Chamber holds annual agricultural tour
Chamber holds annual agricultural tour
Moses Lake business reps scope out cherry, mint companies
MOSES LAKE — Representatives of the business community got to see all aspects of cherry and mint processing.
The Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce held its annual business/agriculture tour a few months early, with members touring Dorsing Farms, Royal Ridge Fruits and B&G Farms, with time out for lunch at Judy's Espresso and Deli.
Les Dorsing led the school bus full of business members on a tour through his Othello farming operation, which included showing cherry pickers hard at work, whether by hand or through the use of machinery which would grasp a tree by its trunk and shake the cherries loose, a sight so compelling it took several calls to get everybody back onto the bus.
From there, Dorsing showed tour participants around his Royal City plant to see the processing part of the operation. Those on the tour got to watch as Royal Ridge workers picked through the cherries on the conveyor belt,
After lunch, the tour wound up at B&G Farms to have representative Darin Harris walk them through the mint oil distilling process, as the heavy smell of mint filled the air.
Debbie Doran explained that when the tour was in the planning process, the Dorsing operation was presented as an option, but it wasn't feasible due to the October scheduling.
"This year, we bumped it up because we knew we wanted to focus and hit this, because it's a real gem in our ag community that a lot of people don't know about," Doran said. "We wanted to come see their innovative ways of doing things. We knew they had some proprietary things that we wouldn't be able to see, but definitely I think the majority of people on (the tour) have seen stuff that they never fathomed was going on, right here in our backyard."
In the future, the scheduling of the tour will be left wide open, Doran said, pending feedback from the agriculture committee, chamber board and chamber members.
"We want to show a variety, and I think we've really done it this year," she said.
For Doran, the tour is important because it lets the business community know what's going on in agriculture.
"Many of the people attending here are appraisers that are appraising these facilities, so it's nice for them to know how the whole operation works prior to them having to go do that," she said. "Others are in the finance arena; again, knowing how this operation goes so they can best accommodate their customer, maybe bring new products forward to offer to them if they really know what the industry is all about."
Calling the tour a member benefit and an opportunity for an "eye-opening" experience, Doran stressed the importance of agriculture to the economy, and noted that the cherry and mint operations are operating on an international market. Future tours may focus on onion operations or livestock or the dairy industry, she added.
"I work in agricultural lending, so it was kind of a natural," Northwest Farm Credit Services representative Wendy Thomas said. "It's kind of nice to see where the loan money goes and how the crops come in."
Thomas' co-worker, intern Gretchen Glaser agreed.
"It's pretty amazing how the different processes work," she said.
Elizabeth Mason was a first-timer on the tour with her grandmother, Sonia Skaggs.
"It's interesting — you don't know that this part exists until you come out here and experience it, and know what it's like to be out on the farm," Mason said. "I grew up on the beach, and this is a whole different lifestyle. It takes a very skilled person to make sure everything is running OK."
Lynn Garza with AgriCom Appraisals and Team said she has wanted to see Dorsing Farms for a long time, because she serves on the Grant County Economic Development Council board with Terry Dorsing.
"I just was so incredibly impressed with the systems and the technology that's been introduced into farming," she said. "It just seems like still, to this day, there's so much hand-harvesting and to see the trees, and the way that that machine shook the cherry trees to get the cherries out was just like … I never would have been able to picture it if I hadn't actually seen it."
"I don't know nearly enough about agriculture for somebody that lives in this area," Samaritan Healthcare Foundation director Dave Campbell said. "That's why I think these are a great opportunity to get out and actually learn more than you see by driving along in the car. I was fascinated, especially all aspects of the cherry growing operation, including the tree shaker to take the cherries off the tree, and to find out they actually do everything with the cherries. That's actually really fascinating, to do everything and then sell it to the end-consumer."
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