MONONGALIA COUNTY, W.Va. – Current Democrat senator from District 13 has officially filed to challenge Republican incumbent West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture, Ken Leonhardt.
Beach says making the decision to run has been a work in progress.
“In the last few years I’ve seen some things I don’t like,”Beach said,”Last January, I had some farmers from Greenbrier County reach out to me and ask if I would consider a run for ag commissioner and it didn’t take a lot of arm bending to convince me this was the path I wanted to go.”
Beach says we need to do a better job of promoting West Virginia agriculture here and in other states.
“There’s a lack of promoting agriculture, both in and outside the state of West Virginia,”Beach said,”We consume about $7 billion worth of food her in the state, but we produce less than $2 billion worth of food, so we have room to grow.”
Beach says after learning the current department leadership travels more than any other state agency he would put a moratorium on travel for the first year. He wants to allocate that travel money to promoting West Virginia agriculture.
Beach says hemp policies that require farmers to destroy crops that test over the THC limit are unreasonable and should be debated.
“I don’t believe we need to destroy the entire plant, the THC is only in the top 10 to 12 inches where the flower is at and where the sample is taken,”Beach said,”If we give the farmers the chance to cut off the top, that’s the part that’s destroyed, the rest of that plant is the fibrous material we need for textiles and hemp concrete.”