12 CapitalPress.com
August 5, 2016
Upstream
Puget Sound and the possibility of
voluntary actions.
The EPA, however, didn’t stop
What’s Upstream from posting a
“take action” link on its website. The
link facilitated sending form letters to
state legislators urging them to man-
date 100-foot buffers.
In a March 23 email exchange
with a fi sheries commission offi cial,
Strategies 360 Senior Vice President
Matt Davidson outlined a plan to di-
rect more people to the website via
change.org, which promotes itself as,
“The world’s platform for change.”
The site alerts past petition signers
to new petitions for similar causes.
“If they do support us, we’ll get
access to their contact information,”
Davidson wrote. “We can then use
CONTINUED from Page 1
The fi rm pitched the idea just
as federal lawmakers took note of
What’s Upstream. At the urging of
U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts of Kansas and
Jim Infohe of Oklahoma, the EPA’s
Offi ce of Inspector General is look-
ing into whether the tribe or fi sheries
commission misused federal funds to
lobby.
The newly released records, most-
ly emails between the EPA and the
fi sheries commission, show EPA offi -
cials were concerned that What’s Up-
stream was too focused on agriculture
and regulations, rather than taking a
broader view of pollution sources in
this list to message our supporters
through social media to go to the
What’s Upstream website to contact
their legislators.”
The day after Davidson’s email,
the Capital Press reported on the
EPA’s connection with What’s Up-
stream. In the week that followed,
an EPA offi cial was cool to using
change.org, calling it “inappropri-
ate,” according to emails between
the agency and the fi sheries commis-
sion.
Efforts to obtain a comment from
the EPA were unsuccessful.
Larry Wasserman, the Swinom-
ish tribe’s environmental director,
was “eager” to post the online pe-
tition, according to the fisheries
commission. Wasserman declined
to comment for this story.
Jeff Reading, Strategies 360’s vice
president of communications, said
Tuesday that the EPA nixed the online
petition.
“The EPA was part of every step,”
he said. “The EPA was very intimately
involved as the campaign emerged.”
The head of a Whatcom Coun-
ty-based group formed to rebut
What’s Upstream said that using
change.org would have extended the
lobbying campaign started with the
“take action” link.
“It looks to me that they were
clearly trying to automate as much
as possible gathering citizen sup-
port for their campaign and feeding
that directly to the Washington state
Senate,” Save Family Farming di-
World apple production
Apples
(Thousands of metric tons)
CONTINUED from Page 1
Russia imported 1.3 million
metric tons — or about 74 mil-
lion, 40-pound boxes — of fresh
apples before the embargo in
2013. Most were from Poland.
“That’s huge. It’s equivalent
to all the apples Washington typ-
ically sells in the U.S. in one sea-
son,” O’Rourke said of Russia’s
apple imports.
The world’s second-largest
importer of fresh apples is Ger-
many at about 650,000 metric
tons annually — about half the
volume Russia formerly import-
ed.
Russia was not only the larg-
est apple importer but the fast-
est-growing because of its red-
hot economy fueled by oil and
natural gas production.
Hit to Washington
Washington state was just a
small player, exporting 16,755
metric tons — 921,558 boxes
— of apples to Russia in 2007.
That fell to 376,377 boxes by
2012 because of the devaluation
of the ruble but had rebounded
to 598,028 boxes in 2013.
The Washington Apple
Commission, the industry’s ex-
port promotional arm, had high
hopes for growing its share of
the Russian market.
“Russia was one of the few
markets that preferred large-
sized apples and took a lot of
Red and Golden Delicious,
varieties falling in U.S. pop-
ularity,” said Todd Fryhover,
the commission’s president in
Wenatchee, Wash.
But the embargo put an
end to that. Washington apple
exports to Russia fell to zero
and have stayed there, a loss
of about $12 million annually.
Poland reacts
Before the ban, Poland ex-
ported 43 million boxes of ap-
ples to Russia per year. Poland
is a volume producer of low-
priced apples and grows a lot of
older varieties bred in the former
Soviet Union.
Caught by the embargo, Po-
land diverted much of its 2014
crop to processing for juice, but
that brought in less money than
fresh market sales, so exporters
began looking for other overseas
customers, sending wave after
wave of concerns through world
markets.
In 2015, Poland made a ma-
jor push into the Middle East
“causing all kinds of problems
for us and the French and the
Wheat
CONTINUED from Page 1
Monsanto developed the test
for MON 71700 and USDA has
validated it.
