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CapitalPress.com
May 22, 2015
People & Places
Group with big vision promotes small-scale ag
Nick Cockrell helps
small farm owners
learn best practices
for raising animals
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
ROCHESTER,
Wash.
— There are a few main things
to know about the Washington
State Livestock Coalition.
One, despite its name, it’s a
small organization with about
60 members, mostly residents
of Thurston County in Western
Washington. “You have to have
a vision,” coalition President
Nick Cockrell said. “The vision
is, we promote education and
opportunities statewide.”
Second, the group was
formed in anger. The first meet-
ing in 2009 drew about 100 peo-
ple upset with what they saw as
law enforcement’s heavy-hand-
ed response to allegations of an-
imal neglect. One can imagine
more popular causes, but rural
residents thought sick and aging
animals were being reported as
mistreated livestock by passing
observers.
“Sometimes these things are
not as cut-and-dried as people
driving by might think,” Cock-
rell said.
Third, coalition volunteers
have helped struggling livestock
owners with advice and hay. The
group isn’t an animal rescue or-
ganization, but twice it has taken
and found homes for horses and
goats whose owners could no
longer handle the responsibility.
Fourth, the organization has
expanded its interests. It has
organized seminars on farm
topics such as animal disease,
pasture management and back-
yard poultry and has ambitions
to do more. “I see us as trying
to provide help for people inter-
ested in agriculture, who want to
grow their own food or maintain
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Washington State Livestock Coalition President Nick Cockrell and his wife, Sandra, greet their 2-year-
old pinto Picasso at their farm near Rochester, Wash. The coalition organizes seminars on small-scale
agricultural practices.
Western Innovator
Nick Cockrell
Age: 67
Location: Rochester, Wash., where
he raises horses with his wife,
Sandra
Position: Washington State Livestock Coalition president; helped
found the organization in 2009.
Background: Retired in 2014 as facilities asset manager for the
Washington Department of Enterprise Services; grew up on a
dairy in Texas.
a life rooted in farming,” Cock-
rell said.
Cockrell, 67, and his wife,
Sandra, raise and sell Arabian
and pinto horses on their farm
outside Rochester in rural south-
ern Thurston County.
By the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s generous defi-
nition — having the ability to
raise $1,000 worth of a crop
— Thurston County has 1,336
farms. That’s more farms than
in Whitman, Adams or Franklin
counties — all huge agricultur-
al producing areas in southeast
Washington. Measured in dol-
lars, however, Thurston Coun-
ty’s farm output is comparative-
ly small.
Retired veterinarian Ever-
ett Macomber witnessed how
agriculture changed over four
decades of treating large ani-
mals in the south Puget Sound.
A former member of the Amer-
ican Veterinary Medical Associ-
ation and charter member of the
livestock coalition, Macomber
said the small dairies are virtu-
ally gone and knowledge about
animal husbandry has declined.
Rural residents, however, still
want horses for pets and cows
for eating, he said.
“It’s fine, until there’s a prob-
lem,” he said. “A lot of times
they don’t have the knowledge
to recognize what’s normal from
abnormal.”
Problems can arise from live-
stock owners having too little
money and too little experience,
Macomber said. Also, there’s
the matter of shifting societal
attitudes about what constitutes
humane livestock treatment.
Back in 2009, Cockrell and
others were concerned that such
animal owners were being too
quickly targeted for felony pros-
ecution, rather than neighborly
help. “We felt there were cir-
cumstances not being resolved
in a reasonable manner,” he said.
The Stockmen’s Coalition
for the Just Treatment of Own-
ers and Livestock was formed.
The group changed its name in
2012 to the Washington State
Livestock Coalition to reflect in-
terest in sheep, goats and poul-
try, as well as horses and cows.
It has an annual operating bud-
get of $3,000 to $5,000, raised
from dues and an annual fund-
raising horse ride through the
Capitol Forest in June.
Cockrell and Macomber
agree that concerns about how
animal cruelty laws are enforced
have eased over the past several
years. These days, the coalition
is more focused on educating
animal owners, including pro-
spective food producers.
In February, the coalition
and Thurston County Farm Bu-
reau co-sponsored a seminar in
Lacey on raising chickens in an
urban environment. The idea
for the workshop sprang from a
news report on upscale chicken
coops in Seattle, Sandra Cock-
rell said.
“It just blew me away. Peo-
ple were spending $1,000 on
chicken coops that looked liked
the Titanic, a biplane or the Taj
Mahal,” she said.
About 40 people attended.
