4
CapitalPress.com
April 3, 2015
OSU expert says farmers would swamp pot market
Growers already
produce more than
state consumes
Oregon State’s Master
Gardeners won’t offer
pot growing advice
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Pot quality would suffer
and Oregon’s conventional
farmers would swamp the
market if they turned their
skill, equipment, land and
infrastructure to marijuana
production, an Oregon State
University expert says.
Seth Crawford, who teach-
es a pot policy class at OSU,
said Oregon already produces
far more high-quality canna-
bis than the state consumes,
and could meet the state de-
mand on 35 acres of farmland
in Southern Oregon.
Crawford said Oregon’s
growers could supply the total
U.S. cannabis market on just
5,000 acres.
“Throw in another 500 and
you’d cover Canada, too,”
Crawford said.
He said Oregon now grows
the best pot in the country at
reasonable prices, and quality
would decline if large grow-
ers jumped into the business.
Existing growers have refined
their techniques over 20, 30
or 40 years, in some cases, he
said.
“There’s a difference be-
tween large-scale agricultural
producers and these marijuana
producers,” he said. “They’re
still small scale compared to
a 10,000-acre wheat ranch.
The way the Oregon market
evolved was thousands of
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Courtesy of Oregon State University
Seth Crawford, who teaches a
pot policy class at OSU, says
cannabis is Oregon’s most valu-
able crop and is widely exported.
Pamplin Media Group
small growers producing high
quality products and unique
products. You couldn’t do it
on an industrial scale.”
There don’t appear to be
any conventional farmers
clamoring to jump into the
market. And for now, seeding
the back 40 with sativa isn’t
legal.
The Oregon Liquor Con-
trol Commission, which will
regulate wholesale commer-
cial production under Mea-
sure 91, has yet to draft spe-
cific rules.
The law, which was ap-
proved by voters in the No-
vember 2014 election and
takes effect July 1, allows
individuals to possess up to
eight ounces of pot and grow
up to four plants per house-
hold for personal use.
As pot prohibition laws be-
gin to recede nationally, how-
ever, the prospect of bigger
markets and industrial-sized
grow operations occasionally
comes up in casual, just-won-
An OSU pot policy expert says conventional farmers would swamp
the market if they got into large-scale commercial marijuana
production. Existing growers, he says, already produce more than
is consumed in Oregon.
dering type of conversations,
some producers say. What if
Oregon’s grass seed growers
decided to grow the other kind
of grass? What if the state’s
nursery operators turned their
greenhouse expertise to mari-
juana production?
Crawford
said
they
shouldn’t bother, because
supply already outstrips de-
mand.
Crawford said cannabis —
unofficially — is Oregon’s
most valuable crop, with an
estimated annual value ap-
proaching $1 billion. Based
on his surveys of legal and
illegal growers, the state’s
“internal marijuana demand”
in 2014 was about 150,628
pounds. At $150 an ounce,
that’s $361 million.
Medical marijuana grow-
ers grew and exported
391,694 pounds above the
Oregon demand, worth $587
million, Crawford said. That
makes the farm gate value of
Oregon’s pot exports alone
greater than the combined
value of hazelnuts, pears,
wine grapes, Christmas trees
and blueberries, according to
Crawford’s estimates.
Crawford said his figures
are based on self-reported
data from growers he reached
through a “chain referral” sur-
vey technique, in which the
first respondents invite oth-
ers in their social network to
take part, and the sample size
grows in a snowball fashion.
Still, the underground nature
of the industry makes it diffi-
cult to get precise information,
Crawford acknowledged.
Bruce Pokarney, spokes-
man for the Oregon Depart-
The Master Gardeners
program offered through
Oregon State University
Extension is well-regarded
for the advice, workshops,
garden tours and demon-
strations its volunteers
provide to people learning
how to grow and care for
plants.
But don’t expect Master
Gardeners to provide mar-
ijuana tips when Measure
91 takes effect July 1 and
Oregonians are allowed to
grow up to four plants per
household.
