Business
AgLife
B
Thursday, January 6, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
West Coast
ports still
are facing
gridlock
Global shipping crisis
snarls agricultural
exports, increasing costs
and delays
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Maddie Ford, left, and Julie Bodfi sh pose for a photo at Fitzgerald Flowers on Adams Avenue on Monday, Dec. 27, 2021. Ford is on track to become a full partner in the
longtime La Grande store when Bodfi sh, the owner, retires.
Maddie Ford joins current ownership as partner of Fitzgerald Flowers
though. She soon saw that Ford
had the talent needed to become
a fl oral designer and a future
owner. Bodfi sh began giving
Ford the training she needed.
Today, Ford knows fl oral design
and all elements of the fl ower
business.
“She clearly understands
every job in the shop,” Bodfi sh
said.
These jobs include preparing
fl oral bouquets for weddings —
ceremonies Ford often photo-
graphs for families as the owner
of Blackbird Photography, a busi-
ness she has owned and operated
since 2013.
“I love having the chance to
do both at the same wedding,”
Ford said.
She said she views photog-
raphy as an extension of what she
does when creating fl oral designs
for weddings.
“The two go hand in hand,”
Ford said.
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — The future
of Fitzgerald Flowers, one of La
Grande’s older family-owned
businesses, is becoming as clear
as the glass vases that come
with its popular Winter Splendor
bouquets.
It’s a future Maddie Ford, the
fl oral shop’s assistant manager
and an employee for the past 10
years, will be a big part of.
Ford has entered into a part-
nership agreement with Julie
Bodfi sh — the shop’s owner
since the mid-1990s — that
makes Ford a part owner.
Ford, who is also a pro-
fessional photographer, will
become a full partner at Fitz-
gerald Flowers in fi ve years.
Bodfi sh said she will likely retire
about then. She is confi dent Ford
will keep the fl oral shop in full
bloom.
“It will be in her very capable
hands after I retire,” Bodfi sh
said.
The plan for Ford to eventu-
ally run the business is one Bod-
fi sh and Ford have been working
on for some time.
“We have been talking about
this a lot, especially the last sev-
eral years,” Bodfi sh said.
Family approval
Bodfi sh is the daughter of the
late Pat and Helen Fitzgerald,
who started the fl ower shop
in 1944. She said she has the
blessing of her family in making
plans for Ford to become the
shop’s next owner.
“This is a huge deal for our
family,” Bodfi sh said. “Maddie
has the stamp of approval from
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Julie Bodfi sh, left, and Maddie Ford smile outside Fitzgerald Flowers in La Grande
on Monday, Dec. 27, 2021. Bodfi sh, whose parents opened the shop in 1944, is
training Ford to take over the business.
everyone in our family.”
Ford is touched by how gra-
ciously members of the Fitz-
gerald family have reached out
to her.
“They have adopted me as a
part of their family,” she said.
Bodfi sh gave Ford a job at
Fitzgerald Flowers less than a
month after Ford graduated from
Cove High School in 2012. Bod-
fi sh said Ford and Courtney
Miles, who is an assistant man-
ager at Fitzgerald Flowers and
has been with the shop for about
20 years, are the two best hires
she has made.
Ford said she applied at the
store in 2012 because her older
sister, Mollie, had worked there
previously, enjoyed the expe-
rience and spoke highly of the
shop’s staff . Maddie Ford ini-
tially looked upon the job as
a means of helping her work
her way through college while
earning a degree in art from
Eastern Oregon University.
She had no intention to
someday own Fitzgerald Flowers.
“Absolutely not,” Ford said.
Bodfi sh had other ideas,
Embracing a motto
Outside the entrance to Fitz-
gerald Flowers is the motto of
Bodfi sh’s mother: “Treat your
customers as friends and your
staff as family.”
Ford said she is impressed
with how Bodfi sh has taken the
motto to heart.
“Julie has absolutely adopted
it,” Ford said.