As a follow-up, the coalition
and Farm Bureau will present
in June a workshop on “humane
methods of chicken processing.”
Thurston County Farm
Bureau President Bruce Mor-
gan said the two groups have
overlapping membership and
complementary roles. While
the Farm Bureau works on reg-
ulatory affairs, the coalition fills
a need to develop new farmers,
he said.
“We can have some major
synergy working on these edu-
cational things,” Morgan said. “I
fully anticipate they’ll be able to
the same kind of co-sponsored
seminars with Lewis and Clark
counties and right on through
the state.”
Geoduck farming takes off as demand for clams grows in Asia
By PHUONG LE
Associated Press
HARSTINE
ISLAND,
Wash. — John King plunges
his arm up to his shoulder into
the mudflats of Puget Sound,
roots around and soon pulls from
the muck the world’s largest
burrowing clam. The mollusk
squirts water from its long ob-
scene-looking neck. King dodges
the spray, already using a water
hose to loosen sand and harvest
the next one.
Within hours, the geoduck
— pronounced gooey duck — is
packed live on ice at nearby Tay-
lor Shellfish Farms — on its way
to be served raw as sashimi or
added to hot-pot dishes to satisfy
a growing appetite for the unique
Pacific Northwest delicacy.
“It’s gained this luxury sta-
tus. A big driver is the growing
middle class in China,” said Gina
Shamshak, an assistant econom-
ics professor at Goucher College,
who has researched the geoduck
market. She added: “They want
to consume the higher-valued
seafood items, and geoduck is
one of them.”
Last year, the U.S. exported
$74 million, or about 11 million
pounds, worth of live wild and
farmed geoduck, mostly to China
and Hong Kong. That’s double
the volume and value exported
in 2008. An average clam weighs
about 2 pounds and can fetch up
to $100 per pound overseas.
Demand in Asia is prompting
shellfish farmers to grow more
of the clams along Washington’s
private tidelands. Several new
farms have been permitted in
recent years, despite challenges
from opponents concerned about
plastic pollution, aesthetics and
potential environmental harm.
And now, backed by new
research showing mostly short-
lived, localized environmental
effects, the state is preparing for
the first time to lease 15 acres
of public tidelands for geoduck
aquaculture. The native geoduck,
which comes from a Native
American word meaning “dig
deep,” has been dug recreation-
ally in Northwest intertidal areas
for decades, and it thrives in the
inland waters of Washington,
Alaska and British Columbia.
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The hills are alive with the sound of children’s music
By RYAN M. TAYLOR
For the Capital Press
T
OWNER, N.D. — The
hills are alive with the
sound of music again this
year on the ranch. And, beyond
the hills, in the last two weeks,
we’ve attended a violin recital, a
band concert, a piano recital and
a choral performance to test the
acoustics of our school gym and
two churches.
Our kids have been dressed
up in their “good clothes” al-
most as much as their “ranch
clothes” during that time. I have
a little mending to do on my
good clothes because I keep
popping the buttons on my
shirts, my chest swelling with
pride as I watch our children
play and sing.
Musical household
Growing up, we never got
Cowboy
Logic
Ryan Taylor
an Atari game system when
it came out, and we bought
used cars from the classifieds
instead of new cars from the
showroom floor, but we al-
ways had plenty of musical
instruments in the house.
It was mostly Mom’s doing,
I suppose, since she could play
most of them. We had an old
upright piano, a couple of fid-
dles and guitars, a mandolin,
a banjo, an old pump organ,
a “Hawaiian” lap steel guitar,
and as my siblings and I be-
gan band in school, they made
the investments in a clarinet, a
flute and an alto saxophone. I
got the alto sax, and played it
for seven years.
I’m sure most Ataris have
hit the landfill, and those
used four-door cars have been
crushed and recycled, but we
still have those musical instru-
ments. The alto sax has been
put back into service in my
son’s fifth-grade band, the pi-
ano continues to make music
in our house, and I play one of
Mom’s old fiddles as I help my
other son practice his Suzuki
violin lessons.
It’s a good thing they last so
long. I took a stroll through the
music store, and seeing what
those instruments cost brand
new multiplied my appreci-
ation for our music-making
contraptions back home. Of
course, I’m sure they seemed
expensive when Mom and Dad
bought them 30 and 40 years
ago, too.
Since we have the instru-
ments, it only seemed right that
we support our school’s music
program and invest in the pia-
no lessons and violin lessons,
and drive the miles it takes to
get to them when our children
began to show an interest in
music. I believe there is value
in it, even if we don’t become
professional musicians.
