May 29, 2015
CapitalPress.com
15
Governor, farm leaders say trade mission will benefit producers
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — Gov. Butch Ot-
ter and farm industry leaders
believe that Idaho farmers and
ranchers will benefit from a
recently concluded trade mis-
sion to Mexico and Peru.
“The trade mission was
a great success and I’m con-
fident that even the partici-
pating Idaho companies that
don’t sign agreements right
away opened the door to new
business relationships that will
benefit them and our economy
over time,” Otter told the Capi-
tal Press in a statement.
Otter led representatives of
several Idaho farm commodi-
ties, including potatoes, wheat,
dairy, oilseeds and onions, on
the May 9-16 trade mission.
Idaho State Department
of Agriculture Director Celia
Gould called the trip a “tremen-
dous success. In both countries,
we made excellent contacts that
Submitted photo
Gov. Butch Otter and wife Lori visit the International Potato Center in Peru May 11 during an Idaho
trade mission. Farm group leaders say the state’s recent trade mission to Mexico and Peru will result
in more opportunities for Idaho farmers and ranchers.
we are confident will lead to
sales.”
Jason Godfrey, president of
Mountain States Oilseeds, met
with five companies in Peru, a
new market for the company,
and three in Mexico, an estab-
lished market.
“We felt we came out of
there with some good success,”
Godfrey said. “We have some
pretty good prospects in both
countries.”
He was particularly excit-
ed about the chances of MSO,
which contracts about 15,000
acres in Idaho, tapping into the
Peru market.
“We are very confident that
we will be selling oilseed down
there in the near future,” he
said.
Idaho Farm Bureau Feder-
ation Director of Commodities
Dennis Brower, who represent-
ed the state’s wheat industry
on the trip, said a lot of milling
companies in Mexico are in
the process of merging and the
timing was good to meet with
them.
One of those mergers will
result in the largest conglomer-
ate of flour mills in Mexico, he
said, while another will provide
the majority of flour for Grupo
Bimbo, one of the world’s larg-
est bread makers.
University of Idaho pota-
to researcher Mike Thornton
agreed with Idaho Potato Com-
mission representative Seth
Pemsler that the highlight of
the trip for the state’s potato in-
dustry was a meeting with the
director of the International Po-
tato Center in Peru.
The potato center has the
world’s largest collection of
potato germplasm, as well as
4,000 seed varieties, and UI re-
searchers are trying to establish
a close research collaboration
with IPC scientists.
If Idaho researchers can find
potato traits that are resistant to
pale cyst nematode or drought,
two major issues facing Idaho
spud farmers, that could pay
big dividends for the state’s po-
tato industry, Pemsler said.
“I think we made some
good inroads in terms of col-
laboration on potato research
projects,” Thornton said.
During the Mexico leg of the
trip, Otter met with high-level
officials from that country’s
ministry of agriculture and re-
minded them of Idaho’s desire
to have all of Mexico opened
to fresh potatoes from the
United States, Pemsler said.
Blackleg continues to spread in Willamette Valley
By MITCH LIES
For the Capital Press
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Mark Lynas, a former anti-GMO activist, talks about why he now
believes genetically modified crops are safe and necessary to feed
the world’s population.
Former anti-GMO
crusader speaks
about his conversion
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — British envi-
ronmentalist Mark Lynas
explained to several hun-
dred people in Boise May
19 how he switched from
being a pie-throwing, an-
ti-GMO activist to a sup-
porter of genetically engi-
neered crops.
Lynas showed video
clips of him helping fan
the flames of the anti-GMO
movement in Europe during
the mid-1990s.
That
included
him
throwing a pie in the face of
a GMO supporter, as well
as helping dozens of other
people destroy genetically
engineered crop trials.
The presentation was
hosted by Food Producers
of Idaho and titled, “GMOs
are green. How an environ-
mentalist changed his mind
about biotechnology.”
“Our aim was to chop
down ... all the GM crop tri-
als we could (in) England,”
Lynas said. “This was an
activity that consumed my
life for several years. I was
involved in all aspects of
the movement.”
Lynas even orchestrated
the first invasion by an-
ti-GMO activists of Mon-
santo offices in the United
Kingdom, which resulted in
them occupying the build-
ing, trashing the company’s
files and hanging banners
from its windows.
Lynas then showed a
video clip of him apologiz-
ing for his involvement in
the anti-GMO movement
during the 2013 Oxford
Farming Conference.
