State Senate approves agriculture bills
jgiuntoli March 3rd, 2009
Monday, March 02 2009
OLYMPIA — Today the Senate passed two bills sponsored by Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, focused on easing regulations to provide more economic opportunities to Washington farmers.
Senate Bill 5350 allows the producers of turkeys and ducks to take advantage of an existing law that lets some poultry producers sell directly to the public.
Under a 2003 law, chicken producers may obtain permits from the Department of Agriculture for the slaughter and sale of 1,000 or fewer chickens per year directly to the ultimate consumer at the producer’s farm.
When some poultry producers cried foul because turkeys and ducks were not included in the original law, Haugen worked with them and the Washington State Department of Agriculture to come up with the proposed changes.
“It just doesn’t make sense that a poultry producer can sell 1,000 chickens but not 1,000 ducks or turkeys,” said Haugen, who hopes it will give more small-scale poultry producers the ability to provide a greater variety of product directly to consumers.
The Senate also passed Senate Bill 5797 to ease regulatory restrictions on the use of food byproducts in anaerobic digesters that run primarily on cow manure.
Last year, Haugen sponsored Senate Bill 6806 to provide a six year property and leasehold excise tax exemption to farmers who invest in machines called anaerobic digesters which compost — or “digest” — organic waste. Farms and ranches can use anaerobic digesters to recover methane from animal manure for producing electricity, heat and hot water. The process destroys methane — a potent greenhouse gas — and can greatly reduce manure odor.
The Senate Agriculture & Rural Economic Development Committee heard testimony from several proponents of biodigesters who explained how the technology can be even more efficient if manure is “co-digested” with food waste, which required legislation to ease Department of Ecology regulations on anaerobic digesters.
Both bills passed with broad bipartisan support and now move to the House for consideration.