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CapitalPress.com
April 17, 2015
People & Places
OSU Extension leader seeks wider impact
Sam Angima looks
for ways to get
researchers out
of their ‘silos’
Capital Press Managers
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Oregon State University College of Ag Assistant Dean Sam Angima, left, and Associate Dean Dan Edge are touring extension and
research centers. Angima hopes to get researchers to cooperate more with each other and the public.
tack at a Kenyan university.
When he goes home and is
hit up for advice, Angima
shares information drawn
from OSU’s small farms
program.
Collaboration can’t be
forced with “rules and
guidelines,” Angima said.
“The best thing is to involve
people in defining this prob-
lem,” he said.
Being the “new kid in the
building,” as he puts it, An-
gima is taking time to listen
first. He and Dan Edge, the
College of Ag’s new asso-
ciate dean, recently toured
some OSU research sta-
tions. “You don’t want to
come into a new office and
assume everything’s fine,”
Angima said during a stop
at the North Willamette
Western Innovator
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University Extension Service
N. California
Tim Hearden .................... 530-605-3072
Position: Assistant Dean of Outreach and Engagement, Oregon State
Personal: Age 49, married with a 14-year-old daughter and 10-year-old
E Idaho
John O’Connell ................. 208-421-4347
son.
Professional: An agronomist by training, at OSU since 2006, worked as
regional administrator of OSU Extension on the North Coast, based in Newport. Moved to the Corvallis
campus March 1.
Background: Grew up in the Kisii region, a rich agricultural area in the highlands of Southwestern
Kenya, where his family owns a tea and coffee farm. The farm remains in the family, with Angima, two
brothers and three sisters as shareholders. Came to the U.S. for college and has a doctorate in soil
science from Purdue University.
Perspective: His home country recently suffered a terrorist attack in which 148 Christian university
students were murdered. “So insane,” he says.
Approach to his new job: “We can’t sit in an ivory tower and expect things to happen.”
station in Aurora, south of
Portland.
Station staff made it
clear they are spread thin.
All the more reason, Angi-
ma said, to engage others
across counties, offices and
departments.
“We don’t want every-
one doing it by themselves,
so we help one another,” he
said.
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By LEE JUILLERAT
For the Capital Press
Photos by Lee Juillerat/For the Capital Press
Dan Taylor tosses fish food into ponds filled with white sturgeon on the Willow Creek Ranch near Likely, Calif.
Sturgeon swim in a pond at the Willow Creek Ranch near Likely,
Calif. They are raised for caviar and meat.
hold steady at 65 degrees Fahr-
enheit, the ideal reading for
white sturgeon that grow best
in 63- to 68-degree water.
Testing was done in 1989, a
bitterly cold winter when tem-
peratures frequently dropped
below zero. A year later, the
first raceways were installed.
Since then the raceways have
been replaced by a series of
tanks — six metal, three con-
crete and three dirt. Warm wa-
ter from the natural hot springs
flows into a pipe that, using
the natural gravity flow, fills
the series of carefully terraced
tanks. The constant flow, com-
bined with motion created by
sturgeon constantly circulating
their ponds, provides the neces-
sary oxygen.
“We didn’t have the talent,
intelligence or resources to do
it,” Flournoy explains of why
others developed and oversee
the infrastructure. He and his
hired hand, Dan Taylor, handle
the day-to-day feeding chores
and basic maintenance for the
sturgeon and cattle — thus the
surf and turf moniker.
The sturgeon, all females,
are 2 or 3 years old and typi-
cally weigh 25 to 30 pounds
when they’re delivered to
Flournoy’s tanks. They’re usu-
ally kept five years, when they
typically weigh 120 to 150
pounds, before they’re cap-
tured and returned to the San
Francisco Bay area. After the
eggs, or caviar, are harvested
the fish are slaughtered, with
the meat sold to fish distribu-
tors and restaurants. Flournoy
says caviar sells for about $50
an ounce, or $800 a pound,
while the meat brings about
$20 a pound.
White sturgeon can live
up to 100 years, grow 20 feet
long and weigh nearly 1,800
pounds, but not those at the
Willow Creek Ranch. The big-
gest, the 200-plus pounders,
are exceptions, carryovers 10
or more years old.
For Flournoy, raising stur-
geons is a business, and a plea-
sure.
“It’s extremely rewarding,”
he says of raising sturgeon and
allowing friends to view the
ponds. Viewing is controlled
because “we’re not geared to
make a tourist attraction out
of it.”
Whether it’s with friends or
by himself, the sense of won-
der when seeing the huge fish
persists.
“I enjoy it as much as ever,”
Flournoy laughs. “Every time I
drive up it’s still, ‘Holy Mack-
erel, look at that!’”
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Index
Calendar
APRIL
OREGON
April 18 — Oregon Women for
Agriculture Auction and Dinner, Linn
County Fair and Expo Center, Albany,
503-243-FARM (3276), http://owaon-
line.org/
April 21 — Oregon Raspberry
and Blackberry Commission meet-
ing and budget hearing, 11 a.m.-3
p.m., Hayden’s Grill, 8187 SW Tu-
alatin-Sherwood Road, Tualatin, 541-
758-4043, www.oregon-berries.com
April 23 — Oregon Processed
Vegetable Commission meeting, 7:30
p.m., Oregon Farm Bureau Building,
1320 Capitol St. NE, Salem, 503-924-
1181
April 25-26 — AgFest, 8:30
a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Sunday, Oregon State Fairgrounds,
To Reach Us
Sam Angima
Calif. rancher switches to raising sturgeon
LIKELY, Calif. — Really
big fish, some of them weigh-
ing more than 200 pounds, are
being raised for caviar at an un-
likely location — warm water
ponds outside the tiny far north-
ern California town of Likely.
