June 5, 2015
CapitalPress.com
‘Regulatory
takings are very
difficult to prove’
GMO from Page 1
Jackson County’s ordinance is
a form of “inverse condemna-
tion,” in which the government
takes private property without
using its power of eminent do-
main.
It would be easier for the
farmers to prevail if they con-
vince the judge that the ban on
genetically modified organisms
is a “physical taking” of their
property, said Paul Sundermier,
an Oregon attorney specializing
in takings and condemnation
cases.
They can also claim that
the GMO ban is a “regulatory
taking,” but this is a tougher le-
gal route because the plaintiffs
would have show the ordinance
eliminated all the economically
viable use of their property, Sun-
dermier said.
“Regulatory takings are very
difficult to prove,” he said.
The question would then be
whether removing the alfalfa
completely wipes out its value,
since the farmers may still be
able to sell the hay even if they
ultimately kill the perennial
plant.
Even as the case shifts to
government takings, it’s possi-
ble that the “right to farm” ar-
gument may be resurrected on
appeal.
The plaintiffs could wait un-
til the entire case is finished be-
fore challenging Clarke’s find-
ings or obtain a partial judgment
that they could appeal earlier,
among other options.
Capital Press was unable to
reach Jackson County for com-
ment. The ordinance was set
to take effect on June 5 but the
county previously agreed not
to enforce the prohibition until
there’s a judgment in the case.
The Center for Food Safety,
a nonprofit critical of biotech
crops, considers the ruling a “big
win” but expects the plaintiffs
will challenge it before the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,
said George Kimbrell, senior at-
torney for the group.
The judge has recognized
that genetically engineered
crops pose a significant com-
mercial threat to non-biotech
growers, which was a key issue
in the litigation, Kimbrell said.
“This case is a resounding af-
firmation of the right of farmers
to protect themselves from GE
contamination.”
Most Oregon counties are
pre-empted from regulating
GMOs under Senate Bill 863,
passed by lawmakers in 2013.
The legislature excluded Jack-
son County from the legislation
because its GMO prohibition
initiative was already on the
ballot when SB 863 was enact-
ed.
Roughly two-thirds of Jack-
son County voters approved
the measure in a 2014 election.
The county includes the cities of
Ashland and Medford.
The alfalfa farmers argued
that SB 863 did not affect the
“right to farm” law, which they
interpreted as protecting their
genetically engineered alfalfa
crops from being destroyed re-
gardless of the GMO ban.
The judge disagreed, point-
ing to testimony from lawmak-
ers representing the county
who claimed the ordinance was
necessary to avoid unwanted
cross-pollination between bio-
tech crops and those that are
conventional or organic.
More than 1,800 wells
in Calif. have gone dry
DROUGHT from Page 1
The study follows warn-
ings by the Center for Wa-
tershed Sciences last summer
that farmers hit hardest by the
drought could see their wells
run dry this year if rain and
snow remained scarce.
That prediction has come
true, as more than 1,800
wells around the state have
already gone dry, according
to food and ag board chair-
man Craig McNamara. About
1,100 wells have failed in the
Porterville area, according to
Stephanie Cortez, president
of the Porterville Chamber of
Commerce.
“One of the things we’re
worried about in a fourth year
of drought is how many of the
wells are going dry,” said Jay
Lund, a UC-Davis engineer-
ing professor. “Essentially 71
percent or more of the surface
water shortages is being made
up with groundwater. That’s a
lot.”
The researchers’ prediction
of 564,000 fallowed acres is
slightly below the more the
600,000 fallowed acres an-
ticipated by McNamara. The
Fresno County Farm Bureau
has estimated the amount of
fallowed ground could total
closer to 1 million acres.
The scientists’ presenta-
tion preceded a board discus-
sion on how to improve media
and public perception of agri-
Online
2015 Drought Economic
Impact Study: https://wa-
tershed.ucdavis.edu/files/
biblio/2015Drought_Preli-
mAnalysis.pdf
cultural water use during the
drought.
Roxi Beck of the Center
for Food Integrity, an organi-
zation working to build con-
fidence in the modern food
system, told the board that
research shows that appealing
to shared values is about five
times more important than
sharing facts when it comes
to building trust with key con-
sumers.
The group examined
opinion surveys of mothers,
Millennials age 21 to 34 and
“foodies” — those with re-
fined interests in food and
seek new food experiences —
and found that consumers val-
ue transparency in operations,
she said.
Beck urged industry rep-
resentatives to “go where
people communicate” and
“speak their language.”
They should listen without
judgment, ask questions and
then share the industry’s sto-
ry, she said.
“What’s happening right
now is we hear the criticism
… and we skip directly to No.
3,” she said.
13
New spillway completed
at Idaho’s Minidoka Dam
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
RUPERT, Idaho — About
200 people were on hand to
celebrate the completion of a
four-year project to modern-
ize and straighten the spillway
and replace two irrigation
headworks at the century-old
Minidoka Dam 10 miles
northeast of Rupert.
The Bureau of Reclama-
tion project, in partnership
with the Minidoka and Bur-
ley Irrigation districts and
USDA’s Rural Development,
brought dam operations —
which began in 1906 — into
the 21st century.
The dam provides wa-
ter storage and delivery to
128,000 acres of farmland and
delivers power to irrigators in
Minidoka and Cassia coun-
ties. But the efficiency of that
service was compromised by
the aging infrastructure of the
spillway and headgates.
“We wanted to keep that
reliable service going for the
next 100 years, but we had
to do something different,”
Bureau of Reclamation Com-
missioner Estevan Lopez said
during the Wednesday com-
pletion ceremony.
