Post-Harvest Handling Protocols

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

For more than a decade the WSU Small Farms Team and the Tilth Producers of Washington have worked together to bring growers, ag experts and others together to learn about the workings of sustainable and organic farms. These events, known as Farm Walks, have garnered much praise for being a great educational tool for those attending. The next farm walk will be on Monday, August 25 at the Local Roots family run vegetable farm in Duvall. Angela Anegon, Education Coordinator with Tilth Producers, expounds.

ANEGON: They are a very diversified vegetable farm that sells direct to consumers in Seattle area farmers markets. They also run a CSA and provide fresh produce for many restaurants in the Seattle area. So they’re handling a lot of produce and they want to share with us their process of post-harvest handling, as well as how they’ve worked to become Good Agriculture Practices certified.

Local Roots is a ten acre farm where they use no synthetic inputs and build soil fertility with cover crops and compost, while controlling weeds with a tractor and human powered tools. They work to minimize insect damage with spun-fabric row cover, but say that they do have to accept a certain amount of crop loss due to pests, disease, and bad weather.

Anegon explains how anyone wanting to attend a farm walk can register.

ANEGON: We prefer preregistration. They can register the day of - they’ll just have to pay an extra $5 for day-of registration. So they can go to our website at www.tilthproducers.org. They can also call our office at 206-632-7506.

That’s Washington Ag Today.

I’m Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.