, is an investigation of the poor wheat fundamentals farmers are facing now. Randy Fortenbery, Washington State University agricultural economist who holds the Tom Mick Endowed Chair in Small Grains Economics, delivers the bad news.