PORT HADLOCK — Laura Lewis, the new director of the Washington State University Jefferson County Extension, expects to spend the next few months getting to know local farmers and thinking of ways for them to increase efficiency and work smarter.
“I want to help them to find new resources and to find the technology that will help them to store and market their crops,” Lewis said after one week on the job.
“I want to spend some time with them, and during the winter they will actually have the time to sit down and have a conversation.”
At the same time, she hopes to address the “big picture,” determining exactly what the WSU Extension office can do to benefit the community at large.
Lewis, 38, comes to the job from the University of Maryland’s Baltimore campus, where she was an assistant professor of biogeography (the branch of biology that deals with the geographical distribution of plants and animals).
She succeeds Katherine Baril, who held the post for 20 years before retiring in January.
Lewis started last Monday.
Reception Tuesday
Lewis will be at WSU in Pullman today for an orientation session.
She will return to Port Hadlock in time for an introductory reception at the Extension office in the Shold Buisness Park, 201 W. Patison St., from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The public is invited to attend.
She would like to meet with those who have worked with the WSU Extension in the past, as well as people who are interested in what Jefferson County Extension has to offer for the future.
Her husband, Richard, an agricultural entomologist, and her two young sons who enrolled at the Sunfield Waldorf School in Port Hadlock last week, will join her at the event.
Homemade harvest refreshments will be served.
Lewis intends to spend several weeks attending government and committee meetings, to introduce herself and then determine which meetings she will need to attend on a regular basis in order to stay informed and aware.
Experience
She has experience conducting research for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington state and California and has worked with farmers in Central and Eastern Washington who manage fruit trees and cereal crops.
She has also served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps, which also furthered her agricultural education.
While serving in Niger in Africa, Lewis was able to try new techniques because she wasn’t a permanent member of the community who relied on the land for sustenance.
“Farmers are an innovative group of people who want to try new things, new seeds, but there is always a risk associated from trying a new practice,” she said.
“If the new practice doesn’t work, they can lose their livelihood. In the Peace Corps, I was able to try some of these techniques without taking a risk myself.”
Locally grown food
Lewis aims to increase the amount of locally grown food consumed in Jefferson County.
She approves of the idea of the state allowing the acceptance of food subsidy cards — once known as food stamps — at farmers markets — such as the Port Townsend Farmers Market on Tyler Street between Lawrence and Clay streets which is open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Saturday this month and December.
“This is a great idea because it allows people who are most challenged economically to have access to healthy food,” Lewis said. “It is always less expensive to prepare food than to eat out, although time can be an issue,” she added.
The ultimate goal is to increase the percentage of locally grown food that now makes up the county’s diet, which now sits at about 4 percent.
Lewis thinks that 10 percent is an attainable goal, especially because the cost of food is going up.
“We’ve spent the last 100 years trying to make food cheaply,” she said. “But we need to attach a more realistic value to food and teach people how buying healthy local food can create a more stable rural economy.”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
