Save Family Farming

Public records and an official complaint filed with the Washington State Department of Health–following an anti-farming activist group’s use of the department’s official logo on propaganda videos–have begun to uncover a troubling trend of public dollars being used to support political attacks on farmers in the state. Ben Tindall, Save Family Farming’s Executive Director, joins Dillon to share how he’s responding to the Department of Health, putting it on notice for allowing the extremist group We Are ELLA to use money paid by motorists and energy users and intended to fight climate change to instead fund false accusations against farming.

Most food grown in Washington needs to be kept cool before it ends up on our plates, so refrigeration systems are critical for food and farming production across the state. While almost all farmers and others years ago changed storage refrigeration equipment to technology that protects the Earth’s ozone layer, regulators now fear the chemicals in these newer systems are a global warming risk. Because of this, lawmakers have clamped down on cold storage facilities and pushed them to convert to different refrigeration technology–yet again. Emily Merk, the storage manager for an Othello, Washington-area onion warehouse, and the communications coordinator for the North American Potato Storage Organization (NAPSO), tells Dillon not only are the new rules strict, but they’ve been rolled out on a short timeline, posing huge challenges–and costs in the millions–for food and farming facilities, at a time when many farms are already barely surviving.

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 leaders to make changes to help WA farming survive.

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, Washington State Water Resources Association Executive Director, joins Dillon with details.

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 United Stockgrowers of America, or R-CALF USA, joins Dillon with an outside take on Washington State’s anti-farming actions, and how farmers and ranchers can fight back.

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 Columbia River system.

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 salmon recovery, including some that rarely make the headlines like harbor seal predation, ocean warming and overfishing in international waters. Schuyler says good relationships between tribes, farming, and other parts of the community are crucial to a holistic approach to recovering salmon–one that doesn’t get high-centered on a single controversial issue that drives conflict and takes away from other important aspects of recovery.

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 details on how the flawed plan would put farms’ futures at risk and leave farmworkers vulnerable to coercion.

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 troubling history with farming in the state, including the widely-criticized What’s Upstream campaign, the EPA’s falsified-science attack on Lower Yakima Valley dairies, and other anti-farm actions. The farming community is expressing its deep distrust of McLerran as Seattle City Light, the 9th largest public utility in the U.S. that he now leads, attempts to federally re-license its major hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River while avoiding costly fish-passage upgrades by instead converting farmland to fish habitat.

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 consider the plan’s true impacts and likely negative consequences for workers as well as farms.

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 update on the massive fines and even secret criminal investigation into the Kings, as well as insight into how she was able to get federal officials’ attention with the situation.

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 opportunities for everyone to get involved in farming advocacy.

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 them.

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 look at potential careers here in the local community. Businesses wanting to participate in any way can get more information and connect with Ellie here.

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 the prices dairy farmers–currently struggling with low returns–receive for their milk.

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 solve the problem, and how the state continues to dig in its heels with little explanation.

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 manage the river and stop what’s becoming a terrible pattern.

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 begin farming in Wapato, Washington. He joins Dillon to talk about the new film and grappling with preserving his family’s farm in the face of escalating regulations and overwhelming expenses.

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 far has already produced two locally-available photo books, called Old Barns of Whatcom County and Old Barns of Whatcom County, Volume 2.

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 U.S. Department of Justice’s abusive legal games that have already pushed multiple longtime family farms out of business, apparently with no end in sight.

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 Potato Conference as part of the show.

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 we can do more to be aware of farmers this holiday season.

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 troubling revelations were revealed through public records requests, and what the exorbitant sum of taxpayer dollars means for the credibility of the EPA's case.

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.

Despite the crippling uncertainty Whatcom County farmers and other water users are facing in the state’s water rights adjudication lawsuit there, a top Washington state expert says there is hope for a resolution to the unfolding crisis. Tom Tebb, the former director of the state’s Office of the Columbia River joins Dillon ahead of his address at Whatcom Family Farmers’ 2025 Farmer Rally to preview what he plans to share about a better path forward for Whatcom water.

In a bizarre turn of events, a Yakima, WA-based anti-farming activist nonprofit required attendees to a recent screening of their propaganda film to disclose their occupation, subsequently charging anyone listing themself as a dairy farmer $535.38 for a ticket, while all others could get a ticket for free. Ben Tindall, Executive Director of Save Family Farming, joins Dillon with details on the apparent attempt to block dairy farmers from attending the Nov. 7 film screening at Sunnyside’s Grand Cinemas Yakima Valley, asking what the activist group may be trying to hide with the puzzling move.