A policy adopted by
OSU notes that the uni-
versity receives federal
funding, and the feds still
ment of Agriculture, said the
department has no way to as-
sess the state’s cannabis crop
value. “But, assuming the
OSU numbers are correct,
marijuana would likely be at
the top of the list of commod-
ities in terms of production
value,” he said in an email.
The department assists
other commodity groups with
research, marketing and reg-
ulations, but is in a holding
pattern as the Legislature
decides how to implement
classify cannabis as illegal.
The university and its ex-
tension programs are gov-
erned by the federal Con-
trolled Substance Act, the
Drug Free Workplace Act
and the Drug Free Schools
and Communities Act.
To avoid the risk of
losing federal funding, the
policy states, “OSU Exten-
sion, staff and volunteers
do not provide advice or
referrals on the culture,
care and/or use of marijua-
na.”
Because
marijuana
remains a federally con-
trolled substance, OSU is
not planning any courses
on marijuana propagation,
cultivation or production,
the university said.
Measure 91, Pokarney said.
“Once the Legislature pro-
vides direction, we will have
a better idea of how we will
be involved in supporting the
industry.”
Crawford teaches a sociol-
ogy class titled, “Marijuana
Policy in the 21st Century.”
Students were asked to pro-
duce a collectively-authored
paper with their recommen-
dations for how marijuana
should be grown, sold and
distributed in Oregon.
Slugs remain a mystery, experts say State health agency
More research
needed on how to
thwart the pests
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Courtesy of Robin Rosetta, OSU
European red slugs are quite common in gardens and landscapes.
but the lack of a clear cul-
prit is one reason that more
slug research is needed, ac-
cording to summit partici-
pants.
In some years, a crop
will be devastated by slugs
despite the use of poison
bait, but the same field will
respond positively to treat-
ment in other years, several
growers said.
Metaldehyde, a chemical
commonly used to dessicate
slugs, doesn’t always kill
them, said George Hoffman,
an OSU faculty research as-
sociate.
Those surviving mol-
lusks are quick to develop
an aversion to the slug bait,
which varies in effective-
ness depending on weath-
er and crop conditions, he
said.
For example, it’s less ef-
fective during low tempera-
tures and harder for slugs to
find in structurally “com-
plex” mature field crops
compared to those that have
recently germinated, Hoff-
man said.
Young slugs also avoid
metaldehyde granules in fa-
vor of fungi and other food
sources, so the chemical can
be taken up by earthworms
rather than the target pest,
experts said.
It’s unlikely that more
toxic pesticides for slugs
will come onto the market
because of harmful collat-
eral consequences for other
species, said Paul Jepson,
director of OSU’s Integrat-
ed Plant Protection Center.
Disrupting the pest’s
reproduction with phero-
mones or releasing natural
predators are viable options,
but these measures must be
employed in concert to be
effective, he said.
“There are plenty of
things that eat slugs and
really love them, but the
problem is they’re not suf-
SAGE Fact #112
At the Tidewater Terminal in Boardman,
cranes annually move more than 21,000
containers between barges and trucks.
rewriting farmworker
housing standards
New rules could
exceed federal
requirements
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Growers
who provide housing for
seasonal workers face ad-
ditional costs to meet new
standards proposed by the
Washington Department of
Health, farm groups and
producers say.
The department is ex-
pected to soon revise regu-
lations for temporary farm-
worker housing. The rules
will dictate everything
from minimum living space
to temperature settings for
hot water tanks and refrig-
erators.
Health officials say the
new rules, meant to protect
workers, haven’t been final-
ized and won’t be in effect
for this growing season.
But the department has
released proposed rules
that are drawing complaints
from farm groups.
In some ways, the pro-
posed rules exceed federal
standards set by the Occu-
pational Safety and Health
Administration.
Growers have spent
anywhere from $10,000 to
$30,000 per bed to satisfy
federal rules and qualify
to hire foreign workers on
H-2A visas, Washington
Farm Labor Association
H-2A program manager
Roxanna Macias said.
Housing built under
those standards should be
exempt from the new rules,
she said. “There needs to be
a grandfather clause. If not,
we’re going to lose a lot of
beds and ultimately that’s
going to impact our agri-
cultural members and the
industry as a whole.”
