June 19, 2015
CapitalPress.com
3
Computer problem stops
printing of guestworker visas
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — For the sec-
ond year in a row, the Washing-
ton Farm Labor Association is
having trouble getting H-2A-vi-
sa foreign guestworkers pro-
cessed though the Mexican-U.S.
border for transport to Washing-
ton farms.
The U.S. State Department
quit printing H-2A visas on June
9 with no explanation other than
there is a system-wide problem,
said Dan Fazio, WAFLA direc-
tor in Olympia.
“We have 224 workers
stranded at the border right
now. They are out of money and
have no place to stay. This is the
third time this year this has hap-
pened,” Fazio said.
The workers, recruited by
WAFLA, arrived in Tijuana
June 7 for visa appointments on
June 8 and printing of visas on
June 9, he said. As of June 11,
they had no visas, were running
out of money and were wiring
employers in Washington for
money or were planning to re-
turn home to southern Mexico,
he said. Fazio sent a letter to
Michele Bond, acting assistant
secretary of consular affairs at
the State Department, request-
ing immediate help.
There’s a 15 percent labor
shortage in Washington, cherry
growers are losing crop because
they don’t have enough workers
and workers are needed now,
Fazio said in the letter.
The workers average $10
per day in Southern Mexico and
can make $100 to $200 per day
with H-2A jobs in Washington,
he said.
The guaranteed H-2A wage
in Washington and Oregon is
$12.42 per hour. Workers can
make more on piece rate.
A similar shut down oc-
curred last July when State
Department said it was having
trouble with a computer soft-
ware program. Sen. Patty Mur-
ray and Rep. Denny Heck, both
Washington Democrats, worked
to resolve that problem and get
visas issued again after a month.
WAFLA probably will assist
growers in hiring 10,000 H-2A
workers this year compared
to more than 7,000 last year,
Fazio has said. The statewide
total may hit 15,000, up from
9,077 last year, he said. He did
not have numbers on how many
have already come readily avail-
able.
Washington growers have
embraced the program in recent
years, spending more than $50
million on housing for work-
ers over several years, he said.
Growers provide housing, wag-
es and transportation from and
back to Mexico.
WAFLA recruits, handles
border crossings and transporta-
tion for about $1,200 per person
which is borne by growers.
WSU to host look at growing grains on westside
Mount Vernon
center set for
annual field day
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
MOUNT
VERNON,
Wash.
—
Washington
State University scien-
tists are inviting the pub-
lic to tour fields planted in
wheat, barley and oats to
see that grains can thrive
in the state’s northwest
corner.
The WSU Mount Ver-
non Research and Extension
Center will host its annual
Small Grains Field Day 3
to 6 p.m. June 25. Visitors
will be able to tour test plots
overseen by graduate stu-
dents.
WSU researchers in the
Skagit Valley have experi-
mented with growing win-
ter wheat for the past five
years. Plant breeder Steve
Lyon, who supervises the
cultivation, reports progress
in developing varieties that
are disease resistant, high
yielding and embraced by
bakers, including the cen-
ter’s bread lab baker, Jona-
than Bethony.
“It’s got to taste good,”
Lyon said. “There are really
unique flavors coming out
of these soils.”
Washington ranks fifth
among states in wheat pro-
duction thanks to eastside
counties, such as Whitman
County, reputed to be the
Kim Binczewski/Washington State University
Washington State University senior scientific assistant Steve Lyon stands in a field of hard red winter
wheat at the university’s research center in Mount Vernon. The center will host its annual Small Grains
Field Day on June 25.
country’s top wheat-produc-
ing county.
Western Washington also
once yielded wheat. The
first commercial wheat crop
in the Pacific Northwest
was planted at Fort Van-
couver in 1825, according
to the Washington Wheat
Commission.
Lyon said grains gave
way in the Skagit Valley to
higher-value crops such as
berries, potatoes and vege-
table seeds. Niche markets,
however, are creating new
demand for grains, such as
barley for craft beers, he
said.
Northwest Washington
won’t challenge the Palouse
as the state’s wheat heart-
land. But Lyon said WSU
researchers are identifying
grains that can be profitable
for small to mid-sized farm-
ers.
Skagit Valley farmer
Dave Hedlin said oats were
once a major crop on the
valley when farmers relied
on horses. Farmers still
grow grains in rotation to
break up disease cycles, he
said.
Hedlin said he was op-
timistic about the financial
opportunities grains pres-
ent. “We’ll pay attention at
the grain field day and see
what looks good and what
doesn’t.”
Lyon said the region’s
moderate climate makes for
long growing seasons, but
also poses the threat of dis-
eases.
That’s good, he said, for
research purposes.
“As a breeder, I kind of
like disasters,” Lyon said.
“If the crops fail, they fail
for us. We want to make
sure that they’re not going
to fail for the farmer.”
The field day is free and
open to the public.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Oregon dryland wheat, including this test plot in Sherman County,
was developing normally despite the drought until abnormally high
temperatures in late May and early June. Experts now predict a
significant yield drop.
