Dan DeGroot, former Lower Yakima Valley dairy farmer and former Save Family Farming board member, submitted the following letter to the editor of the Yakima Herald-Republic.
To the Editor,
Your report on Yakima Valley air quality essentially handed your platform to a network of anti-farm activists.
Jean Mendoza of Friends of Toppenish Creek (FOTC) has spent years working to dismantle dairy farming in the Lower Yakima Valley through litigation and political pressure. Save Family Farming has documented Mendoza’s direct coordination with federal regulators to strategize against local farms.
Mendoza’s call for “regular, in-person listening and engagement sessions” rings empty as she started on the Lower Yakima Valley Groundwater Management Area’s Groundwater Advisory Committee, but chose to walk away from it. She abandoned collaboration in favor of fighting.
We Are ELLA, led by Maria Fernandez, who also serves as Vice Chair of FOTC, was recently awarded roughly half a million dollars in taxpayer funds. That funding is now being used to produce content and fuel activism aimed at dismantling agriculture. Their content often offers no credible data, citations, or scientific backing. Their messaging is simply talking points designed to incite fear and outrage.
By quoting zealous anti-farming activists without meaningful counterpoint, the Yakima Herald-Republic presented readers with an unchallenged pipeline of activist claims from organizations whose apparent objective is to harm farming in our region.