Washington Fruit Industry Needs Single Voice
December 6, 2011 
West Mathison, president of the Washington State Horticultural
Association (left), and his successor for 2012, David Douglas of Douglas Fruit Company.
Photo by David Eddy
The president of the Washington State Horticultural Association, West Mathison, posed a provocative question to those attending the 107th annual meeting Monday in Wenatchee: If President Obama wanted the Pacific Northwest tree fruit industry to help draft a guest worker program, who would he call?
Mathison, who heads up one of the largest tree fruit grower/packer/shippers in North America, Stemilt Growers, then answered his own question: “The answer is not clear.” That’s a problem for the industry, he said.
To be effective in the political arena, the industry needs to speak with one voice. The industry could communicate its message much more clearly and forcefully if it spoke as one, said Mathison.
Today the industry’s organizations – structurally, at least – look much like they did in the 1950s. There are numerous voices trying to lobby at the both the state and national level. But even factual information can become muddled, as Mathison said there are four agencies reporting on pricing, and a total of eight reporting crop size.
“Let’s just say there’s a minor chance for confusion in this process,” he said.
Mathison emphasized that all these representatives work hard for the industry, and he was in no way criticizing their efforts. It’s the entire structure that’s the problem, he said, noting that in addition to the Horticultural Association, just the state of Washington has the Growers League, the Northwest Horticultural Council, the Washington Growers Clearinghouse, Yakima Valley Growers/Shippers, Wenatchee Valley Traffic Association, and many more.
All these groups require funding, Mathison noted, and they solicit it from the same people and entities. “There’s a lot of people fishing in the same pond,” he said.
Mathison said he doesn’t want to see a consolidation of the groups, but he would like to see some coordination.
He suggested that one new entity, with a board composed of growers and packers, be formed that could speak for the entire tree fruit industry. For starters, he called for an industry summit, where industry members would first decide if such a super-group was needed. If so, they would create a draft of exactly what the functions of the new board might be.
“This is a starting point,” said Mathison. “We must do something.”
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