During that conference,
he said he was “very sorry
I helped start the anti-GM
movement in the 1990s. I
now regret it completely.”
Lynas offered several
examples of how geneti-
cally engineered crops can
help farmers in Africa and
India but have been banned
in large part because of the
anti-GMO movement.
“The humanitarian as-
pect of this ... whole issue
is really lost from the de-
bate,” he said.
He said 88 percent of
scientists believe geneti-
cally modified foods are
safe because that’s what
the evidence says and the
opposition to genetically
engineered crops is based
mostly on fear and emo-
tion.
“The science is quite
clear. There isn’t much
room for dispute about the
safety issue,” he said.
To believe genetically
engineered foods are un-
safe is to disagree with the
scientific evidence and be-
lieve in a conspiracy theo-
ry, he said.
“You have to believe all
of those thousands of sci-
entists are in league with ...
Monsanto,” he said.
Lynas later told the Cap-
ital Press his conversion
began when he realized his
claims about GMO technol-
ogy were all based on what
other activists were saying
and not on scientific evi-
dence.
“I just realized I didn’t
have any scientific founda-
tion or validity for what I
was saying,” he said.
The crowd included
people who oppose the use
of genetically engineered
crops and many of them
lined up to ask questions
following the presentation.
FPI Chairman Travis
Jones thanked skeptics of
GMO technology for taking
the time to step out of their
comfort zone and learn
more about the issue.
“We appreciate your
courage for being here
among people you may not
normally be accustomed to
being with,” he said.
Jones later said FPI held
the event in downtown Boi-
se rather than in rural Idaho
“because we need to engage
with an audience that may not
think just like us.”
LEBANON, Ore. — Or-
egon State University plant
pathologist Cindy Ocamb
reported at a crucifer disease
field day May 14 that she is
finding seed fields infected
with blackleg around the Wil-
lamette Valley.
The discovery is not un-
expected, she said, given
that blackleg infections were
severe last year and infect-
ed crop residue provides a
source for the disease to per-
sist and spread.
Ocamb said she is finding
the disease in a “patchwork”
pattern and that different
fields have different levels
of disease — a disparity she
attributed to lack of timely
management with fungicides.
Ocamb advised growers to
refrain from planting suscep-
tible crops within one-quarter
mile of a field that hosted a
blackleg-infected crop the
previous year.
“And the farther apart
the better,” she said, noting
that the fungus’ windblown
spores could be moving
“tens of miles” and not just
a few miles, as once suspect-
ed.
Ocamb also said that she
noticed some fields went
from less than 1 percent in-
fection to between 80 and
100 percent in a matter of
weeks during rainy weather,
showing that the disease’s
secondary inoculum is read-
ily splashed by rain from in-
fected plant stems and leaves.
While the disease moves
systemically down a plant
and can cause lesions on stor-
age roots, it does not move
systemically up a plant to in-
Mitch Lies/For the Capital Press
Blackleg, shown here on a turnip plant in a field near Lebanon, Ore., is showing up in a patchwork
pattern of crucifer seed fields in the Willamette Valley.
fect seed, Ocamb said. Seed
infection typically occurs
from inoculum splashing
onto seed heads during pod
development.
Ocamb said she started
seeing the blackleg fungus in
October in commercial vege-
table seed fields and in fields
planted as part of a three-
year OSU experiment to de-
termine the effect of brassica
crops, such as canola, on spe-
cialty seed production.
Fields that were treated in
the fall with a fungicide were
performing better than fields
that went without a fall treat-
ment, Ocamb said.
Ocamb also reported she
has found light leaf spot in
fields in recent weeks, a dis-
ease relatively new to North
America. It started appearing
in valley fields during Febru-
ary, she said.
According to literature,
growers in the United King-
dom, where light leaf spot is
common, report 22 percent
yield loss in oilseed crops
infected with the disease, Oc-
amb said.
Many of the seed treat-
ments and fungicide applica-
tions that target blackleg are
expected to also control light
leaf spot, Ocamb said.
Ocamb said she fears
blackleg infection in 2016
in Western Oregon could be
even worse than this year.
“Seed fields will probably
face more pressure next fall,”
Ocamb said.
“I think it is going to be
critical that we not only treat
seed, but have a fungicide
campaign with early sprays in
the fall,” Ocamb said.