Protecting Whatcom County farming and promoting a settlement to the state’s Whatcom water adjudication lawsuit are the goals of a recently unveiled proposal from County Councilman Ben Elenbaas. Elenbaas, a 4th-generation Whatcom County farmer, joins Dillon with details on the changes he wants to make to a foundational county plan that sets the county’s growth agenda for decades to come. Save Family Farming local affiliate Whatcom Family Farmers recently released a public statement in support of Elenbaas’ proposal, saying they could help mark a path forward in the contentious water rights adjudication that’s cast dark clouds over local farming’s future in Whatcom County.

Farmers and many others across the Pacific Northwest and beyond have followed a unique, regional weather blog over the last more than three decades. Its followers, or “patrons” in The Weather Café parlance, have made its twice-weekly posts part of their weekly routine, relying on its insights for weather-affected planning, particularly when the possibility of major storms or other weather events are predicted. Rufus La Lone, the forecaster behind the blog, joins Dillon the day after his last forecast post, after announcing on Oct. 15 he was retiring from the project. They talk not just about the final two-week weather outlook, but also reflect on 31 years of The Weather Café, including some of the major storms and weather events covered, the blog’s unique approach, and how it became a fixture in the lives of tens of thousands of people across the region.

President Donald Trump’s move to allow more cheap beef from Argentina into the United States sparked a swift backlash from U.S. cattle ranchers. Chelsea Hajny, Washington Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice President, joins Dillon with the Washington state ranchers’ reaction to the move and Trump’s upsetting comments about it.

Accusing dairies in the Lower Yakima Valley of polluting groundwater, the U.S. Department of Justice, working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, hired University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist Dr. Rebecca Larson to make a legal declaration in support of their court case against the dairies. But Stu Turner, an environmental contamination investigation expert, shows how Larson’s declaration amounts to bad science, and joins Dillon with details not only on how she got it wrong, but on the truth about the dairies currently in DOJ’s and EPA’s crosshairs.

In vitro fertilization technology is changing the way farmers improve their herd’s genetics, allowing them to raise the healthiest, best-producing animals much more quickly than traditional breeding. And now Whatcom County is home to a facility where farmers can bring cows to use this technology. McKenzie Corpron, an embryologist with Trans Ova Genetics, joins Dillon with details on the company’s new satellite center housed at Mark Van Mersbergen’s former Lynden-area dairy, Markwell Holsteins.

The Washington state farming community is speaking out against a new state plan to force large forested buffers on non-fish-bearing streams in working forest lands. Farmers recognize the dangerous precedent the unscientific proposal would create for forcing similar buffers on farmland, ultimately harming fish while pushing countless family farms in our region out of business (read Save Family Farming’s earlier letter to state officials about this bad idea here). Dr. Elaine Oneil, Executive Director of the Washington Farm Forestry Association, joins Dillon again with more details and new ways for people to tell Olympia to stop this misguided plan before an expected decision in November. You can listen to Dillon’s earlier conversation with Dr. Oneil and Whatcom County small family farm forest owner Tom Westergreen here.

Many people, including news reporters, have been confused by recent layoff notices from Washington farms creating suspicion of major farm closures. But what most don’t realize is that the layoffs are the routine annual conclusion of seasonal farm jobs that haven’t required such notices until state lawmakers changed the rules this spring. Erik Zavala, Director of Field Staff for Wenatchee-based cooperative Blue Bird, tells Dillon even though the layoffs are routine and expected by the affected employees, the new reporting requirement has caught many people–even within the farming community–completely off guard.

Ongoing drought conditions have led to water shortages in the Yakima River Basin severe enough that water to many farms has been shut off. Sunnyside-area dairy farmer Jason Sheehan, who also serves on the board of the affected Roza Irrigation District, joins Dillon and Whatcom Family Farmers Executive Director Fred Likkel to explain what the shutoffs have meant for farming, and how the collaborative Yakima Basin Integrated Plan has helped tribes, farmers and others share and protect the dwindling water supply.

Most people probably don’t know that Washington state is number two in the nation for producing organic food. And demand for organic food nationally and globally continues to grow. But Melissa Spear, the Executive Director of Seattle-based Tilth Alliance that advocates and assists many organic growers as part of its focus on supporting Washington’s local and sustainable food movement, tells Dillon that WA organic growers also face many challenges and uncertainty right now. This episode is part two of a two-part conversation. You can find part one here.

