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CapitalPress.com
April 3, 2015
People & Places
Center shifts focus to sage grouse
Derek Tilley and
staff look for ways
to help species
thrive across West
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
ABEDEEN, Idaho — Der-
ek Tilley and his staff at the
USDA’s Aberdeen Plant Ma-
terials Center have an over-
riding goal in their efforts to
select hardy wildflower seed
and improve practices for cul-
tivating native plants.
In 2014, they shifted their
research focus toward im-
proving sage grouse habitat to
help avert an endangered spe-
cies listing for the native bird.
A listing of the sage grouse
under the federal Endangered
Species Act would lead to sig-
nificant restrictions on many
industries, including livestock
grazing.
Tilley, who joined the cen-
ter’s staff in 2004 as a range
conservationist and was pro-
moted to manager in October,
said he and his staff spend a
couple of weeks each summer
in the mountains seeking sourc-
es of native plant seeds. At the
center’s farms and greenhous-
es, they select for the plants that
establish easily and withstand
the elements, giving small
amounts of their improved seed
to the University of Idaho’s
Foundation Seed Program for
propagation.
Commercial growers ac-
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Derek Tilley, manager of the USDA’s Plant Materials Center in Aberdeen, Idaho, holds a tray of
sulfur buckwheat, which his facility is propagating for Grand Teton National Park. His center recently
switched its focus to improving sage grouse habitat.
Western Innovator
Derek Tilley
Age: 42
Job: Manager of the USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Service’s
Aberdeen Plant Materials Center
Family: Wife, Amber, and children, Nathaniel, 13, Logan, 11,
Andelin, 7.
Hometown: Aberdeen, Idaho
Education: Bachelor’s degree in botany, master’s degree in plant
taxonomy from Brigham Young University.
quire public seed from UI to
increase for Conservation Re-
serve Program mixes, public
land restoration, private graz-
ing land improvement and oth-
er uses.
The Aberdeen facility, es-
tablished in 1939, is one of 27
U.S. plant materials centers. A
secondary priority in Aberdeen
is developing cover crops,
which are plants cultivated on
agricultural land solely for soil
health benefits. The center also
increases seed collected from
national parks for park resto-
ration projects.
In the past, each center
strove to address general re-
gional resource concerns, but
that spread their efforts too
thin, Tilley said.
“Each region now has just
a few areas of focus,” Tilley
said. “Even though we’ve only
been focused on sage grouse
for this past year, a lot of our
work in the past is directly ap-
plicable.”
A few years ago, Tilley’s
program released Maple Grove
Lewis flax, a native flower
to replace European-derived
flax in seed mixes. This fall,
the program released seed of
hoary tansyaster, a native pur-
ple aster. The center is build-
ing a supply of a native grass,
world buckwheat. The plants
support insects consumed by
sage grouse chicks, which also
feed on some of the vegetation.
Chris Colt, a U.S. Forest
Service wildlife biologist, said
protecting and restoring habi-
tat is among the best ways to
help sage grouse.
“One of the biggest issues
for sage grouse is loss of hab-
itat from wildfires,” Colt said.
“Wildfire is really spurred
by exotic grasses — mostly
cheatgrass and Medusahead.”
In Eastern Idaho’s Curlew
National Grassland, Colt said
the center has planted test plots
for the past five years, seeking
plants that benefit sage grouse
and compete well with inva-
sive species.
Tilley has also applied for
a Forest Service grant to in-
vestigate ways to effectively
plant wildflowers and forbs in
the field for the benefit of sage
grouse. He hopes to experiment
with snow fencing, which could
trap snow and bolster growth
of plants that like cool, moist
conditions, and fabric, which
would trap heat and moisture
and stimulate growth much
like in a greenhouse.
Tilley said pollinators and
sage grouse benefit most from
“islands” of native forbs,
shrubs and grasses.
USDA wants to redefine farming, limit subsidies
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
government is revising its defi-
nition of what it means to farm,
meaning some people who re-
ceive farm subsidies but don’t
do any of the work would re-
ceive less government cash.
Congress charged the Ag-
riculture Department last year
with creating a new definition
for what it means to be “actively
engaged” in farming, the crite-
ria to receive some subsidies.