In addition to increasing
chances of plants dying from
blackleg, plants infected in
the fall are more susceptible
to other pathogens, Ocamb
said.
An ODA proposal that
would mandate field inspec-
tions for five years provides
an indication of how long the
scientific community believes
it will take for Oregon grow-
ers to get the disease under
control.
“The industry and the
ODA believe a limited time
period (five years) of man-
datory inspections … is nec-
essary to bring the blackleg
epidemic back under control,”
the proposal states.
Ocamb added: “I think it
is going to be important that
everybody joins the control
party.”
Rule proposed to head off ‘blackleg epidemic’
By MITCH LIES
For the Capital Press
The Oregon Department
of Agriculture is proposing
a rule mandating inspection
of crucifer fields in the Wil-
lamette Valley as part of an
effort to quash what is being
called “the blackleg epidem-
ic.”
Oregon State Universi-
ty researchers first spotted
blackleg infection in the val-
ley last year in certain vege-
table seed crops, such as tur-
nips and canola. The disease
appears to be more prevalent
this year, said Cindy Ocamb,
in part because windblown
spores from infected plant
residue helped spread infec-
tions.
In addition to concerns
about seed lots being con-
taminated, Ocamb said she
now fears the disease could
be moving into fresh vegeta-
ble acreage.
In January, ODA adopted
a rule mandating that crucifer
seed be tested, found free of
blackleg and treated prior to
being planted in the valley.
The newly proposed rule
would require that growers
also apply to the department
for an inspection and cover
a portion of the program’s
cost at a rate of $6.50 an acre.
Each acre would need to be
inspected twice, once early
in the growing season and at
early- to mid-flowering.
Nancy Osterbauer, ODA’s
plant health program manag-
er, said the two inspections
will help determine if the de-
partment’s recommendations
for controlling the disease are
working.
“Part of (the motivation
behind the rule proposal) is an
education process for every-
body involved,” Osterbauer
said.
Under the proposal, if
blackleg is found in a field,
certain mitigation require-
ments would kick in, such as
fungicide treatments.
Osterbauer said the seed
industry came to the depart-
ment seeking the rule.
The rule will sunset in five
years, according to the pro-
posal.
A public hearing on the
proposed rule is scheduled for
June 22, beginning at 11 a.m.,
at the department’s Salem re-
search farm, 151 Hawthorne
Ave. NE.
Interested parties can com-
ment at the hearing or through
written correspondence, Os-
terbauer said.
“We welcome comments,”
she said. “This is an industry
rule.”
Rice, nuts fuel ag boom in N.E. California, study finds
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
CHICO, Calif. — Agricul-
ture has boomed in northeastern
California over the last decade
and now accounts for nearly 1 in
5 jobs and 17 percent of all eco-
nomic activity in the region, a
new university study has found.
The report by California
State University-Chico agri-
cultural business professor Eric
Houk looks at Sacramento Val-
ley and northern Sierra Nevada
activity in 2013 and found its
nearly $4.5 billion in agricultur-
al production in 2013 was more
than double that in 2003.
While farm production ex-
penses went up about 50 percent
from 2003 to 2013, net farm
income increased about 200
percent over the period while
total government payments de-
creased by more than 60 per-
cent, according to Houk’s study.
The highest-valued com-
modities in northeastern Cali-
fornia two years ago were rice
at $903.8 million, walnuts at
$844.9 million and almonds at
$713.1 million, while the moun-
tain region was dominated by
strawberry plants at $150.9 mil-
lion, timber at $128.4 million
and alfalfa at $125.1 million.
A key takeaway from the
study should be that agriculture
includes much more than farm
production, Houk told the Cap-
ital Press in an email.
“We often see a focus on pro-
duction values, but we need to
think about agriculture in a much
broader way and include agricul-
tural production, processing and
related activities,” he said. “The
second thing I want people to get
from the study is understanding
how the economy in some re-
gions is more dependent upon
agriculture than others.”
The report covers economic
activity in Butte, Colusa, Glenn,
Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta,
Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Teha-
ma, Trinity and Yuba counties.
Colusa County had the highest
value of production in 2013, ac-
cording to the study.
Houk credits ag for creating
60,157 total jobs in the region,
or 16.3 percent of all jobs. This
includes 40,054 directly in ag-
riculture and another 20,103
created through “multiplier”
effects, which include not
only processing but also farm
machinery manufacturing and
support activities for agricul-
ture, he said.