Panel to House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee urges focus on farm sustainability, water access and food security

Pam Lewis, ag research director at the Washington Policy Center, told the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee that sustainability in farming is primarily about keeping farms economically viable for future generations. “Sustainability in agriculture is often about more than methodologies and technology,” Lewis said, adding that sustainability looks different for a dryland Palouse wheat farm, an irrigated Columbia Basin crop farm or a Western Washington dairy.

Lewison/Lewis (presented as Pam Lewis) placed the data frame early: modern farms feed about 170 people per acre compared with about 26 people per acre in 1960, a change she described as an approximately 538% increase in people fed per acre over 65 years. She said this reflects efficiency gains in production even as pesticide and water use declined in many operations.

The panel addressed farm ownership and barriers to…