H-2217.1  _______________________________________________

                    SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1834

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State of Washington      55th Legislature     1997 Regular Session

By House Committee on Agriculture & Ecology (originally sponsored by Representatives Chandler, Linville and Schoesler)

Read first time 02/25/97.

Defining agriculture for the purpose of safety regulations.  

    AN ACT Relating to agriculture; and adding a new section to chapter 49.17 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  A new section is added to chapter 49.17 RCW to read as follows:

    (1) The legislature finds that the state's highly productive and efficient agricultural sector is composed predominately of family owned and managed farms and an industrious and efficient work force.  In addition, the legislature finds that the state's farms are diverse in their nature and the owners, managers, and their employees continually find new ways to plant, raise, harvest, process, store, market, and distribute their products.  The legislature further finds that the department needs guidance in determining when activities related to agricultural products are to be regulated under this chapter as agricultural operations under safety standards for agriculture referred to in RCW 49.17.041 and when they should be regulated as other activities under other safety standards.  It is the intent of the legislature that activities performed by a farmer or on a farm incidental to or in conjunction with farming operations be regulated as agricultural activities.  For this purpose, an agricultural operation is to be interpreted broadly, based on the definition of "agriculture" provided by subsection (2) of this section.

    (2) For the purposes of subsection (1) of this section, "agriculture" means farming in all its branches and, among other things, includes but is not limited to the cultivation and tillage of the soil and dairying; the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodity, including but not limited to a commodity that is a private sector cultured aquatic product as defined in RCW 15.85.020; the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry; and any practices, performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including but not limited to preparation for market, and delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.  For the purposes of subsection (1) of this section, "agriculture" does not mean a farmer's processing for sale or handling for sale a commodity or product grown or produced by a person other than the farmer or the farmer's employees.

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