The old spillway structure
with its manual stop-log, wa-
ter-control gates was replaced
and modernized with 12 auto-
matic radial gates capable of
releasing 6,000 cubic feet per
second.
“This was a very big project
in the making,” said Roland
Springer, the bureau’s Upper
Snake field office manager.
It took a lot of time and ef-
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Water from Lake Walcott flows through open control gates on the new Minidoka Dam spillway in
southern Idaho on May 27 during the Bureau of Reclamation ceremony to mark completion of the
four-year project.
fort. If the structure could talk,
it would tell stories of long days
of Bureau and construction
crews working in triple-digit
heat, sub-zero temperatures,
high winds and clouds of pests,
with tents over the concrete so
it could cure, he said.
Total cost for the project is
about $24 million, with the lo-
cal irrigation districts funding
42 percent.
Irrigators initially resisted
against the need to replace the
structure that had served well
for 100 years, but recognized
that reality when core samples
showed serious deterioration,
said Dan Darrington, president
of Idaho Water Users Associa-
tion and Burley Irrigation Dis-
trict board member.
Project costs were originally
estimated at $70 million, and ir-
rigators immediately panicked.
Searching for assistance, the
districts found financial help
at USDA’s Rural Development
agency, he said.
The economic return of the
dam operation is immeasur-
able, and the water rights that
come with it are the envy of the
state, he said. The vision and
fortitude of the area’s ancestors
— who built the structure with
the use of steam engines and
dug the canals and laterals with
teams of horses — has resulted
in a thriving community that
expands beyond agriculture, he
said.
USDA Rural Development
State Director Wally Hedrick
— whose grandfather and
great uncle were laborers con-
structing the dam and whose
grandmother cooked for the
early workers — said the re-
construction project was a
collaboration for rural oppor-
tunity.
Modernization of the spill-
way and irrigation diversion
gates is an outstanding project
that relied on the ongoing good
partnership with irrigators,
said Lorie Lee, the bureau’s
Northwest regional director.
And the project found a
great partner in Meridian,
Idaho-based Record Steel and
Construction, which kept en-
vironmental health in its sites,
she said.
Aging storage structures
across the West, climate
change and issues of water
management that seem to get
more contentious and more
difficult will continue to chal-
lenge the bureau and irrigators.
But like the Minidoka project,
progress can be made through
partnerships, Lopez said be-
fore he flipped the switch to
open the new spillway control
gates.
Experts: Online sales will profit farmers
Grocery-industry
disruption expected
to improve market
transparency
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Grocers are expecting a
disruption from online sales in
coming years, but experts say
the shift will likely profit farm-
ers and food processors.
The transformation of the
overall retail world, driven by
such companies as Amazon,
will affect the food industry at
a time when grocers are already
facing pressure to consolidate,
according to experts at a recent
executive forum organized by
Portland State University.
While the looming changes
are causing anxiety among es-
tablished retailers, the creation
of new sales channels is expect-
ed to loosen their grip on the
market to the benefit of suppli-
ers, experts say.
“It will reduce the traditional
power that retailers have,” said
Tom Furphy, CEO of the Con-
sumer Equity Partners venture
capital firm and a former vice
president of Amazon’s grocery,
health and beauty division.
With more ways for food
producers to reach consumers,
the market will be more trans-
parent and major grocers won’t
be able to exercise as much
buying power as they do now,
he said.
“It will allow producers to
get closer to their customer,”
Furphy said.
Suppliers are insulated from
the turbulence in retail because
they’re still ultimately making
something that people need to
buy, said Jack Buller, an indus-
try consultant and former retail
expert at Procter & Gamble.
Food producers with estab-
lished outlets at major retailers
will face more competition, but
the overall increase in “distri-
bution points” will help farm-
ers and processors, he said. “It
touches more consumers.”
“Bricks and mortar” retail-
ers aren’t going to disappear
but they must re-evaluate which
items they stock and how those
products are presented, said
Herb Sorensen, who tracks in-
store consumer behavior.
The traditional retail model
requires massive investments
in stores and merchandise, but
the actual sales generated by
those expensive displays are
proportionately rather paltry,
he said.
By comparison, online re-
tailers such as Amazon don’t
rely on physical presentation
and move through inventory
faster, Sorensen said. “Online
is very capital-efficient.”
Physical stores are most
vulnerable to losing sales of
“routine” items that shoppers
buy at regular intervals, he said.
They’re also less competitive
in selling the “long tail” of
specialized products that don’t
generate high sales volumes
but collectively take up a lot of
shelf space.
The future of traditional
stores probably lies in provid-
ing convenience, a fun shop-
ping experience as well as
“surprise and delight” products
that consumers buy on impulse,
Sorensen said. “If you need
it now, you need a bricks and
mortar store.”
Online ordering is becom-
ing increasingly simple for
companies to set up, while
wholesalers like Sysco are in a
position to diversify into retail
deliveries, he said. The future
will likely include pick-up and
delivery options for consumers.
Meanwhile, shoppers will
probably grow intolerant of
walking through large, over-
stocked stores, said Buller.
“Anything that takes away pain
from the shopping experience
is an opportunity.”
The current environment is
particularly difficult for region-
al grocery chains, which can’t
afford to use food as a “loss
leader” and engage in a “war of
attrition” as the national chains
do, said Scott Moses, managing
director of food, drug and spe-
cialty retail at Sagent Advisors,
which works on mergers and
acquisitions.
The grocery industry is
similar to department stores
a generation ago, before na-
tional chains consumed the
regional players, Moses said.
“It makes for an environment
where people can come in and
disrupt things.”
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Publishes Friday, August 21 st , 2015
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