The Blog

Dan Newhouse, Director, Department of Agriculture

03/19/10

We have a wonderful new tool at the Department of Agriculture that is helping farmers sell their products directly to consumers and create new jobs. Our staff has just published a handbook on regulations and strategies that will give a boost to small farm and food product businesses.

It is called the Small Farm & Direct Marketing Handbook (formerly The Green Book). It’s receiving rave reviews across the state in places like Walla Walla, Friday Harbor and Goldendale. Some ask for the handbook because they want to start a business and need to know about licensing, labor, taxes and food safety regulations. Others want to grow a current business by expanding into new areas such as selling to restaurants and grocery stores, schools or institutions. The handbook includes information on the regulations on transitioning from conventional agriculture to being certified organic by WSDA.

There’s room for growth for Washington’s small farms and food product companies to meet consumer demand for quality local fruits, vegetables, specialty meats, flowers and other products. Farmers who review this handbook will learn how to develop that connection with consumers. We made special efforts to summarize rules and regulations in plain language that everyone can understand.

Many people prefer the ease of getting their information from the Internet so we structured the handbook so it can be downloaded in its entirety, by chapter or by topic. We invite you to visit our Web site at http://agr.wa.gov/Marketing/SmallFarm.