Washington potato farmers head to the state capital for Potato Day

Potato farmers from across Washington state will travel to Olympia, Wash., to celebrate Potato Day on Feb. 21.

Staff from the Washington State Potato Commission will accompany farmers to Olympia to help hand out baked potatoes with all the fixings, according to a news release. 

Matt Harris, assistant executive director at the Washington State Potato Commission, said in the release that 1,600 potatoes are expected to be served that day. What isn’t served at the capitol building will be donated to a local food kitchen, he said.

“The most viable voice in Olympia is a farmer,” Chris Voigt, executive director at the Washington State Potato Commission, said in the release.

“The personal stories growers share with legislators resonate and are important,” Harris said in the release, noting that some of the biggest issues facing Washington potato farmers include the ag overtime law and riparian buffers on working lands. 

“What’s impacting growers today is understanding how to manage agricultural overtime when our perishable potato crop must be harvested in late fall before the first hard frost,” Harris said in the release. “Managing riparian habitat on working ag lands adjacent to bodies of water for salmon recovery is also a difficult challenge. We need sensible voluntary stewardship programs.”

For Washington farmers, the ag overtime law is problematic because many other states pay a low minimum wage with no overtime, the release said. Workers in Washington have one of the highest minimum wages across the nation at $15.74 per hour, the release said. 

For more information about the event, contact Harris at mharris@potatoes.com.