FINAL BILL REPORT

                   SB 5530

                          C 362 L 97

                      Synopsis as Enacted

Brief Description:  Defining agriculture.

Sponsors:  Senators Morton and Rasmussen.

Senate Committee on Agriculture & Environment

House Committee on Agriculture & Ecology

Background:  The Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act (WISHA) is administered by the Department of Labor and Industries.  Under WISHA, the department has adopted a safety standard for agriculture.

The standard applies to all agricultural operations, which are defined as being operations necessary to farming and ranching, including maintenance of equipment and machinery, and planting, cultivating, growing or raising, keeping for sale, harvesting, or transporting on the farm or to the first place of processing any tree, plant, fruit, vegetable, animal, fowl, fish, or insects or products thereof.  When employees are assigned to perform tasks other than those directly related to agricultural operations, the proper standard, which may be other than the agricultural standard, is to apply.  The standard notes that such assignments may involve, but are not limited to, activities such as fruit and vegetable packing, logging, mining, sawmills, etc., when the products of such activities are removed from the farm site for commercial distribution.

Summary:  To provide guidance in determining when operations related to agricultural products are to be regulated under WISHA as agricultural operations under agricultural safety standards, and when they are to be regulated as other activities, a definition of Aagriculture@ is provided by statute.  For this purpose, Aagriculture@ means farming in all its branches and includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil and dairying; the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodity; the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry; and practices performed by a farmer or on a farm in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market and delivery to storage, market, or carriers.  AAgriculture@ as used in WISHA does not mean a farmer=s processing for sale or handling for sale a commodity or product grown or produced by others.  AAgriculture@ does not include forestry or lumbering operations.

Votes on Final Passage:

Senate 45 0

House     98 0 (House amended)

Senate    40 3 (Senate concurred)

Effective:  July 27, 1997