Ford said that when she
becomes the owner of Fitzgerald
Flowers she will continue to
strive to live by this motto while
also tapping into her passion for
artistic expression.
“I love being able to create for
the community,” Ford said. “It is
fun to bring beauty into people’s
lives.”
TANGENT — As conges-
tion at ocean ports along the West
Coast has continued in 2021,
Alexis Jacobson has seen her
schedule thrown into chaos.
Jacobson is the international
sales manager for
BOSSCO Trading,
a company based
in Tangent, near
Albany, that sells
grass straw from
Jacobson
farms around the
Willamette Valley
to customers in Japan and South
Korea. The straw is used as feed
for beef and dairy cattle.
Under normal circumstances,
Jacobson spends roughly an hour
a day working with ocean carriers
to ensure their cargo makes it
aboard ships bound for Asia.
That was before COVID-19
infl amed a nationwide shipping
crisis that has snarled ports, cata-
pulted costs and left agricultural
exporters scrambling for options.
“We’re constantly making a
plan, and then changing that plan
because of circumstances out of
our control,” said Jacobson, who
now spends most of her time each
day calling audibles whenever a
vessel is late, or the booking is
canceled. Timetables are con-
stantly in fl ux, and often change
with only a few days’ notice.
Ag exports impacted
BOSSCO Trading is hardly
alone. Just about every Northwest
farm exporter — from Oregon
hazelnuts to Washington apples
to Idaho potatoes — is feeling the
pinch.
Shipping containers that once
sat on the docks for three to eight
days are now waiting a month or
longer to be loaded onto vessels,
depending on their destination.
In some cases, carriers are
foregoing Asia-bound exports
altogether, opting instead to send
empty containers back to Asia,
where they are loaded with
higher-priced merchandise such
as clothing, footwear and kitchen
appliances. Critics of the prac-
tice describe it as a money grab,
with the industry reporting record
profi ts this year of more than
$200 billion.
The price of shipping exports
from the U.S. is also skyrock-
eting. Jacobson said general
rates that once ran $400 to $500
per container are now as high as
$2,000 to $2,500.
While that added cost can
be tacked onto the prices of
most consumer goods, farmers
See, Gridlock/Page B2
Biden sets agenda to boost meat processing competition
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
WASHINGTON — The Biden
administration announced on
Monday, Jan. 3, its new plan to
boost competition in the meat-
packing industry and reduce meat
prices to consumers.
The plan includes $1 billion in
American Rescue Plan funding to
expand independent processing
capacity, strengthening rules that
protect producers and consumers,
promoting vigorous and fair
enforcement of existing competi-
tion laws and increasing transpar-
ency in cattle markets.
President Biden met with
family farmers in a virtual round-
table to discuss the plan. Also
participating were Attorney Gen-
eral Merrick Garland, Secre-
tary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack,
and National Economic Council
Director Brian Deese.
Scott Blubaugh, president of
the Oklahoma Farmers Union,
said more local processing of
livestock would allow producers
to retain more of the retail food
dollar at their farms and ranches,
in the family operation and in
their rural communities.
“For too long, we have seen
the multinational meatpackers
suck out all of the wealth of rural
America and put it in their corpo-
rate coff ers — and in some cases,
even overseas,” he said.
Producers are excited about
being able to have processing
done by local people and
then selling directly to the con-
sumer, Blubaugh said.
“Whether we can sell to the
grocery stores, the restaurants or
the consumers directly, all of them
will enable our rural communi-
ties to be lifted out of poverty,” he
said.
Expanding local processing is
critical to keeping dollars in the
communities where that wealth is
generated, Vilsack said.
“For far too long we’ve had
an extraction economy in rural
America where these guys work
24/7, 365 days a year raising these
cattle, and then they transport
them hundreds of miles away and
the profi ts basically go thousands
of miles away,” he said.
Retaining profi ts in small
Baker City Herald, File
See, Agenda/Page B2
The Biden administration on Monday, Jan. 3, 2021, announced plans to increase
competition in the meatpacking industry.