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January 15, 2016 CapitalPress.com Oregon farm regulators approve dairy expansions 3 Oregon expects to issue new industrial hemp licenses makes pot users high. Instead, advocates say LQGXVWULDO KHPS ¿EHU DQG RLO The Oregon Department can be used to make cloth- of Agriculture expects to ing, food, rope, cosmetics, dating its overall Clean Water Proposals to increase herd Act permit for CAFOs, which resume issuing licenses to plastics and other products. will require other facilities to JURZLQGXVWULDOKHPSLQ They’ve long said hemp sizes proved controversial also comply with these mea- by the end of February, but could replace cotton or petro- By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI some problems continue to leum in some uses. VXUHVODWHULQKHVDLG Capital Press Ag researchers say some Friends of Family Farmers, dog the new crop. The state issued 11 hemp conventional farmers might D QRQSUR¿W JURXS WKDW VXE- Oregon farm regulators mitted comments about water OLFHQVHV LQ EHIRUH FXW- eventually be interested in have cleared the expansion quality concerns, is heartened ting off the process in August. growing hemp as a rotational RI IRXU GDLULHV FODVVL¿HG DV that soil tests will check specif- Nine of the licensees planted crop, but for now the market ³FRQ¿QHG DQLPDO IHHGLQJ RS- ically for nitrates and that sam- a crop and three harvested a appears to involve small- erations” over the objections ples will now be taken more product, said Lindsay Eng, scale farmers who want to of vegans and animal welfare frequently, which is aimed at ODA’s program manager. But process hemp themselves to proponents. preventing excessive nutrient the crops of two other grow- make lotions or other prod- Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press (DUOLHU WKLV \HDU ¿YH GDLU- ers, one in Grants Pass and ucts. buildup. ies requested that the Oregon Arlene Webb, an opponent of several proposed dairy expansions Eng said details in Ore- “Those were all issues we one in Bend, are embargoed Department of Agriculture ap- in Oregon, speaks during a Sept. 2 hearing in Salem, Ore., in this KDGÀDJJHG:HZHUHPDNLQJ because the plants exceeded gon’s hemp law may need prove changes to their waste &DSLWDO3UHVV¿OHSKRWRV7KH2UHJRQ'HSDUWPHQWRI$JULFXOWXUH sure they weren’t engaged in the .3 percent THC limit re- tweaking by the Legislature management plans, with four UHJXODWHV&RQ¿QHG$QLPDO)HHGLQJ2SHUDWLRQVXQGHUWKHIHGHUDO a rubber-stamp exercise,” said quired under state law, Eng when it meets in February. of those facilities seeking to Clean Water Act and has now approved the expansions. Ivan Maluski, the group’s pol- said. The crops will have to $ VHFWLRQ UHTXLULQJ DFUH increase their herds. icy director. “I think it’s en- be destroyed or remediated hemp plots causes some While such requests are antibiotic usage are outside its to test soil nutrients annual- couraging they included our in some way, she said, per- growers problems, as does a usually routine, the expansion jurisdiction in enforcing the O\LQVWHDGRIHYHU\¿YH\HDUV suggestions.” haps by using the plant stalks requirement that the plants proposals attracted the atten- federal Clean Water Act. 7KRVH WHVWV PXVW DOVR VSHFL¿- Any new regulatory re- ZLWKRXWWKHÀRZHUVRUVHHGV be directly seeded instead of tion of critics who complained “Most of the comments cally check the soil’s nitrate quirements create challenges Industrial hemp is related started in greenhouse pots. In the larger dairies will increase were not pertinent to our per- levels, in addition to total ni- for dairies, particularly smaller to marijuana, but doesn’t con- addition, it’s hard to obtain pollution, harm air quality, mit,” said Wym Matthews, trogen and phosphorous levels. ones without many employees, tain nearly the level of THC, seed, Eng said. Canada is the spur more antibiotic usage and manager of the agency’s Dairies were previously but producers tend to be agile the chemical compound that most common source. lead to animal welfare abuses. CAFO program, noting that required to only check for to- in meeting such standards, Many of these objections this fact probably won’t ap- tal nitrogen and phosphorous, said Tammy Dennee, assistant were heard during an ODA pease critics. “They probably but they must now break out director of the Oregon Dairy public meeting in September will not be happy with our re- nitrates because federal stan- Farmers Association, DQG FULWLFV DOVR VXEPLW- sponse.” dards set limits for that partic- As for the controversy over ted written comments about However, the agency will ular soluble nutrient in drink- the expansions, Dennee said WKHPRGL¿HGSODQV impose new conditions on the ing water, said Matthews. it’s hard to say whether to ex- In a response to comments, ¿YHGDLULHVZKLFKDUHORFDWHG While these conditions will pect similar objections in the ODA explained that it’s role is in Tillamook, Marion, Coos FXUUHQWO\DSSO\RQO\WRWKH¿YH future. limited to water quality con- and