USDA proposed Tuesday that
farms must document that their
managers put in 500 hours of
substantial management work
annually or 25 percent of the
time necessary for the success of
the farming operation to qualify.
“We want to make sure that
farm program payments are
going to the farmers and farm
families that they are intended
to help,” Agriculture Secretary
Tom Vilsack said.
The rules only apply to
some farm businesses, howev-
er. Congress exempted family
owned entities, which make up
some of the country’s largest
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Dry beans are harvested in a field near Wilder, Idaho, in this file
photo. The USDA has announced that it is redefining farming for the
purposes of determining who will receive some subsidy payments.
farms, as part of a provision in
the wide-ranging farm bill that
directed USDA to issue the new
rules.
USDA said as many as
1,400 operations could lose
eligibility under the rules, sav-
ing around $50 million over a
three-year period.
The rules are in response
to concerns that some people
were abusing the idea of “ac-
tively engaged” to qualify for
subsidies. A report by the Gov-
ernment Accountability Office
in 2013 looked at some farms
that received hundreds of thou-
sands of subsidies a year and
claimed that 11 or more peo-
ple were actively engaged in
the operation. For some oper-
ations, unlimited numbers of
so-called managers can now
receive payments.
Under the new rules, up to
three managers per operation
could receive subsidies.
Farmers receive roughly
$5 billion a year under the ac-
tively engaged requirements.
The definition up until now has
been broad, allowing people to
claim vague “active personal
management” to receive sub-
sidies. People who don’t even
visit a farm can receive money,
and USDA employees often
have a difficult time verifying
how engaged an individual is.
The proposed rule still
would allow people to claim
“active personal management”
but defines that as the 500 hours
of work or 25 percent of time.
To receive payments, managers
would have to document that
they were directly involved in
farm finances, labor manage-
ment, planting, marketing or
other activities directly con-
tributing to the success of the
operation.
The rule is focused on farm
businesses that are organized as
general partnerships, in which
multiple members share man-
agement, and non-family joint
ventures, which are short-term
business associations among
individuals or entities.
Farms that organize under
those two types of business
models can sometimes sidestep
farm subsidy limits. The GAO
report found that general part-
nerships and joint ventures re-
ceived a very high proportion
of their subsidies through mul-
tiple members claiming that
they were actively engaged in
farming.
Vilsack says the rules
would help “close a loophole
that has been taken advantage
of” by those businesses.
Farm bills passed by both
the House and the Senate pro-
posed stricter rules for which
farmers could qualify, and
would not have allowed any-
one to have qualified under the
vague classification of “active
personal management.” Farm-
ers would have had to contrib-
ute labor, capital, equipment or
land to qualify for money.
Instead, the final bill that
emerged from House-Senate
negotiations directed USDA
to better define what that man-
agement is and specified that
family farms could not be part
of the rule.
Craig Cox of the Environ-
mental Working Group, which
has fought farm subsidies for
the wealthy, called the rule “a
tiny step forward.”
“It doesn’t get at the heart of
the problem,” he said.
Farmers fund new research to breed gluten-free wheat
By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. — New
research funded by farmers
aims to breed a wheat variety
for people who can’t eat wheat
and other grains, an endeavor
that comes as wider consumer
interest in gluten-free foods is
booming.
The Kansas Wheat Com-
mission is spending $200,000
for the first two years of the
project, which is meant to iden-
tify everything in wheat’s DNA
sequences that can trigger a re-
action in people suffering from
celiac disease, an autoimmune
disorder in which eating even
tiny amounts of gluten — com-
prised of numerous, complex
proteins that gives dough its
elasticity and some flavor to
baked goods — can damage the
small intestine. The only known
treatment for it is a gluten-free
diet, not eating foods that con-
tain wheat, rye, and barley.
Though celiac disease is
four to five times more com-
mon now than 50 years ago,
only about 1 percent of the
world’s population is believed
to suffer from it, and just a frac-
tion have been diagnosed. But
the gluten-free food business
has skyrocketed in the last five
years, driven in part by non-ce-
liac sufferers who are either in-
tolerant to gluten or following
a gluten-free fad diet because
they believe it may help them
lose weight or that it’s some-
how healthier.