The health department
in 2014 licensed 266 tem-
rop-6-26-5/#17
LEGAL
14-1/#6
PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87
Notice is hereby given that the
following vehicle will be sold,
for cash to the highest bidder,
on 4/13/2015. The sale will be
held at 10:00 am by
ANDY’S TRUCK REPAIR
1395 INDUSTRIAL WAY
WOODBURN, OR
Freightliner Semi
VIN=1FUYDSEB6YPH05512
Amount due on lien $6,155.00
Reputed owner(s)
Mitchell Rickerd
Trimac Equipment Leasing
Legal-14-2-1/#4
Despite their close famil-
iarity with the slimy pests,
farmers in Oregon’s Willa-
mette Valley continue to be
baffled by slugs.
Growers and researchers
recently puzzled over the
mollusk’s onslaught against
numerous crops during Or-
egon State University’s
“Slug Summit,” held March
25 in Salem.
Slugs have grown as
a problem in recent de-
cades but it’s debatable
why they’re causing more
damage, farmers and scien-
tists from OSU and USDA
agreed.
Effectively thwarting the
pest also remains a mystery.
The decline of field
burning and rise of no-till
and reduced tillage farm-
ing are sometimes blamed
for increased slug numbers,
creating better opportunities
for the pest to find safe har-
bor.
However, some farm-
ers reported persistent slug
problems despite tilling
heavily and burning fields.
Other theories for the
pest’s rise include climate
change and the lower prev-
alence of toxic pesticides,
ficient,” Jepson said.
Summit
participants
broached several other pos-
sible control methods, in-
cluding nematodes and dis-
eases that affect slugs.
Shutting off genes that
are crucial to the slug’s life
cycle with mollusk-specific
“RNAi” pesticides was also
discussed.
For chemical manu-
facturers to focus on the
problem, they’d have to
foresee a profitable return
on investment for a mol-
lusk-specific
pesticide,
said Sujaya Rao, an OSU
field entomologist.
Such a chemical would
also have to work and be
registered for a broad vari-
ety of crops, which poses a
challenge, she said.
Dan Arp, dean of OSU’s
College of Agricultural Sci-
ences, said the university
recognizes that slug re-
search is a priority for farm-
ers in the region.
The university is seeking
increased state funding for
extension agents who could
deal with the issue, he said.
However, current proposals
by key Oregon lawmakers
would only raise funding for
extension services enough
to keep up with inflation,
Arp said.
Regardless of potential
funding increases, new po-
sitions may be created as
existing OSU faculty mem-
bers retire, he said. The
university may also desig-
nate a “strike team” of ex-
isting professors and agents
to help study and control
slugs.
“We need this coordinat-
ed effort, it has to be done
that way,” Arp said.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Okanogan County Farm Bu-
reau President Jon Wyss looks
at handouts on farmworker
housing March 26 after a Sen-
ate work session in Olympia on
rules proposed by the Washing-
ton Department of Health.
porary farmworker resi-
dences, with 16,633 beds.
The department’s direc-
tor of health facilities, Lisa
Hodgson, said the agency
based its proposed rules on
meetings with agricultural
groups and worker advo-
cates. “Some of the areas
we exceeded (federal stan-
dards), we heard from the
advocates that they want
additional standards put
into place to protect the
workers,” she said.
As proposed, the new
rules would require grow-
ers to provide more toilets
than mandated by OSHA.
The rules also would
impose new requirements
for locks on bathroom
doors, partitions between
kitchens and sleeping ar-
eas, fire extinguishers,
rails on bunk beds, and
smoke and carbon monox-
ide detectors,
A lawyer who represents
farmworkers, Dan Ford of
Columbia Legal Services,
said the proposed rules
don’t go far enough in
some cases.
There should be at least
one shower per six workers,
not the proposed 10 work-
ers, and housing should be
cooled to at least 80 de-
grees, not the proposed 90
degrees, he said.
The health department
proposes to adopt the fed-
eral standard of 100 square
feet of living space per
worker. Ford said that’s too
tight for physical and men-
tal health. “Even the OSHA
standards are not humane,”
he said.