Japan had already been test-
ing U.S. wheat for MON 71800.
The new test will be capable of
detecting both MON 71800 and
MON 71700, Mercer said.
Western white wheat already
purchased but not yet delivered
will not be halted, Mercer said.
Japanese tenders this month are
for delivery in October. Japan
typically keeps 1.8 months of
inventory on hand.
“The test materials and in-
structions are in Japan, but we
think MAFF and other agencies
will validate the test before put-
ting it to use,” Mercer said.
Japan is the biggest customer
for wheat grown in the Pacifi c
Northwest. About 80 percent of
the wheat grown in the region is
exported.
U.S. Wheat doesn’t expect
changes in importation, such as
vessel loading, discharging or
the execution of existing sales
contracts.
There may also be a tempo-
rary hold on the distribution of
supplies of Western white wheat
that are already stored in Japan
rector Gerald Baron said.
The EPA has stopped discussing
What’s Upstream, pending the audit
by the agency’s independent watch-
dog. Previously, the agency said the
campaign didn’t constitute lobbying
because it did not advocate for a par-
ticularly bill.
Once lawmakers inquired about
What’s Upstream, the EPA pressed
the fi sheries commission to tally the
amount spent on the campaign. The
EPA has yet to confi rm the accuracy
of the fi sheries commission’s esti-
mate of $655,529.
Reading said the campaign —
which had planned to continue news-
paper, radio and billboard advertising
through at least February 2017 — is
on hold.
70,586
59,052
62,388
49,309
1995
2000
2005
Rank Country
2. ....... U.S.
Marina Mendoza sorts Kanzi apples at Columbia Fruit Packers, in Wenatchee, Wash., on Feb. 4. Co-
lumbia acquired the North American rights to Kanzi in 2009. The Belgian variety is popular in Europe.
Top five apple exporters, 2009-15
Italy
U.S.
Poland
China
France
1,500
1,171.8
(Thousands of metric tons)
1,143.9
983.8
816.2
888.8
900
777.1
833.4
732.8
633.8
611.3
*Projected
300
2009
’11
Source: 2016 World Apple Review, Belrose Inc.
’13
2015*
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Italians,” Fryhover said.
“A lot of fruit is grown in
Syria, Iran and Lebanon. It was
intruding on their turf,” he said.
Poland also tried to sell ap-
ples to the European Union,
Asia and Canada, but didn’t fi nd
much success because of the in-
ferior quality, O’Rourke said.
But it’s not a static condition.
The Poles and other Europeans
are smart and will adapt quickly
to market demands, said Steve
Lutz, vice president of Colum-
bia Marketing International in
Wenatchee.
“Loss of a major market cre-
ates a powerful incentive to do
things differently,” Lutz said.
“We see more competition
from all of Europe into the Mid-
dle East and Asia that we never
saw before,” said Mark Pfl u-
grath, CMI export sales man-
ager.
European marketers have a
freight advantage over the U.S.
when selling into the Middle
East, pushing prices downward,
Pfl ugrath said.
Poland and the European
Union are also seeking reduced
phytosanitary restrictions to get
more apples into the U.S.
“Poland is trying to jump
ahead with other European na-
tions that were further along in
the evaluation process,” said
Kurt Gallagher, executive di-
rector of the U.S. Apple Export
Council in Washington, D.C.
The council promotes apple
exports from states other than
Washington.
Poland may not get much for
its efforts.
“Who here is going to buy
their apples, even at 50 cents
a pound? That market — the
cheap, low-quality market — is
gone,” O’Rourke said.
However, apples from
France can compete because
shipping costs from France to
the U.S. East Coast are half of
what they are from the West
Coast, $4 per box versus $7 to
$8 per box, Fryhover said.
“I don’t think it will be a
huge infl ux, but it could be in
certain time frames,” he said.
A so-called gray market for
Polish apples into Russia de-
veloped in 2014 through such
for mills, pending the set-up of
the new tests, Mercer said.
No genetically engineered
wheat is commercially avail-
able, and there is no evidence of
GE wheat in commerce, accord-
ing to APHIS. The U.S. Food
and Drug Administration says
it is unlikely the wheat presents
any safety concerns if present in
the food supply.
Industry members hope open
communication with overseas
customers will keep the event
from disrupting the market.
