Uncertainty and the Life of a Farmer

This week we celebrate the beginning of another harvest season in the Touchet Valley. It's been a unique year, weather-wise (as they all are, of course), with a warm spell in March, a cooling spell in May and a rainy spell in June.

Dan Groom, in his front-page story this week, got a wide variety of reactions to our weather patterns from three dif- ferent local farmers. The weather varies greatly, even within our region, which makes the farmers' jobs even more of a challenge.

It has also been a unique year - in a not so good way - due to the discovery of a strain of genetically modified wheat on a farm in Oregon this spring. Some Asian customers have balked at purchasing any American wheat as a result of this discovery.

Imbert Mattee gives an overview of the ramifications for local farmers of this important issue.

It's also been a unique year in terms of prices for wheat, both because of weather issues for farmers in wheat-growing countries throughout the world, and also because of the GMO issue. Gary Hofer once again provides us with his expert view on this important topic in his column this week. Wheat farming has been a mainstay of the economy of the Touchet Valley and of Eastern Washington for 150 years. As much as the communities of Waitsburg and Dayton do the important work of trying to diversify our economies, our reliance on farming isn't going away.

As Imbert Matthee discusses in his column on this page, the technology of farming has advanced tremendously in the past century. All of this advancement has continually improved the productivity of farming over the past century.

From the introduction of horse-drawn combines nearly a century ago to today's GPS guided self-driven combines, farming has become highly automated, requiring a fraction of the labor per acre it once did.

The farmers in our region have done an excellent job of responding to market conditions and adapting to new tech- nology. We salute them as they head off to another harvest and face the uncertainty of another unique year for farming.