Supporting BIOAg Program at WSU

June 26, 2005

Representative Kelli Linville
P.O. Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504

Dear Representative Linville:

We are writing to extend our deep gratitude for your support for the Biologically-Intensive and Organic Agriculture (BIOAg) Program at Washington State University (WSU), and for your strong leadership in the 2005 legislative session to secure funds for the program. We greatly appreciate that you made BIOAg one of your personal appropriations priorities, and your championing of this program within the legislature.

Our combined efforts are already beginning to bear fruit. We met recently with WSU administrators Dr. Ralph Cavalieri, Director of the Agricultural Research Center, and Dr. Linda Fox, Dean of Extension, and they committed to hiring a statewide coordinator for the BIOAg program by January of 2006. This position has been a priority of the Network, and we are thrilled to see it becoming a reality. The statewide BIOAg coordinator is critical to getting information on organic and sustainable farming techniques out to farmers and ranchers on the ground. We will have a representative on the search committee, which is forming now.

Once again, thank you for all of your efforts in the past session for sustainable agriculture and family farms. We also very much appreciate your offer to work with us leading up to and during the supplemental budget session to secure funding for BIOAg. We look forward to working with you to see the BIOAg program fully funded and implemented.

Sincerely,

Bonnie Rice, Director
Washington Sustainable Food & Farming Network

Tracy Wolpert, Chief Executive Officer
PCC Natural Markets

Marilynn Lynn, President
Tilth Producers of Washington

Jim Davis, President
Washington Farmers Union

Erika Schreder, Staff Scientist
Washington Toxics Coalition

Dennis Nicholson, Owner
Nicholson Orchards, Peshastin

Bob Gregson, Former Member of the Advisory Board
WSU College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Resource Sciences