Blake Rowe, Oregon Wheat
CEO, said APHIS’ approach is
more proactive compared to the
2013 incident.
“I think there was earlier
conversation with our trading
partners and their governments,”
he said. “They were aware, they
knew what kind of work was
going on. I think that was may-
be something we learned from
2013, early communication and
keeping them in the loop as to
what progress is being made,
so when the information (was
announced), they weren’t sur-
prised. They had some time to
get comfortable.”
said Ron Jirava, a Ritzville,
Wash., wheat farmer. “I think
it’s a wait-and-see again what
their fi nal determinations are.”
“I hope it doesn’t amount to
much — it shouldn’t amount
to much,” said Ben Barstow, a
farmer in Palouse, Wash.
The GE wheat discovery
comes during a season that has
also seen concerns about pro-
tein levels, falling number tests,
stripe rust and low prices.
“It’s just one more thing,”
Barstow said.
Like other farmers, Barstow
is curious about how the GE
wheat turned up in the fi eld.
“The protocols that were in
place to keep this stuff contained
were as good as we could think
of at the time — I’m sure they’re
better now than they were 10 or
15 years ago, but still, it’s a mys-
tery as how that stuff is showing
up there,” he said.
Barstow said he is concerned
about incorrect news stories he
saw coming out of South Korea
implying that GMO wheat is
produced commercially in the
U.S.
“Nothing could be fur-
ther from the truth,” he said.
“I’m always concerned about
how these things will be han-
dled by the press. It’s really
easy to frighten people about
these things, and there’s
Farmers react
“I know there are pro-
cedures in place, APHIS was
called in right away and the buy-
ers were notifi ed right away,”
countries as Belarus and Mol-
dova.
“I would guess it was
400,000 metric tons (22 mil-
lion boxes) the fi rst year but it
fell to 200,000 the second year
because the Russians tightened
controls and no longer have the
income to buy,” O’Rourke said.
Russia is now in a recession
because of the Western sanc-
tions and collapsed oil prices,
causing the value of the ruble to
drop. Now a U.S. dollar is worth
66 rubles.
Russia’s new norm
Russia now imports 725,000
metric tons of apples, a little
more than half what it did before
the embargo, O’Rourke said. In
addition to gray market sourc-
es, apples come from countries
that were not embargoed such as
Belarus, China, New Zealand,
Chile, Brazil and South Africa.
“China thought it would
move in and replace the Poles
but it hasn’t worked out because
Russian income fell,” O’Rourke
said. “Southern Hemisphere
producers got excited until a
couple of Argentinean exporters
didn’t get paid. It’s a very com-
plicated picture.”
Turkey, the fourth largest
apple-producing nation, sent
lower-priced fruit to Russia
until its air force shot down a
Russian plane and Turkey was
added to the embargo, he said.
Market disappears
With the Russian embargo,
the market for about 30 mil-
lion boxes — a little more than
a half a million metric tons —
disappeared, Fryhover said.
It comes at a time when
world apple production is ex-
pected to increase 18 percent,
no need for it, at all.”
Jirava expects similar situa-
tions will occur.
“As long there’s geese, deer
and mice, stuff’s going to move
around that we don’t know
about until it shows up,” he said.
“Nobody, I don’t think, is trying
to deliberately do something
underhanded. I think this is just
something the wildlife have
gotten into and we see it move
around a little bit.”
“We’re not surprised by this
at all,” said Amy van Saun, an
attorney for the Center for Food
Safety in Portland. The center
is a nonprofi t public interest
and environmental advocacy
organization. “Contamination
by GE crops and GE organisms
generally is inevitable. It keeps
happening over and over again.”
This is the third discovery of
genetically engineered wheat in
the U.S. Besides the 2013 dis-
covery in Eastern Oregon, in
September of 2014 a different
variety of glyphosate-resistant
wheat was found in a Huntley,
Mont., research plot, where ge-
netically engineered wheat had
been legally tested 11 years be-
fore.
Van Saun said the center
wants to see better regulations
for fi eld trials to protect farmers
who grow non-GE crops.
“These fi eld trials were
Up
20.5%
from
2010
2015
Production
1. .....China
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
2010
85,027
43,112
4,561
3. ... Poland
3,280
4. .... Turkey
2,740
5. ....... Iran
2,500
6. ....... Italy
2,210
7. ...... India
2,200
Source: 2016 World Apple Review, Belrose Inc.
from 85 million metric tons
to 100 million metric tons by
2025, O’Rourke said.