I haven’t played my alto
sax a lot since I graduated,
but I still can, and I remember
how. I only took piano for two
years, but I can still play my
last recital piece and read mu-
sic. Those experiences maybe
gave me the courage to teach
myself how to play guitar later
in life, and pick up Mom’s vi-
olin and learn “Twinkle, twin-
kle little star,” along with our
8-year-old.
A friend of mine shared a
TED-Ed video that talked about
the brain science of music. Sci-
entists say music stimulates
more parts of the brain than
just about anything else we can
do. Listening to music is good,
but playing music is exponen-
tially more stimulating to the
old gray matter between our
ears. Something about exercis-
ing our corpus callosum and
improving our problem-solv-
ing ability, memory and execu-
tive skills. There’s more to this
“Twinkle, twinkle little star”
business than meets the eye.
Whether it’s listening to our
daughter sing with my wife in
church, watching our middle
son step to the stage and con-
fidently play the violin, or see-
ing my old saxophone in the
hands of our son at a band con-
cert, I know it stimulates my
brain and pleases my ears, but,
most importantly, it warms my
heart.
Friday, June 12
Friday, June 19
Monday, June 22
Forestry Shortcourse, 10 a.m.-1
p.m. West Bonner Library, Priest
River, Idaho, 208-446-1680. This
6-session program will help forest
owners understand ecology, silvi-
culture, wildlife and other topics.
Register by June 5.
Forestry Shortcourse, 10 a.m.-1
p.m. West Bonner Library, Priest
River, Idaho, 208-446-1680. This
6-session program will help forest
owners understand ecology, silvi-
culture, wildlife and other topics.
Register by June 5.
Washington Potato and Onion
Association Annual Convention, 8
a.m.-9 p.m. Northern Quest Casi-
no, Airway Heights, Wash.
Brain science
Calendar
Wednesday, May 27
Hyslop Farm Field Day, 8: 15
a.m., Oregon State University’s
Hyslop Farm, Corvallis, Ore. The
Hyslop Farm Field Day includes
presentations on winter wheat
cultivars, an update on canola
and disease management trials,
and looks at weed, disease and
insect control in Willamette Valley
cropping systems. The field day
ends with a complimentary lunch
served by the OSU Crop and Soil
Science Club.
Wednesday, June 3
Frozen Assets: How we can
and why we should save the
world’s frozen water, 7-9 p.m.
Walla Walla Public Library, Walla
Walla, Wash., 509-943-0705.
Mountaineer and climate
scientist Steven Ghan takes us
on a visual journey along the
crest of the North Cascades,
showing evidence of glacier
retreat shares solutions to
prevent global ice melt and how
to preserve our snowpack.
Wednesday, June 10
Oregon State University Extension
Sherman Station Field Day, 7: 30
a.m. Sherman County Extension,
Moro, 541-565-3230. Twelve
speakers are scheduled to talk
on topics that include wheat
diseases and screening for re-
sistance, soil pH and maximizing
yields, soil-borne pathogens and
Clearfield wheat trials.
Saturday, June 13
Saturday, June 20
Rickreall Gun Show, 8 a.m.-5
p.m. Polk County Fair Grounds,
Rickreall, Ore., 503-623-3048.
Ketchum Kalf Rodeo, 1-9 p.m.
Glenwood, Wash.
Sheep in the Foothills, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Boise Foothills Learning Center, Boise.
Sunday, June 14
Rickreall Gun Show, 8 a.m.-5
p.m. Polk County Fair Grounds,
Rickreall, Ore., 503-623-3048.
Sunday, June 21
Washington Potato and Onion
Association Annual Convention, 8
a.m.-9 p.m. Northern Quest Casi-
no, Airway Heights, Wash.
Ketchum Kalf Rodeo, 1-9 p.m.
Glenwood, Wash.
Tuesday, June 23
Washington Potato and Onion
Association Annual Convention, 8
a.m.-9 p.m. Northern Quest Casi-
no, Airway Heights, Wash.
Friday, June 26
Forestry Shortcourse, 10 a.m.-1
p.m. West Bonner Library, Priest
River, Idaho, 208-446-1680. This
6-session program will help forest
owners understand ecology, silvi-
culture, wildlife and other topics.
Register by June 5.
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Index
California .............................. 10
Dairy .................................... 13
Drought .................................. 4
Idaho ...................................... 9
Livestock ............................. 13
Markets ............................... 16
Opinion .................................. 6
Oregon .................................. 9
Washington ........................... 8
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