COMPREHENSIVE DROUGHT COVERAGE
Page 4
Capital
Press
The West s
Weekly
FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 2015
VOLUME 88, NUMBER 25
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
$2.00
Oregon’s
industrial
hemp
growers
look for
solid ground
FOOD SECURITY
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Courtesy of Scaroni Family of Companies
Workers chop tops and tails off Romaine lettuce for Scaroni Family of Companies either in U.S. or Mexico. Scaroni grows most of his lettuce in Mexico to avoid labor
shortages in California.
Some worry as production
moves outside the U.S.
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
T
en years ago, Steve Scaroni looked south
seven miles from his farm near El Cen-
tro, Calif., to Mexico and thought “why
not farm there since it’s so hard getting
legal workers here.”
One of the largest lettuce producers in the na-
tion, Scaroni was dealing with labor shortages he
knew would only worsen.
“Our workforce was aging and going to other in-
dustries. Without immigration reform there was no
way to replace them,”
he said.
INSIDE
Another
large
salad producer had Experts: Food, national
moved to Mexico fi ve security intertwined
years earlier and was
Page 15
“getting it done.”
In early 2006, he
began renting fi elds, 1,500 miles to the south in the
state of Guanajuato in central Mexico. It was where
the other company had gone and the climate was
great for year-round production.
U.S. food production shifting overseas
Major exporters of food to the U.S.
Alaska
(U.S.)
Canada
U.S.
China
Hawaii (U.S.)
Mexico
Peru
Chile
South Africa
New Zealand
Source: Capital Press research
Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group
“Above 75 percent of your tomatoes come from
Mexico now. We are outsourcing our food supply.”
Cliff Thomason’s goal is
to be growing 10,000 acres of
industrial hemp in fi ve years.
But right now he’s dealing
with opposition from medical
marijuana growers and Ore-
gon legislators.
Thomason is among the
fi rst growers licensed by the
state to raise hemp, which
lacks the THC levels that
gets pot smokers high but
is valued
because it
can be used
to make a
wide vari-
ety of food,
health and
fi ber prod-
ucts.
Thoma-
son’s Ore-
gon Hemp
Co.
has
grow op-
erations in
Courtesy of Cliff
Murphy
Thomason
and near
G r a n t s Young hemp
Pass, in plants are ready
Southwest for transplanting.
Oregon,
and he is negotiating to share-
crop space on an organic farm
near Scio, in the Willamette
Valley.
The Oregon Department
of Agriculture has issued 13
hemp licenses, but it’s unclear
how many growers have a
crop in the ground this sum-
mer.
Thomason said growers
are hampered by infrastruc-
ture and political problems.
First, it’s difficult to obtain
seed, although Thomason
said he has seed from Chi-
na, Lithuania, Slovakia and
Germany. “Where there’s
a will, there’s a way,” he
said.
The Oregon Legislature is
another matter. Medical mar-
ijuana growers in Southern
Oregon believe pollen from
industrial hemp will con-
taminate their potent pot and
reduce THC levels. A bill in
the Legislature would force
a 5-mile separation between
hemp and pot growers.
Steve Scaroni, El Centro, Calif., farmer
Turn to FOOD, Page 12
Turn to HEMP, Page 12
Calif. issues shutoff orders to 114 senior water right holders
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Water regula-
tors began issuing shutoff notices June
12 to holders of some of California’s
oldest water rights while warning that
more curtailment notices are likely.
The State Water Resources Control
Board sent stop-diversion orders to
114 individuals and agencies holding
276 water rights along the Sacramento
and San Joaquin rivers and in the Sac-
ramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The hardest-hit area is along the
Sacramento River, where 86 right
holders were told to stop using 127
water rights, according to the board.
As of now, the curtailment orders
only affect landowners whose rights
date back to 1903, and they don’t
apply to holders of riparian rights —
those with land directly adjacent to a
water body.
But holders of even more senior
rights may be next, said Tom Howard,
the water board’s executive director.
“We anticipate every one or two
weeks through the summer we’ll be
issuing another batch of these as the
supply of water declines and demands
continue,” Howard told reporters in a
conference call.
The notices issued June 12
shouldn’t affect this season’s water
deliveries to Sacramento River settle-
ment contractors, said Stan Wangberg,
general manager of the Anderson Cot-
tonwood Irrigation District. The con-
tractors are seen as accessing previ-
ously stored water, he said.
“This announcement excludes
those who have previously stored wa-
ter under a valid right,” he said.
Curtailments of even senior right hold-
ers have been expected since January,
Turn to WATER, Page 12
Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press
Gino Celli inspects wheat nearing harvest on his farm May 18 near Stockton, Calif.
Celli has senior water rights and draws his irrigation water from the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta. The State Water Resources Control Board sent stop-diversion
orders to 114 individuals and agencies holding 276 water rights along the Sacramen-
to and San Joaquin rivers and in the Delta.