Make Your Voice Heard On The Issues Important To Your Business. Here’s How. [Opinion]
November 4, 2014 
Estimates on the final 2015 Pacific Northwest apple crop are in, and the news is both good and not so good. On the plus side for growers in Washington and Oregon, this is shaping up to be another record crop – 165 million boxes according to estimates at this year’s USApple Outlook Conference.
The not-so-good news? Well, if you’re a Midwest or Eastern apple grower, the sheer size of the Western crop is a concern, of course. But even Pacific Northwest growers have to wonder if that number isn’t a little more than they can handle. Excellent growing conditions combined with more and more high-density plantings delivered so many apples there reportedly aren’t enough workers to pick them or bins to put them in or places to sell all of them.
Finding harvest labor, getting funding to invest in new harvest and storage technology, developing new markets – all of these are areas that most of us look to the government for help with, or at the very least, for help in removing the roadblocks to letting our industry solve these problems ourselves.
We know how well that’s working.
As the American public has grown increasingly separated from the farm over the last couple of generations, ag’s voice is represented less and less in the making of laws and regulations. We need to turn that trend around, but it often seems like we’re just shouting into the wind.
Our GenNext Growers would like to do something about that. One of the common requests from the members of our GenNext initiative has been for help in learning how to be more effective in speaking out about issues that are important to their businesses.
The first in our new series of GenNext Growers Webcasts is available now on-demand and it delivers hands-on advice on just this topic.
Frank Giles, editor of our sister publication, Florida Grower, sat down for a conversation with Florida Representative Ben Albritton and Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association president Mike Stuart. He got an insider’s perspective on how you can cut through all the noise and take a message about the things that are important to agriculture — but especially, things are important to your own individual business — directly to the people who can do something about it.
Often, you can effectively deliver that message yourself. Other times it may be best to use the power of numbers and work with other growers through your local, state, regional or national association to represent all of our interests.
Whether you’re a GenNext Grower or you’ve been in the business for 50 years, the things you need to run a profitable and sustainable business are just as important as the needs of other often-competing interests. Maybe even more so.
Take the time to speak up and share your story. The GenNext Growers Webcast series will be a good place to start.