Olympia 2025
By Damon Townsend (February 3, 2025)
The Cascade Party is committed to pragmatic, market-driven solutions that benefit all Washingtonians. Family farms are the backbone of our agricultural heritage, with many striving to maintain their legacies for future generations. At the same time, larger agricultural operations focus on efficiency and scaling production to meet growing demands. Both need a labor system that is fair, transparent, and sustainable to ensure their long-term success.
To address this, we propose a modernized, tech-driven farm labor marketplace—an innovative digital platform that connects workers with farm jobs seamlessly and efficiently. By championing this initiative, the Cascade Party is taking proactive steps to remove bureaucratic obstacles, ensure fair pay, and create a more sustainable labor system for Washington's agricultural economy.
This approach benefits both farmers and workers. By supporting this proposal, the Cascade Party continues its mission to strengthen local businesses, streamline operations, and protect workers in a rapidly changing economy.
Imagine a digital platform—let’s call it AgConnect—that connects farm jobs to available workers in real time. Farmers post job listings with task descriptions, proposed pay rates, job locations, and estimated workloads.
Workers can browse jobs, accept work that fits their schedule, and receive payments instantly—eliminating the uncertainty and delays that currently exist in farm labor recruitment.
Similar to gig-economy platforms like DoorDash, Instacart, or Uber, this system allows farmers to adjust pay rates based on demand. If no workers accept a job within a set timeframe, the app prompts farmers to raise the rate until the job fills. This keeps wages market-driven, fair, and competitive while ensuring labor needs are met.
For farmers, this means no more last-minute labor shortages, confusing compliance paperwork, or inefficient hiring processes. For workers, it offers stability, transparency, and control over their earnings.
Farm labor is highly seasonal and unpredictable. Some crops require immediate harvesting to prevent loss, while others demand ongoing maintenance work. The current system fails too often, leaving farmers without help and workers without jobs. By leveraging modern technology, we can ensure:
➢Fair and competitive wages through a pricing model that adjusts pay rates based on supply and demand.
➢Simplified compliance, with built-in record-keeping tools that handle labor laws automatically.
➢Worker protections through transparent job listings, guaranteed digital payments, and a clear dispute resolution system.
➢Multilingual support to ensure Washington’s diverse agricultural workforce can access the system easily.
➢Secure transactions, with farmers paying a small transaction fee to keep the system self-sustaining while workers get paid fairly and on time.
The Cascade Party urges the legislature to fund a pilot program to test this farm labor app in key agricultural regions.
This system will:
➢Support local workers looking for flexible, reliable employment.
➢Help migrant workers confirm eligibility and track wages securely.
➢Streamline payroll, record-keeping, and compliance for farmers.
➢Allow real-time labor demand tracking, ensuring competitive wages.
By tracking labor requests, domestic applicants, and demand-driven job offers, this platform will ensure that market forces—not bureaucratic red tape—control wages and availability.
A pilot program is the next logical step in proving that this system works for Washington’s farms, workers, and economy. Let’s build a smarter, fairer farm labor system together.
Damon Townsend is a Cascade Party board Member, representing district 3/6. He has experience in government administration.
CASCADE PARTY of WASHINGTON
PO Box 28004
Seattle, WA 98118