Agriculture

Business

Many of WA's most exclusive cherries are shipped abroad

Correspondent Anna King explains.

Environment

Washington's late-night luxury cherries

Summer cherry season is right around the corner. Literally… the fruit is making its way to your grocery store and farmers market right now. One Washington grower is pulling out all the stops to whip up an extra special batch of cherries. It means harvesting the fruit in the middle of the night in a greenhouse. Northwest News Network correspondent Anna King is here to tell us about the luxury cherry industry cropping up in the state.

Conservation group hopes to protect habitats, skiing, and affordable housing in WA's Methow Valley

An important wildlife corridor – and a key access point for cross-country skiers – could be parceled out and developed. But the Methow Conservancy is keeping it open to the public.

Black-led farming program in Seattle is being asked to uproot

Nurturing Roots is a Black led community farm that started in 2016 that’s based in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. It’s a group that’s also urged city leaders to put more land in the hands of Black farmers.

A Northwest dryland wheat farmer looks to the sky, contemplates the coming harvest

Even with all the rain and snow in California this winter, it’s been pretty dry in our region, especially in much of eastern Oregon and parts of eastern Washington.For wheat farmers, that means there could be some nail-biting months ahead.Chris Herron owns an eight-square-mile dryland farm in north Franklin County, Washington. Correspondent Anna King spent the day with him and produced this audio postcard.This transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Business

Proposed WA bill would raise threshold for farmworker overtime

This is the second year that farmworkers will be eligible for overtime. Right now, if they work past 48 hours they’ll get paid time and half. Next year they’ll be the same as everyone else - anything past 40 hours would count as overtime. But there’s new proposed legislation in Olympia that is trying to re-negotiate that.

Government

Ban foreign entities from buying Washington forest and farmland, lawmaker urges

Legislators in Washington are joining more than a dozen other states that are considering whether to restrict or ban foreign entities from buying farmland. The initial hearing on Olympia's version of the foreign ownership restrictions however drew more criticism than support on Tuesday.

Environment

How ancient seeds from the Fertile Crescent could help save us from climate change

Some of the tens of thousands of seeds stored at a facility in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley may hold keys to helping the planet's food supply adapt to climate change. Many seeds were saved from Syria's war.