WACD Reading List

It was an unusual confession from a CEO. “During my last staff meeting we must have spent 40% of the time talking about nothing,” Jorge said. “We were just hanging out, shooting the breeze, like the old days. It was one of the most enjoyable, productive calls we’ve had since we shut the office.”

Starting this year, all producers and landowners participating or applying to participate in certain NRCS conservation programs must complete form CCC-902, Farm Operating Plan, according to a press release from USDA.

It may be a slow process, but one that has many in the farming community concerned; the loss of farmland due to urban sprawl. According to the American Farmland Trust, between 2001-2016 eleven million acres of farmland was removed from production nationwide. That comes out to roughly 2,000 acres per day.

Wealth tax, capital gains tax, payroll tax — what’s the difference? We break it down.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will be conducting a prescribed burn next week in the north Potholes area of the Columbia Wildlife Area. The goal of the burn is to improve habitat for the northern leopard frog.

It’s been a little over six months in the development, but the Ellensburg City Council approved on first reading to create Diversity, Equity and Inclusion commission to develop ideals on how to make the city more inclusive in its lifestyle.

Former Tacoma Mayor and current U.S. Rep Marilyn Strickland will host a conversation with Olympia author, community leader, and former state agency head Merritt Long at 6 p.m. Thursday on Facebook Live. They will discuss the experiences he shared in his new memoir, “My View From the Back of the Bus” as well pressing issues facing the Black community in Washington and across the nation.

Higher commodity prices are putting cash in farmers’ pockets and as a result, farmland values are headed upward this year

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered permanent shifts in how and where people work. Businesses are planning for a future where more people are working from home, traveling less for business, or replacing workers with robots.

However, the concept of unconscious bias training is still part of the foundational effort many organizations made in 2020. They began by appointing DEI practitioners to lead the charge. Hiring for all levels of diversity, equity, and inclusion professionals increased more than 90% over last year, according to LinkedIn data.

In late January, the Washington Invasive Species Council approved an updated version of the statewide invasive species strategy. Justin Bush, Executive Coordinator for the Washington Recreation and Conservation Office, said at this point, they’ve only seen old invaders rearing their ugly heads.

Our latest research, in Nature: Human Behavior, explores one reason for why noble intentions only go so far: Gender inequities are baked into the structure of the informal recruitment process.

Two Thurston County farmers petitioned the Washington Supreme Court on Tuesday, claiming the State Conservation Commission should pay for taking a shortcut to remove them as conservation district supervisors.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars lost. Financial and emotional ruin. And in some cases, suicide. These are some of the outcomes business email compromise (BEC) attacks have on victims...

"...managers must become aware of the workload shift that occurs when they invest in new IT products."

With about a month left in winter, Washington’s mountain snowpack is close to or above normal levels.

“Washington is seen as a great agriculture state, and it is, but that industry is dominated by white farmers and ranchers. Only about 90 of the state’s 63,000 or so producers are Black, while fewer than 1 percent are American Indian or Alaska Native, 1.37 percent are Asian, and 4.66 percent are Latinx. 97 percent of our producers are white."

Trey Hill uses clover, lentils, and rye as cover crops, and radishes and turnips for root crops as sequestration and regeneration agents in his corn field. Recently Hill’s farm of 10,000 acres sold its carbon credits for $16.50 per ton, through a Seattle-based startup called Nori, which allows companies and individuals to buy carbon credits to offset their own carbon emissions.

If you are joining a meeting where people are different from you, whether in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexual orientation, ability, religion, age, language proficiency, socioeconomic background, education, degree of introversion, level of seniority, or other characteristics, then your identity can influence not only how others see you, but also how you see yourself.