Dillon Honcoop - Did taxpayers fund an attack on family farms?

An activist group's film criticizing Yakima Valley farmers reportedly displayed a Washington State Department of Health logo, raising questions about whether taxpayers were misled into believing the state endorsed its claims.

Dillon Honcoop, Communications Director for Save Family Farming, joins the show to discuss the controversy, the allegations surrounding the use of the state logo, and what it could mean for transparency and accountability in taxpayer-funded advocacy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you. I want you to imagine this: an activist group that works to oppose farming in the Pacific Northwest. And then they go out and they make videos and they make statements, and then they decide to label those videos and statements using a logo of a state agency, in this case, the Washington State Department of Health. So, in other words, they're borrowing from whatever credibility people might hold in the Washington State Department of Health. And this Yakima-based anti-farm activist group and their propaganda film, it was endorsed not by the State of Washington. State of Washington said they're not using that with our permission, but the state doesn't seem anxious to actually take it away. I wanted to get the whole story from Dylan Hankoop, who is director, communications director for Save Family Farming. Dylan, welcome back to the program.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Thanks so much, Lars. And you have it exactly right. I mean, first, this group lies about farming. It levels, you know, false, damaging claims against farming in the lower Yakima Valley specifics specifically saying that farming is a threat to public health. It's causing environmental contamination. Okay, so this is a lie to begin with. Then they get a half million dollars of our taxpayer dollars to pay for this ridiculous, damaging storytelling. Okay, so that's a problem. But not only that, then they also, as you're saying, put the State Department of Health logo on it as if it's actually endorsed by the state, as if it's credible, which it's not. And then when we complain, the state goes to them and says, Hey, you've got our logo on there. That was part of our deal. And we gave you some money to do some storytelling, but you can't put our logo on it, which I mean is a little ridiculous on its face, but okay, let's play with this here. They they said, Oh, well, we we'll take that logo off. We we took care of it. So then the state gets back in touch with us, said, Okay, you complain, we confirmed this problem has been dealt with. Just relax, say family farming. We go, I mean, it takes 15 seconds to go back online, go to the Facebook posts and see it's still there. So we immediately get back in touch with them and say, Well, it's it's still there, they haven't done anything. We don't hear back for months. Finally, when we complain to the state auditor's office and some state legislators, then they get back to us and say, Oh, as a matter of fact, yeah, it was. Um, and and our process of confirming that was just to ask this group, this activist group, whether they had complied or not. And so we took that as confirmation. You know, would they deal with you or I that way, Lars?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

No. Well, in fact, let's say you get pulled over by a dump. When you've got farmers out there who are subject to all kinds of crazy regulations. I mean, if the state comes along and says, hey, you gotta dispose of your manure safely, you've got to make sure your water is treated safe way. You you've got to make sure that you're not spraying pesticides or herbicides, whether you shouldn't be spraying them. Um, but we'll take your word for it. If you just tell us you're complying with the rules, we'll simply you know that the farmers will tell would be the first ones to tell you that the state regulatory agencies will come down and run them around the block over issues like that. But all of a sudden, when it's an activist group, funded in part by the taxpayers by by state money, they'll simply say, Oh, we took their word for it that they took care of the problem.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

You nailed it. And you've got to ask, does the State Department of Health actually take this seriously? Now I know some people could say, well, it's just logos on a video, you know. Don't don't get so worked up over it. But there's a fundamental question here of whether the state treats people equally. We know they don't, and and you know, the quiet part now is being said out loud. It's it's showing their biased approach to one group versus another. And are they really in bed with this overall message that they want or think that farmers should be smeared and disparaged as being a threat to public health? I think the the Department of Health has to answer for that now if if they aren't really actually holding this group accountable for these lies.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

By the way, can you tell my audience where they can find out more about Save Family Farming, which does have a positive point of view and a positive uh goal for the Northwest?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Absolutely. SaveFamilyFarming.org information on this and a lot of other stuff there. And of course, on our social media um uh profiles, we're we're happy to share information with the public as much as we possibly can. And this is the kind of stuff that we're uncovering. You're exactly right to bring up how state agencies treat farmers. We have farmers that have been secretly accused of crimes. The state doesn't even tell them that. This is our own State Department of Ecology, sister agency to the Department of Health that we were talking about, accusing the Kings, the King family, and their ranch in eastern Washington of crimes and not telling them about it. They had they were using rules designed to prosecute the mob secretly against these ranchers. They're still facing a quarter million dollars in fines over this, even when they have proved that they weren't doing what the state was accusing them of doing. So if you want to call this fair and equal treatment, you you're out to launch.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Well, I'd also ask, I'd question why the state agencies have hundreds of thousands of dollars they can hand off to activist groups like this. But I'll point something out to you, Dylan. I have the same concern. If somebody uses my logo on something and says, hey, Lars is endorsing this, that has real consequences for me, for the people who use it either with or without my permission. But I'll point out to you, I've known of stories that we've covered on this show. Somebody uses the root word architecture in describing what they're doing. In Oregon or Washington, if you use that word in your stationery, your business card, the name of your business, or anything else, um, they will come after you if you are not an architect. And there are certain state regulations on what you have to do. There was an engineer who got, you know, he got a bunch of grief, and I'm sure Washington would have done the same. But in Oregon, he wrote some letters and he was talking about the timing of yellow lights and red lights and green lights at intersections, which was off. And he said, I know this because I'm an engineer. He was an engineer, but the state of Oregon went after him saying, You don't meet our criteria to be an engineer. They won't just go after you on logos, they'll go after you on words like engineer or architect.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Well, they'll go after you if you don't if they don't like what you're saying. Yeah. And that's the bottom line here. And that's where they can run roughshod over the people they don't like while use kid gloves with the folks that they do like when they are finally called under the carpet. That's exactly what we're seeing here, with this the Washington State Department of Health treating this group that is not credible, that has been spreading falsehoods and fomenting racial conflict and awful kinds of things in the lower Yakima Valley for quite some time and using state taxpayer dollars to do so.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

No, and in fact, the fact that they are anti-farming, you can have all the laws you want in Oregon and Washington that talk about protecting farming and making sure there's ground for it and protecting against citizen complaints about loud equipment or the smell of, you know, of livestock or anything like that. But if the state itself is going to actually go out and fund the actions of an activist group, you're gonna have a problem. And in this case, citizens have a right to say, even if you're not a farmer, you ought to care about the fact that they're doing that. That is Dylan Hankoop, who is with the group called Save Family Farming. You can go online and find them. And this Yakima group called Ella, the ones that were illegally using the Department of Health logo to suggest that somehow a state agency was endorsing all the anti-farming stuff they were saying. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. And by the way, I'll give them equal time on the air if that's what they want. Glad to get your calls at eight six six Hey Lars. Send emails to talk at LarsLarson.com. I'll talk about New Jersey and its non-citizen voters coming up next.