Matthew Blua Assists Growers in Multiple Ways

"I get to work with really great people," says Matthew Blua, Director of Industry Outreach at the Washington State Potato Commission. Not only the people in the Commission office, he explains, but "potato people are great to work with." Blua's job at the potato commission has four areas, he explains. The first is to interact with local scientists such as at Washington State University or Agriculture Research Service in Yakima. "I get to work with them and fund their research," he says with a smile.

The second area he works on is Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). He describes GAP as "a series of procedures to ensure food is safe." He assists growers with GAP by keeping a notebook of those procedures that they can use to obtain GAP certification. Blua also keeps track of changes in the program that growers need to know about.

The third area is new for the Commission, and that's agriculture safety. Blua hopes to generate a series of DVDs on safety that growers can show to their employees. "Agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries," he explains. He hopes the videos will cover the specialized equipment in the potato industry, and he specifically mentions conveyor belts which have a "high potential for accidents."

And finally, Blua helps growers diagnose problems. "If I don't know what it is, I contact someone who will." With modern technology, Blua can send a picture of a problem in seconds and get an answer right away. "Probably the biggest thing I've done in my job is learn," he says.

The Commission provides growers with what they need to monitor possible pests in their fields, including sticky traps, pheromone traps, and sweep nets, Blua explains. The Commission provides everything needed for the traps, including posts to secure them. With those tools, growers can spray for the pests they do have, not just treat prophylactically, he adds.

Blua comes to the Commission with a diverse agricultural background, including being a farmer. "It was a gas," he says of farming, "I loved it." Blua grew strawberries and vegetables on a small plot in California and he would sell his crops at farmers' markets, roadside stands, and to high-end restaurants. He said he could give the chefs the exact vegetable they wanted. But he decided the fifty to sixty hour work weeks for very little money wasn't worth it.

Being a farmer was just part of Blua's journey to the Washington State Potato Commission. He grew up in the high desert of California near Edwards Airforce Base where his father raised alfalfa. Blua received his Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of California-Riverside, specializing in insects that spread disease to crops. "You work with three biologies," he says with glee: the insect, the disease, and the crop. After working on a disease that affects grapes in California, a stint at Pennsylvania State University, and time with the California Avocado Commission, he ended up back at UC-Riverside. But he had to get grants to pay for his research and he found that was taking most of his time and he didn't enjoy it. So when the job opened at the Washington State Potato Commission, he applied, and has been there since February 2015.

At the Potato Commission, Blua is involved in getting grants to help pay for a study of "alternate agricultural inputs." He explains there are many of these, but most haven't been tested for efficacy. He is also studying soil health with a matching grant of $150,000 from the USDA and is now looking for a scientist to do the study. "If we could find a way not to have to fumigate, it would be a huge advantage to the grower," he adds.

"It's tough to be a grower," Blua says. They have to worry about worker safety, product safety, and environmental safety, he explains. But, he adds, "Food is safer here [in the US] now than ever in the history of man." In the future, Blua says growers are going to have to grow more food on less land.