Meanwhile, global apple
exports have been fl at for six
years because of the cooling
global economic.
China is the world’s largest
apple producer at 43 million
metric tons, but its 1.3 billion
people consume most of its
production.
Europe — mainly Italy,
France, Germany and Poland
— produces 8 million met-
ric tons and the U.S., mostly
Washington state, grows about
4.5 million metric tons. Tur-
key, Iran and India are all ma-
jor producers but smaller than
the U.S.
Through 2013, Poland was
the world’s largest apple ex-
porter followed by China, the
U.S., Chile and Italy. Russia
was the largest importer, fol-
lowed by Germany, the United
Kingdom, Mexico and Spain.
Market fallout
Per-capita apple consump-
tion has shown a 1 percent
annual increase in the U.S.
but is basically fl at in the U.S.
and most wealthy countries,
O’Rourke said.
Per-capita consumption is
growing in China, Indonesia
and some under-developed
countries, but not rapidly
enough to offset production
growth, he said.
In addition, blueberries
and other fruits are increas-
taking place back in the late
1990s-early 2000s, so why is
this still happening now?” she
asked.
Whole crop tested
APHIS says it has tak-
en measures to ensure no GE
wheat moves into commerce.
“Out of an abundance of
caution,” the agency is testing
the farmer’s full wheat harvest
for the presence of any GE ma-
terial, according to an APHIS
notice. The farmer’s harvest is
fi nished and will be held while
USDA completes testing of the
grain.
So far, all samples have test-
ed negative for any GE material.
If any wheat tests positive for
GE material, the farmer’s crop
will not be allowed into com-
merce.
The farmer’s name and the
location of the fi eld were not
disclosed.
Grain import offi cials in Ja-
pan and South Korea have test-
ed for the “GE event” identifi ed
in 2013 in virtually every load
of U.S. wheat delivered to those
countries since August 2013,
U.S. Wheat and the National
Association of Wheat Growers
said.
No GE wheat has been iden-
tifi ed in more than 350 million
bushels of wheat exported to
Top apple
producing
countries, 2015
(Thousands of metric tons)
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
ingly competing with apples
for consumers’ disposable in-
come.
Despite the outlook, ma-
jor apple-producing countries
and large Washington state
tree fruit companies contin-
ue to increase the number of
high-density plantings.
“The last man standing
philosophy is very strong in
Washington state,” O’Rourke
said. “It’s that ‘I’m more effi -
cient. I can expand and be the
last one standing.’”
He predicts the industry
will come down to the surviv-
al of the fi ttest in Washington,
Europe and elsewhere.
The Russian embargo will
ultimately have the same ef-
fect on Europe as the Asian fi -
nancial crisis had on Western
U.S. growers in the late 1990s
and early 2000s, O’Rourke
believes.
During that time there
was a big shakeout and years
of retrenchment and gradu-
al retooling by the surviving
growers and packers.
“It took us 10 years of
pain to reduce our indus-
try from the Asian crisis.
Grower-by-grower
and
packer-by-packer decisions.
Europe and Poland will go
through the same painful pro-
cess,” he said.
Even if Russia’s embar-
go were lifted tomorrow, it
wouldn’t be able to buy as
many apples as it once did, he
said.
Japan alone, the organizations
said. Researchers at Washington
State University have conducted
routine phenotype screening for
glyphosate tolerance in wheat
since 2013. Varieties included
in WSU’s trials represent more
than 95 percent of the wheat
planted in Washington and
much of the acreage planted in
Idaho and Oregon, according
to the U.S. Wheat and NAWG
statement.
“Screening to date has re-
vealed no glyphosate-tolerant
wheat plants in these trials,” the
statement said.
Genetically engineered crops
are alternatively called genet-
ically modifi ed organisms, or
GMOs.
Dan Steiner, grains mer-
chant for Morrow County Grain
Growers in Boardman, Ore.,
said the market has not respond-
ed further to the incident.
Soft white wheat and club
wheat on Aug. 2 ranged from
4.67 per bushel to $4.90 per
bushel on the Portland market.
“I don’t know if we’re seeing
a weaker basis as a result of this
GMO thing or if it’s just strictly
harvest pressure that’s coming
onto the market right now,”
Steiner said. “It looks more like
it’s just precautionary at this
time. Right now it looks more
like a temporary blip.”