Sales of gluten-free snacks,
crackers, pasta, bread and other
products reached $973 million
in the U.S. in 2014, up from
$810 million the previous year,
according to a January report
by consumer research firm
Packaged Facts, which ana-
lyzed the sales of hundreds of
explicitly labeled and marketed
gluten-free products and brands
at supermarkets, drugstores,
and mass merchandisers.
Supporters of the Kansas re-
search, though, say this isn’t a
way to regain market share.
“If you know you are pro-
ducing a crop that is not tolerat-
ed well by people, then it’s the
right thing to do,” according to
the project’s lead researcher,
Chris Miller, senior director of
research for Engrain, a Kansas
company that makes products
to enhance the nutrition and ap-
pearance of products made by
the milling and cereal industry.
Gluten-free foods are a niche
product, and in the broader con-
text of the world’s wheat mar-
kets, it is not a driving factor,
according to Dan O’Brien, ex-
tension grain market specialist
at Kansas State University. “I
anticipate it will develop as a
specialty market,” he said.
WASHINGTON
April 4 — Washington State
Sheep Producers Lambing and
Management School, Sprague, $50
(member), $60 (non-member), 509-
257-2230, dvm@feustelfarms.com
April 6-11 — Washington State
Sheep Producers Shearing School,
Moses Lake
April 16-19 — Washington State
Spring Fair, Puyallup, 2-10 p.m.
Thursday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday
and Saturday and 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Sunday,
http://www.thefair.com/
spring-fair/
www.washingtonffa.org/convention
WASHINGTON
June 20-21 — Glenwood
Ketchum Kalf Rodeo, 1 p.m. each
day, 509-364-3371, http://business.
gorge.net/glenwoodrodeo/
June 21-23 — Washington Po-
tato and Onion Association Annual
Convention, Northern Quest Resort
and Casino, Spokane wa.potato.
onion@gmail.com
Calendar
APRIL
OREGON
April 9 — Oregon Mint
Commission budget hearing,
10 a.m., Hood River Hotel, 102
Oak St., Hood River, 503-364-
2944
April 18 — Oregon Women
for Agriculture Auction and Din-
ner, Linn County Fair and Expo
Center, Albany, 503-243-FARM
(3276), http://owaonline.org/
April 25-26 — AgFest, 8:30
a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-
5 p.m. Sunday, Oregon State
Fairgrounds, Salem, $9 for
adults, under 12 are free, http://
www.oragfest.com
April 28 — Oregon Blue-
berry Commission budget hear-
ing, noon, Chemeketa Events
at Winema, Room 210, 4001
Winema Place, NE, Salem,
503-364-2944
CALIFORNIA
April 18-21 — California State
FFA Conference, Selland Arena,
Fresno, www.calaged.org/statecon-
vention
IDAHO
April 8-11 — State FFA
Leadership Conference, College
of Southern Idaho, Twin Falls,
www.idffafoundation.org/
April 24 — Forester map and
compass workshop, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.,
University of IdahoExtension office,
1808 N. Third St., Coeur d’Alene,
$10 fee, 208-446-1683, http://www.
uidaho.edu/extension/forestry/con-
tent/calendarofevents
MAY
WASHINGTON
May 14-16 — Washing-
ton FFA Convention, Washing-
ton State University, Pullman,
CALIFORNIA
May 1-2 — Forest Landowners
of California annual meeting, Holi-
day Inn, Auburn, www.forestland-
owners.org/
JUNE
CALIFORNIA
June 15-26 — Postharvest
Technology Short Course, Univer-
sity of California-Davis, http://post-
harvest.ucdavis.edu/Education/
PTShortCourse/
IDAHO
June 13 — Sheep in the Foot-
hills, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Boise Foot-
hills Learning Center, 3188 Sunset
Peak Road, 208-493-2530, Foot-
hillsLearningCenter-Parks@cityof-
boise.org
JULY
IDAHO
July 11 — 94th annual Idaho
Ram Sale, Twin Falls County Fair-
grounds, Filer, 208-334-2271 or
iwga@earthlink.net
NOVEMBER
CALIFORNIA
Nov.17-18 — Drone World
Expo, San Jose Convention Center,
www.droneworldexpo.com
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Index
California ...............................11
Dairy .................................... 13
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Markets ............................... 16
Opinion .................................. 6
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