Insights

Our fee study for the Department of Health found that biotoxin testing would account for 42 percent of proposed commercial shellfish fees. We recommended that the state fund testing as a public good, as other shellfish-producing states do, and adopt DOH’s proposed licensing-fee increases.

Washington's first green fertilizer plant is planned for Richland. A cleaner product only helps if farmers buy it, and fertilizer runs 19 percent of variable costs for potato growers. Greene Economics analyzed the farm economics for WSDA and found no single grant closes the price gap across the state's farms.