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April 17, 2015
By MITCH LIES
For the Capital Press
With nearly 100,000 pounds
of waste pesticides collected and
properly disposed of, Oregon
Department of Agriculture’s
Pesticide Stewardship Special-
ist Steve Riley views the state’s
first round of pesticide collec-
tion events as a success.
“I would say it definitely met
our expectations,” Riley said.
The department is wrapping
up its first round of collection
events with two in May:
• May 9 in Coos Bay, Ore.
• May 22 in Dallas, Ore.
The department added the
Dallas event — the eighth and
final event of the biennium —
because of widespread interest
in a collection event held in De-
cember in McMinnville.
“We had a little extra mon-
ey in our budget and we knew
that the Yamhill (County)
event was really popular and
we were getting calls asking if
we were going to have anoth-
er one in the Willamette Val-
ley, so we figured this was an
opportunity to squeeze in one
more before the end of the bi-
ennium,” Riley said.
ODA collected an average
of 15,000 pounds in the first six
collection events, Riley said,
with the low recorded at an event
in Hermiston in October, where
14 participants brought in 8,600
pounds of waste pesticides; and
the high recorded in the McMin-
nville event, where 54 partici-
pants brought in 39,218 pounds
of waste pesticides.
The department is conduct-
ing the events with help from
the Department of Environ-
mental Quality. DEQ formerly
conducted collection events on
a hit-and-miss basis using grant
funds and other sources, accord-
ing to Kevin Masterson, toxics
coordinator for the DEQ.
ODA put $200,000 of the
$1.5 million lawmakers allo-
cated its Pesticide Stewardship
Program in the 2013-15 bi-
ennium toward the collection
events, marking the first time
the state had a steady stream
of dedicated funds for pesticide
collections, Riley said.
The department contracts
with Clean Harbors Environ-
mental Services to conduct
the events.
The department launched
its first event a little more than
a year after the program was
funded with an event in Mil-
ton-Freewater. Events followed
in Hermiston, Ontario, Madras,
the one in McMinnville, and an
event in Medford on March 7.
The department chose sites
for the collection events based
on “what we thought would be
the heaviest pesticide use area
and whether they had had an
event recently or not,” Riley
said. “We wanted to go into ar-
eas that we knew had not had
events for a while.”
Because the program is now
part of ODA’s line-item bud-
get, Riley said he expects it to
be funded in the next biennium
budget, but he couldn’t say at
what level.
“I think there is plenty of
need for this,” he said. “I think
we are just hitting the tip of the
iceberg. Washington has been
doing this for 20 years or so
and they have collected over 2
million pounds. And the reason
they have been able to do this
is because Washington has had
consistent funding.
“Now that we have had one
round of events, I think peo-
ple are definitely more aware
of it and will be more likely to
use this service the next time
around,” he said.
Riley said to look for the de-
partment to revisit some sites in
the next biennium and to travel
to some new sites. “I think it
will be a mixed bag,” he said. “I
think we will go back to some of
the same areas, and we will se-
lect some new areas.”
The ODA’s free pesticide
collection events are open to
farmers and other commercial
and institutional operators in
counties near event sites.
Interested
participants
must apply no later than two
weeks prior to an event by
mailing or emailing an ap-
plication to Clean Harbors,
which conducts the events.
Applications can be obtained
through local soil and water
conservation districts or by
calling Clean Harbors at 253-
639-4240, extension 2813.
9
Record apple crop: Plenty left to sell
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — The
record 2014 Washington ap-
ple crop keeps shrinking as
packers get rid of apples they
can’t sell to retailers.
They’ve sold 86.6 mil-
lion, 40-pound boxes of fresh
apples since the season be-
gan Sept. 1, but as of April
1 they’ve also gotten rid of
11.4 million boxes by send-
ing them to juicers, compost-
ing, livestock feeders or just
dumping them.
“The difficulty is that we
still have a huge volume left
to sell and we’re still battling
a lot of East Coast and Mich-
igan competition and South
African and Chilean imports
are coming in pretty aggres-
sively,” said Keith Matthews,
CEO and general manager
of First Fruits Marketing of
Washington in Yakima.
It costs $7 per box to truck
Washington apples to the East
Coast compared with $6 a box
for Chilean packers to ship
apples there on ocean-going
vessels, Matthews said. Chile
is offering fresh crop with
fewer problems and perhaps a
better guarantee, he said.
As of April 1, Washing-
ton’s industry had 56.8 mil-
lion boxes of apples left to
sell, Matthews said. That
compares with 47 million left
to sell a year ago for a crop of
28.6 million fewer boxes. Ap-
ples are harvested in the fall
and stored for sales through
the year.
The total 2014 fresh crop
is now estimated at 143.6
million boxes, down from
145.9 million a month ago
and 155 million at the start of
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
From left, Sandy Cortez, Reynalda Villanueva and Geraldine Walls look for bruises, bitter pit and any
other culls of Red Delicious apples at McDougall & Son Inc.’s new Baker Flats packing plant north of
Wenatchee, Wash., on April 9. The industry has too many Reds and is selling them below profit.
November.
“Washington’s situation is
just grinding through the sea-
son. It has more apples that it
can currently move and Chi-
na hasn’t opened as soon as
hoped,” said Desmond O’Ro-
urke, a private agricultural
economist and consultant in
Pullman.
Russia is lifting its one-
year ban on Western produce
a few months early for some
countries, but it hasn’t for the
U.S. and it wouldn’t help ap-
ples much, O’Rourke said.
European apple shipments
to Russia are down only one-
third under the ban when
they are supposed to be down
100 percent, he said. A lot
of apples, probably some of
Poland’s big 2014 crop, are
being smuggled into Russia
through Belarus, Ukraine and
Moldova, he said.
Matthews said organ-
ic apples and pears are the
bright spots for Washington
shippers, but that “over the
whole game there are only
a few things selling at rel-
atively good levels and it’s
hard to find that business. A
majority of apples are sell-
ing below profit.”
The price of Red Deli-
cious is down to $10 per box,
he said. That’s well below
break-even.
“Who knows what this
portends for the next crop,” he
said. “If we have another big
crop and a second year of bad
returns then that equals the
value of assets for growers.”
Of the 2.3 million-box
reduction in total crop in the
past month, about 1 million
is Red Delicious, 400,000
is Fuji, 200,000 is Granny
Smith, and Golden Delicious
and Gala account for 300,000
apiece, Matthews said. Those
apples either went to juicing
or were dumped.
Historically, the industry
packs about 18 to 19 boxes
per bin but now it’s more like
16, he said.
Some 6.9 million boxes
of apples were packed and
ready for shipment on April
1 compared to 5.8 million a
year ago, he said.
“That’s a 20 percent in-
crease and indicates we’re
not selling as rapidly as we’d
like. It creates downward
pressure,” he said.
Prices may not have bot-
tomed out yet, he said.
Shippers lost fruit that
was caught in the port labor
slowdown, but adjusted by
selling more fruit on the do-
mestic market, he said.
The asking price for
mid-size Washington extra
fancy Golden Delicious was
$13 to $15 per box on April
6, the same as last month
and down from $20 to $22
a year ago, according to
USDA Market News. Gala
was $16 to $18, the same as
a month ago and down from
$28 to $30 a year ago.
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