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March 13, 2015
CapitalPress.com
11
Idaho
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Idaho barley industry OK after 2014 losses
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — Idaho’s barley industry
has weathered the heavy 2014 losses
caused by monsoon-like August rains
with the help of its biggest customers
and is looking to the future, not the past,
Idaho Barley Commission Administra-
tor Kelly Olson told Idaho lawmakers.
Idaho’s barley industry remains
healthy, despite the losses, which are
estimated at $60 million to $70 mil-
lion, Olson told members of the House
and Senate agricultural committees last
week.
The monsoonal rains in parts of
Southern and Eastern Idaho that are
largely deserts started Aug. 4 and didn’t
finish for about five weeks, she said.
As a result, harvested barley acre-
age in Idaho was down 18 percent to
510,00 acres last year and production
was down 17 percent to 47.94 million
bushels.
But Idaho still led the nation in bar-
ley production.
“Despite all the headlines ... we re-
mained on top of the industry in this
country for the third straight year,” she
said. “Despite those difficulties, Idaho
still produced 27 percent of the U.S.
barley crop.”
Olson said the industry’s major cus-
tomers used as much of the damaged
crop as possible, given their quality pa-
rameters, which helped limit the dam-
age.
Ninety-two percent of the state’s
malt barley crop was in the path of
those August storms and the industry
initially feared as much as 60 to 80
percent of the state’s malt barley crop
could be lost.
But a joint IBC/University of Idaho
crisis action plan to deal with the dam-
age and the assistance of the state’s ma-
jor customers helped limit the losses,
Olson said.
Beer and malt companies in Idaho
have made large capital investments in
the state and “they suffered economic
losses right along with the producers
in 2014,” Olson told the Capital Press
later.
“But they have all in various ways
really made extraordinary efforts to
take as much of the barley as they could
and make it work ... to try to limit the
losses to the producers,” she said.
IBC member Dwight Little, a bar-
ley farmer from Teton, said the malting
plants in Idaho “went the extra mile in
using as much of the 2014 barley crop
as they could.”
“Those folks have made tremen-
dous investments in our area (and) the
reason they did that was because we
don’t have events like we had last fall,”
he said. “They understand that stuff
happens some times.”
Little said those companies have
Idaho cottage food bill
advances despite scrutiny
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — Legislation that
would set standards for Ida-
ho’s cottage foods industry
has made it to the House floor
but only after facing close
scrutiny during a committee
hearing.
The bill would codify in
state law that people are al-
lowed to sell a limited amount
of non-risky food produced in
their unlicensed home kitchen
directly to consumers.
Cottage food producers
told members of the House
Health and Welfare Commit-
tee March 4 that although the
state has tacitly allowed them
to do that for 20-plus years,
Idaho’s seven independent
public health districts each
have different standards for
cottage foods.
“If you live in Boise, you
can’t sell any products pro-
duced in a home kitchen,” said
Boise farmer Josie Erskine.
“If you live in Pocatello, you
can make (and sell) whatever
you want (from) your home
kitchen. Each district has a
different set of codes.”
Erskine said the bill would
ensure cottage food producers
are sanctioned by the state and
provide them legal certainty.
She said the legislation would
help “a budding industry that
wants to see itself grow in a
safe and legal way in this state.”
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Supporters of an Idaho cottage foods bill discuss the legislation
outside the House Health and Welfare Committee March 4. The
committee voted 7-2 to send the bill to the House floor with a “do-
pass” recommendation.
The bill would require cot-
tage food producers to register
online with the Idaho Depart-
ment of Health and Welfare,
take an online food safety
exam and put their product’s
label online and include any
potential allergens.
Only producers with gross
sales of $30,000 or less qual-
ify.
They would not be subject
to in-home inspections and
would not be required to be
licensed, said the legislation’s
sponsor, Rep. Clark Kauff-
man, R-Filer.
The bill was opposed by
the IDHW’s Division of Pub-
lic Health, which argues that
Idaho code already allows the
industry to exist.
While it’s true there is no
language in existing statute
that specifically addresses
cottage foods, Idaho’s food
safety rules “specifically state
that the rules do not apply to
(cottage foods),” said Patrick
Guzzle, who manages the
IDHW’s food protection pro-
gram.
He said the program “has,
for many years, allowed for
direct to consumer sales of
many food items without any
food safety inspection, license
or registration requirements,
or dollar limits.”
Guzzle said the department
opposes the legislation as it is
written but would be OK with
a bill that simply codifies the
department’s existing practic-
es.
“This proposal, in our
opinion, goes well beyond
codifying our existing prac-
tices,” he said.
The bill faced tough ques-
tioning by some committee
members, who asked how the
cap would be enforced and
balked at additional regula-
tions.
Idaho Freedom Founda-
tion President Wayne Hoff-
man said the bill would mean
more government regulation
for a large number of produc-
ers.
“I’d love to see a bill that
says they are not regulated,
period,” he said. “It would be
about a one-sentence bill.”
That sentiment was echoed
by several lawmakers but cot-
tage food producers said they
needed the legal certainty of
being officially sanctioned by
the state.