“They’re big fellas,” Pearce
Flournoy said as he fed the
prehistoric-looking sturgeons
— their color ranges from pale
olive to grayish brown while
some are a ghostly white — on
his Willow Creek Ranch.
The sturgeon are part of
Flournoy’ s “surf and turf feed-
ing company.” Years ago, he
ran a large cow-calf operation
at his ranch, which was home-
steaded by the Flournoy family
in 1871. For the past several
years, however, he’s leased out
grazing lands to other ranchers.
Water from the just-hot-enough
springs that feed the sturgeon
ponds is leased to The Fishery,
an Elk Grove, Calif., company
that raises white sturgeon for
caviar.
The idea for raising stur-
geon was born in 1989 when
a Modoc County farm advisor
was developing an aquaculture
project with the University of
California-Davis. At the time,
cattle prices were plunging and
ranchers were seeking alterna-
tive ways of using their land to
generate income.
Tests showed water from
springs at Flournoy’s ranch
Established 1928
Board of directors
Mike Forrester ..........................President
Steve Forrester
Kathryn Brown
Sid Freeman .................. Outside director
Mike Omeg .................... Outside director
Corporate officer
John Perry
Chief operating officer
By ERIC MORTENSON
Academics, even at a land
grant university such as Ore-
gon State, sometimes isolate
themselves in research and
specialty “silos.” It is now
Sam Angima’s job to cajole
them to open up more readily
to each other and to the pub-
lic.
Angima is OSU Exten-
sion’s new assistant dean
in a position that melds
the College of Agricultural
Sciences and the universi-
ty’s Division of Outreach
and Engagement. He has 20
years experience in Exten-
sion programs, including 10
at OSU, and knows full well
how people can get locked
into their specialties, espe-
cially if they’re talking only
to other experts.
“In Extension, what
walks in the door is what
defines your day,” Angima
said.
“I’m trying to convince
people there is more their
specialty can do for normal
Oregonians,” he said. “I’m
thinking my role is to say,
‘Will you be willing to have
people contact you about
this area when something
comes up? What is the best
way you can share this?’ ”
Perspective is every-
thing. Angima is from
Kenya, where many small
farmers still use hoes, and
the crops they produce are
processed somewhere else
and sold back to Kenyans
as finished goods. Security
is an issue, as evidenced by
the gruesome terrorist at-
Capital Press
Salem, $9 for adults, under 12 are
free, http://www.oragfest.com
April 28 — Oregon Blueberry
Commission budget hearing, 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/stateconvention
IDAHO
April 24 — Forester map and
compass workshop, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.,
University of Idaho Extension office,
1808 N. Third St., Coeur d’Alene, $10
fee, 208-446-1683, http://www.uida-
ho.edu/extension/forestry/content/
calendarofevents
WASHINGTON
Through April 19 — Washington
State Spring Fair, Puyallup, 10 a.m.-10
p.m. Friday and Saturday and 10 a.m.-
8 p.m. Sunday, http://www.thefair.com/
spring-fair/
MAY
NATIONAL
May 13-14 — 19th Annual Dis-
tillers Grain Symposium, Sheraton
Crown Center, Kansas City, Mo. spon-
sored by the Distillers Grain Technolo-
gy Council, www.event.com/d/54qvf-
h/4W
WASHINGTON
May 14-16 — Washing-
ton FFA Convention, Washing-
ton State University, Pullman,
www.washingtonffa.org/convention
CALIFORNIA
May 1-2 — Forest Landowners of
California annual meeting, Holiday Inn, Au-
burn, www.forestlandowners.org/
JUNE
CALIFORNIA
June 15-26 — Postharvest Tech-
nology Short Course, University of
California-Davis, http://postharvest.uc-
davis.edu/Education/PTShortCourse/
IDAHO
June 13 — Sheep in the Foothills,
10 a.m.-1 p.m., Boise Foothills Learn-
ing Center, 3188 Sunset Peak Road,
208-493-2530, FoothillsLearningCen-
ter-Parks@cityofboise.org
WASHINGTON
June 20-21 — Glenwood
Ketchum Kalf Rodeo, 1 p.m. each
day, 509-364-3371, http://busi-
ness.gorge.net/glenwoodrodeo/
June 21-23 — Washington
Potato and Onion Association
Annual Convention, Northern
Quest Resort and Casino, Spo-
kane
wa.potato.onion@gmail.
com
JULY
IDAHO
July 11 — 94th annual Idaho Ram
Sale, Twin Falls County Fairgrounds,
Filer, 208-334-2271 or iwga@earth-
link.net
NOVEMBER
CALIFORNIA
Nov.17-18 — Drone World Expo,
San Jose Convention Center, www.
droneworldexpo.com
Dairy .................................... 14
Livestock ............................. 14
Markets ............................... 10
Opinion .................................. 6
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