Jim Hunter's Letter to the Editor

This is great stuff, Jim! Thanks for all of your effort.

The Columbian 03.03.07

Patronize local farms

It's time for local consumers to show local farmers we care. For decades, farmers locally and nationally have been stretched on a rack between domestic policies that demand more and more in the areas of environmental and employment law, and a foreign policy that asks them to compete globally with countries that face few of the same regulations. Discount brands of apple juice are now imported from China.

Now our federal government seeks to condemn local farmland to replace wildlife habitat they are destroying elsewhere. And to what end? To dig a deeper channel so we can receive larger shipments of apple juice from a country whose environmental and human rights records are abysmal?

Meanwhile, Clark County's proposed growth plan seeks to annex 1,300 to 2,000 acres of agricultural resource land. Sadly, the county's "old time" farmers are so demoralized by government interference in their lives that they see no reason to fight it.

So it's time for consumers to step up. Tell Gov. Chris Gregoire and Rep. Brian Baird to stop governments from taking farmland. Tell Clark County commissioners to invest in local agriculture. Shop at Southwest Washington farm stands and markets (now in Battle Ground and Washougal). It may not all be organic, but it's not from China.

Jim Hunter
Brush Prairie