Under the existing uncer-
tainty, “I don’t feel confident
it’s a safe route for me to go,”
Erskine said.
come up with decent malt barley con-
tracts for this season compared with
other crop prices, “which bodes well
for growers and shows us they remain
committed to what we do.”
Idaho’s barley industry is in good
shape, its customers are standing by the
state’s barley producers and they are
both looking to the future, Olson said.
“We’re not looking back; we’re
looking forward,” she said.
As a result of the losses, income
from Idaho’s barley assessment will
decline from an estimated $635,000
to $529,000 this fiscal year, and the
commission’s reserve fund will like-
ly be drawn down from $509,000 to
$358,000.
Idaho takes action
on truck weight
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
BOISE — Idaho’s House
of Representatives has passed
legislation urging the U.S.
Congress to increase the state’s
truck weight limit on inter-
state highways from 105,500
pounds to 129,000 pounds.
Idaho commodity leaders
— especially those involved
in sugar beets, potatoes and
timber — strongly support
the change, which they em-
phasize would bring Idaho in
line with surrounding states
including Utah, Nevada, Wy-
oming and Montana.
The state bill, HJM008,
known as a memorial, was
introduced by Rep. Joe Palm-
er, R-Meridian, and referred
March 6 to the Senate Trans-
portation Committee.
Members of Idaho’s con-
gressional delegation have
long pushed for the change
and see several opportunities
to implement it this year, and
say passage of the state me-
morial would facilitate their
efforts.
“It helps us to make the
case to our counterparts here
that our state is asking for fair
treatment, and it’s not just a
couple of senators and con-
gressmen who are convinced
this is the way to go,” said
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.
Crapo recently introduced
standalone legislation to raise
Idaho’s trucking weight lim-
it, which has remained lower
than many other states since
the government implemented
an interstate trucking weight
limit freeze in the 1980s. Rep.
Mike Simpson, also R-Idaho,
introduced an identical bill on
the House side.
Crapo also intends to
pursue an Idaho increase
soon in a transportation ap-
propriations bill, and he’s
backing a bill to implement
a nationwide 129,000-pound
standard. Furthermore, he
may pursue the change in the
forthcoming highway bill re-
authorization.
Mark Duffin, executive
director of the Idaho Sugar
Beet Growers Association,
said 129,000-pound trailers
are readily available to haul
Amalgamated beets.
Five honored for East
Idaho ag contributions
Capital Press
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho —
As a state lawmaker, Darwin
Young championed legislation
that provided lasting property
tax relief to Idaho farmers and
other large land owners.
The 90-year-old retired
Blackfoot farmer also served
as an Idaho Potato commis-
sioner and was a founding
member of the Idaho Under-
ground Water Users Associa-
tion.
For his contributions to ag-
riculture and his community,
Young will be among five new
inductees to the Eastern Ida-
ho Agricultural Hall of Fame,
along with Marcus Gibbs, of
Grace; Janis Johnson Ritchie,
of Burton; Jay Wiley, of Car-
men; and Ronald Carlson, of
Firth.
Gibbs is a state lawmak-
er who served on the Idaho
Potato Seed Advisory Com-
mittee and the Last Chance
Canal Co. board. Ritchey
has spent 47 years as a 4-H
leader and 22 years as a di-
rector on the United Dairy-
men of Idaho board. Wiley
has served 30 years as a state
brand inspector and livestock
pollution investigator and is a
past Idaho Cattle Association
director. Carlson was water
master for District 1 with the
Idaho Department of Water
Resources.
New inductees, selected by
a 30-member board of direc-
tors representing many facets
of agriculture, will be honored
during a dinner beginning at
6 p.m. March 20 at the Idaho
Falls Shilo Inn.
Blackfoot rancher and for-
mer state lawmaker Dennis
Lake, who nominated Young,
recalled his ingenuity in plant-
ing sod along irrigation ditch
banks to prevent erosion, con-
trolling the growth by grazing
livestock confined within elec-
tric fencing.
But Lake has been most
impressed by Young’s com-
mitment to community ser-
vice. Young was a Fifth Dis-
trict PTA president, a Bingham
County commissioner, a Bing-
ham Memorial Hospital board
member, a school board mem-
ber and a member of the Idaho
State Tax Commission.
Young also volunteered to
serve in World War II, man-
ning the ball turret of a B-17
bomber. Young had close calls
during his 35 missions, once
losing his aircraft’s No. 2 en-
gine and propeller function.
“We counted the (bullet)
holes, and we had 270 holes in
the plane,” Young said.
Lake describes Young as
the last of the living pioneers
who broke out the desert west
of Blackfoot for farm land.
Young, married to Pearl, start-
ed farming in Blackfoot on
400 acres with his father and
brother in 1952, buying them
out a few years later.
He built the farm to 1,600
acres, before his son, Allen,
took over operations about 20
years ago.
“Farming was a good way
of life,” Young said. “I never
had a moment’s time when I
didn’t like what I was doing.”
11-4/#14
By JOHN O’CONNELL
ROP-8-6-4/#16