washington business
In Their Words
Alex McGregor, chairman of The McGregor Company, is a business leader, agricultural historian, and longtime supporter of Washington farm families and trade. He spoke with AWB’ s Jacqueline Allison on why trade is so important to Washington agriculture and the potential impacts of broad new tariffs. The interview has been lightly edited.
Your family has been in the agriculture business for 140-plus years. From that perspective, how do you think the recently implemented tariffs will impact Washington farmers?
These have been very difficult years for agriculture. Fickle international markets and uncertainties related to trade have made it worse. We go through up-and-down cycles. We’ ve been through eight during my 49 years on board here. But when we start introducing uncertainties about trade relationships, it causes a lot of concern.
Trade negotiations with more than fifty countries are said to be underway. With a big investment in crops planted last fall and this spring, to be nurtured, cared for, and harvested this summer, buyers across the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans worrying about us no longer being a reliable supplier, expensive equipment and supplies, and nervous bankers, farmers have plenty of reasons to be concerned.
Tariffs and trade restrictions have a big potential impact on the availability and cost of vital nutrients and crop protection products, too. It was helpful to join AWB leaders meeting with Canadian trade officials in April, to reassure them that we appreciate the close working relationship with their nation. Canada has been a reliable supplier of fertilizers— particularly nitrogen, a major nutrient for many crops. In the Pacific Northwest, more than 75 % of the nitrogen fertilizer upon which we depend comes from Alberta and Saskatchewan. Most of the raw materials used to make crop protectants come from China.
But I’ m optimistic— and I have plenty of years of experience to back it up. When we all pull together and speak out, we hold our own and win the day. Washington agriculture is remarkable— 97 % of the farm and rangeland in our state is cared for by family enterprises who employ more than 160,000 Washingtonians, as our State Department of Agriculture notes.
AWB has led trade missions to Japan, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Canada. Why are trade relationships so important to Washington agriculture?
Relationships take generations to build. My cousin Bill, who was manager of our ranch when I was a young pup, worked so hard to build a relationship with Japan. I was on the AWB trade mission to Japan in 2019 and we got to see Ichiro’ s last at-bat, but even finer than that, was keeping a relationship of trust with Japanese millers very strong. In other parts of the United States, less than half the wheat that is grown goes to export. Here, it’ s 90 %. And much of it goes to the Pacific Rim countries – Philippines, Japan, China, Indonesia, Taiwan and others.
alex mcgregor
In a time where U. S. aid is under more scrutiny than ever, it’ s interesting to look back at programs like Food for Peace and the extraordinary efforts to use American plenty to help starving people overseas. That’ s not only been the right thing to do, but those very countries that were struggling, when they got back on their feet, became major customers for the crops we grow. With tariffs and so much churn and confusion putting at risk our national leadership in trade, it is imperative that we make a commitment as a nation in the Market Access Program and the Foreign Market Development program.
There are a lot of things we can do to build markets. I am proud of the hard work of Washington farmers on trade missions to nations around the globe. A farmer-friend of mine, Randy Suess, is among those who have led the way building relations across the Pacific, across Africa and the Middle East and more. Personal relationships with overseas millers and agencies make a huge difference in building relationships of trust. Such ties have been built for many crops— as Representative Dan Newhouse puts it, if
18 association of washington business