Most people probably don’t know that Washington state is number two in the nation for producing organic food. And demand for organic food nationally and globally continues to grow. But Melissa Spear, the Executive Director of Seattle-based Tilth Alliance that advocates and assists many organic growers as part of its focus on supporting Washington’s local and sustainable food movement, tells Dillon that WA organic growers also face many challenges and uncertainty right now. This episode is part one of a two-part conversation. You can find part two here.

Whatcom County is known for its dairy, berry and potato farms, but the area boasts a long list of other kinds of farms and specialty crops, including tree nuts. Jon De Lange of Everson, WA-based Washington Hazelnut joins Dillon with details on how he grows, harvests and prepares his crop for market, including creating the tasty hazelnut treats his farm sells direct to consumers on its website, washingtonhazelnutllc.com.

The process of harvesting field corn for dairy cattle feed has evolved extensively in recent decades, as farmers here in Washington and around the Pacific Northwest face increasingly tight margins, high labor costs and other market pressures. Duane Scholten, owner of Lynden, WA-based Scholten’s Equipment, joins Dillon with a look at the equipment and technology farmers are using this fall as our region’s corn harvest gets underway.

In the wake of the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, it’s not just other political figures that worry about threats of political violence–farmers do, too. Dillon talks about the recent history of radicalized political activists targeting farms, and explains why farmers live under the threat of protests, defamation, sabotage and political violence from people influenced by the overheated rhetoric pushed by farming’s most angry critics.

“Animal feeding operations are increasing Whatcom’s air pollution, study finds,” read the initial headline on a misleading article in Bellingham-based Cascadia Daily News, obscuring the fact that the study it referenced did not make such a finding, and that a series of faulty assumptions led to this troubled reporting. Fred Likkel, Whatcom Family Farmers’ Executive Director, joins Dillon with a closer look at some of the mistakes this local news report made, and why bad reporting can cause such a problem for farming.

Despite fully funding its own legal needs after launching a massive lawsuit against all water users in Whatcom County, the state has dialed back its support for the 30,000-plus Whatcom residents it sued. Fred Likkel, Executive Director of Whatcom Family Farmers, joins Dillon with the latest developments in the controversial court case, including how the state is legally required to assist the residents it has dragged into court.

Ryan Mensonides’ dream of providing his farm’s top-quality dairy products direct to the community was just starting to take off this summer, when a truck crash near Enumclaw, WA changed everything. Mensonides joins Dillon with a call for the state to take an active role in quickly finding solutions to try to salvage the area’s suddenly-suffering economy, including his new Mount Rainier Creamery & Market in nearby Buckley, WA.

Refrigeration is an important capacity many farms need when they’re producing fresh food, but new Washington state restrictions on refrigeration systems could cripple farms with massive cost increases. Ben Ingalls with IVI joins Dillon with the background on the new laws and what they’ll mean for farming in the region.

A Yakima, WA-based activist group recently published anti-farm videos on its social media feeds that featured the Washington State Department of Health’s official logo, raising troubling questions about possible tax dollars used for political purposes. Save Family Farming has filed an official complaint with the WA Attorney General’s Office calling for an investigation into possible state sponsorship of the nonprofit “We Are ELLA” group’s anti-farm propaganda. Kenton Gartrell, a farmer and rancher in the Yakima area, tells Dillon that he’s been following the activist group nearly since its recent inception, and this wouldn’t be the first time the young organization has already run afoul of rules against possible politicking on the public dime.

Discredited labor activist Rosalinda Guillén of Community to Community Development recently repeated false and offensive attacks on farms hiring guest workers via the federal H-2A visa program Farms have been turning to the expensive and highly-regulated program as a last resort to help cover labor gaps resulting from the worsening farm labor shortage. Enrique Gastelum, a former farmworker who’s now CEO of the Worker And Farmer Labor Association (WAFLA), joins Dillon to discuss not just how wildly inaccurate Guillén’s suggestions are that the guest worker program is unregulated and bad for workers, but also how offensive her comments are that compare the program to a “quasi-slave labor force.”

It’s no surprise that during a dry summer, people are talking about water issues, including many that involve the farming community. Ben Tindall, Save Family Farming’s Executive Director, joins Dillon for an update on the advocacy work the organization is focused on currently and into coming weeks and months.

State leaders have said they would provide support for the 30,000-plus water users it has sued in its Whatcom water rights adjudication court case as they navigate the extremely complex issues the state has forced on them. But Bill Clarke, Olympia-based attorney for the Ag Water Board of Whatcom County, tells Dillon that various aspects of the funding to support water users and the court processhave been either reduced, cut entirely, or vetoed by Gov. Bob Ferguson. This, despite the fact that the state continues to fully fund the other side of the lawsuit: its own Washington State Department of Ecology.