Klamath counties. dairies that requested waste “Unfortunately, it was cerns. Complaints about air ,Q ¿HOGV ZKHUH PDQXUH LV management plan changes, much to do about very little,” quality, animal welfare and applied, the dairies will have ODA is in the process of up- she said. By ERIC MORTENSON Capital Press Okanogan Farm Bureau leader: Treatment of Hammonds ‘outrageous, hypocritical’ By DAN WHEAT 'DQ:KHDW&DSLWDO3UHVV Ranches in several parts of the county lost private timber, grazing grounds, hay, barns and equipment to agency backburning that ranchers op- posed. Kuchenbuch, her husband, Casey, and her father, Rod +DHEHUOHIRXJKWD¿UHDORQJ- VLGH¿UH¿JKWHUVRQWKHLUUDQFK last summer and begged them not to backburn 1,000 acres of their private land. The agency did it anyway to protect homes but jeopardiz- ing people and livestock and destroying Haeberle Ranch timber, miles of fencing, the family’s mountain cabin and a set of corrals. “We were told afterward that there is no restitution for our losses,” Kuchenbuch said. Backburning is so touchy that agencies don’t talk about it on their radios, rather com- mands are given in person, she said. The homes could have been protected had the USFS allowed the Kuchenbuchs and Gebbers Farms to continue EXLOGLQJ D ¿UHEUHDN IURP SUL- vate ranch land onto USFS property, she said. But the DJHQF\ QHYHU IRXJKW WKH ¿UH offensively, only defended homes, she said. The USFS has said it GRHVQ¶W DWWDFN ¿UHV ZKHQ LW¶V not safe to do so but that its goal in the Okanogan was to put them out. Protecting towns was the SULRULW\ DQG ¿UH UHVRXUFHV were spread so thin that rural residents were left to fend for themselves in many places, Kuchenbuch said. When that happens, they don’t have time to wonder whether a backburn they do or other efforts are legal, she said. 3-4/#7 YDWLRQ HDVHPHQWV ¿UH VDJH grouse and wolves. The En- dangered Species Act. Some- times they pay 10 times the market value and every parcel sold jeopardizes those left,” Kuchenbuch said. “We do not trust that they will leave people alone, as witnessed with the Hammond family,” she said. A couple dozen ranches have been burned out by wild- ¿UHV WKDW EXUQHG PRUH WKDQ million acres of Okanogan County in the past two sum- mers. State and federal graz- ing allotments cover 50 to 80 percent of that, Jack Field, executive vice president of the Washington Cattlemen’s As- sociation, has said. Ranchers DUH KDUGSUHVVHG WR ¿QG JUD]- ing land. One-third of 600,000 acres burned in the Okanogan, Tunk Block and North Star ¿UHV LQ ZDV FDXVHG E\ agency backburning, Okan- ogan County Commissioner Jim DeTro has said. 2-2/#4x %XUQHGJUD]LQJJURXQGLVVKRZQLQ2NDQRJDQ&RXQW\:DVKRQ$XJDIWHUWKH2NDQRJDQ¿UH 7KHKHDGRIWKHFRXQW\)DUP%XUHDXYRLFHGKHUIUXVWUDWLRQZLWKWKHZD\UDQFKHUVZHUHWUHDWHGGXULQJWKH ODVWWZR\HDUVRI¿UHVLQWKHFRXQW\DQGKRZWZR2UHJRQUDQFKHUVZHUHWUHDWHGLQDFRXUWFDVH 3-1/#17 OKANOGAN, Wash. — It’s “outrageous and hypocrit- ical” that the federal govern- ment imprisoned two Oregon ranchers for a backburn that got away from them and burned a little over 100 acres of public land while federal and state agencies backburned thousands of acres of private land in Okanogan County last summer and were not held ac- countable, the president of the Okanogan County Farm Bu- reau says. ³0\GH¿QLWLRQRIKRPHODQG security is America’s ability to feed itself. There is nothing more important. America has to stop the war on agriculture,” said Nicole Kuchenbuch, 36, Okanogan County Farm Bu- reau president. “If this nation’s farmers and ranchers are forced out of business, America has suc- ceeded in staging her own famine,” Kuchenbuch said. “The media tendency is to turn things into racial or so- cio-economic issues and vilify ranchers as a bunch of igno- rant honkies. It’s important to realize the American govern- ment is oppressive to all colors of people and everyone just wants to be free, healthy and prosperous,” she said. Incidents such as ranchers and militia occupying a sea- sonally closed national wild- life refuge near Burns, Ore., happen when people feel so “abused” by government that “they feel they have no other choice,” Kuchenbuch said. “I don’t agree with having a standoff, but they captured the attention of the United States,” she said. The re-sentencing of Har- ney County, Ore., ranchers Dwight and Steven Ham- PRQG WR ¿YH \HDUV LQ SULVRQ is just one of many examples throughout ranching areas of the West in the last several de- cades of the heavy handedness of federal agencies in acquir- ing more land and squeezing out ranches to satisfy environ- mentalists who want a nation- al park from the Yukon to Yel- lowstone, Kuchenbuch said. The government agencies deny squeezing ranches. It’s not coincidence that agencies have bought many Okanogan County ranches and that there have been problems between the government and ranchers in Nevada and other Western states, she said. “We believe they are sys- tematically squeezing us out. They use every means possi- ble. Direct buyouts, conser- ROP-32-52-2/#17 Capital Press