Heat wave to impact
Oregon wheat yields
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Wheat yields are projected
to take such a hit this summer
that some Eastern Oregon
growers may not even harvest
their crop, a senior grain mer-
chandiser said.
Sparse rainfall and dimin-
ished snowpack is the story
for producers all across the
West, but an unseasonable
heat wave in late May and
early June hit developing
wheat plants at exactly the
wrong time, said Dan Steiner
of Pendleton Grain Growers.
Dryland wheat growers,
who farm without irrigation,
were hit especially hard as
the National Weather Service
recorded temperatures of 90,
96 and 102 degrees in the
Pendleton area from May 29
to June 10.
“Production will be down
significantly,” Steiner said.
He estimated a 20 percent
yield drop overall from the
statewide average of about
60 bushels an acre.
“Some of the dryland ar-
eas are going to have zero,”
he said. “Some (fields) will
be abandoned.”
Steiner said the heat wave
came as wheat plants were in
the stage of filling out their
grain kernels. Evaporation
stole what little water was
left for plant development,
he said.
“It came at a very, very
bad time,” he said. “A lot
of moisture that could have
gone to the kernel was sim-
ply lost.”
If temperatures had been
in the 70s or 80s during that
time, there would have been
a chance to have an average
crop, Steiner said.
As things stand, some
dryland growers in parts of
Morrow, Wasco, Sherman,
Umatilla and Gilliam coun-
ties may decide it’s not worth
the expense of running a
combine over their ground,
Steiner said. Some Eastern
Washington growers may be
in similar situations, he said.
Steiner said growers need
to harvest seven or eight
bushels an acre simply to
pay for the cost of operating
a combine. Growers may be
cushioned from some of the
loss by revenue guarantees of
their insurance, he said.
Steiner said he’s been in
Oregon since 1988, including
the past 15 years with Pend-
leton Grain Growers. “This is
as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”
The same problems have
hit wheat growers before, of
course. Steiner said El Nino
weather patterns always
bring hot, dry summers and
cold, dry winters, neither of
which is good for dryland
wheat.
Blake Rowe, CEO of the
Oregon Wheat Commission,
said hot weather also raises
the protein level of soft white
wheat above what Asian buy-
ers prefer. It won’t drive cus-
tomers away, but they will be
aware of it, he said. Most of
the wheat grown in the Pacif-
ic Northwest is exported to
Japan, Korea and elsewhere,
where it’s used to make crack-
ers, cakes and other products.
Steiner, of Pendleton Grain
Growers, said the bad weather
this year isn’t likely to change
how farmers operate. Dryland
growers don’t have many op-
tions, he pointed out,
“I would imagine they’ll
plant like always do, and try to
be optimistic,” he said. “The
timing of that rain is absolute-
ly critical. We can’t have 100
degree days at the end of May
and the first of June.”
Farm, technology sectors agree Idaho can be a leader in agtech
Capital Press
BOISE — Idaho could
and should be a world front
runner in agricultural tech-
nology, leaders of the state’s
farming and technology sec-
tors agreed June 16 during a
first-ever AgriTech Summit.
The summit, which was
called by Gov. Butch Otter, a
farmer and rancher, is part of
Idaho Department of Com-
merce Director Jeff Sayer’s
vision to make Idaho a glob-
ally recognized leader in the
so-called agtech market.
“All of the ingredients are
here for Idaho to take that
leadership position,” said
Don Bush, vice president
of marketing for Kount, a
Boise-based hi-tech compa-
ny. “We don’t have to take a
back seat to anyone.”
The event brought to-
gether a few hundred people
involved with the state’s top
two economic sectors —
agriculture and technology
— and included panel dis-
cussions on agriculture, re-
search and technology.
Todd Stevens, co-founder
of RenewableTech Ventures,
said his company has a lot of
interest in agtech. “We see a
lot of overlap in clean tech
and agtech,” he said.
Idaho has all of the ingre-
dients to be a world leader
in agtech but needs to bring
those assets together and
market them better, technol-
ogy industry leaders said.
“We have to come to-
gether as an agtech center
and market ourselves,” said
David Cohen, a technology
entrepreneur who said he
believes the state’s farming
sector “could greatly benefit
from engaging the technolo-
gy sector.”
Some of the areas the
two sectors said they could
work together on includ-
ed data management, un-
manned aerial systems, an-
imal tracking technology,
robotic harvesting, genetic
engineering, irrigation sys-
tems, and data analytics and
aggregation.
Dairy and cattle industry
representatives said expand-
ing tracking technology,
improving feed efficiencies
and identifying disease re-
sistant traits are important
issues for their industries.
North Idaho farmer Rob-
ert Blair said growers could
use unmanned aerial vehi-
cles that can fly faster and
cover greater distances.
Current UAV technology
allows them to cover 2,000-
3,000 acres a day, he said.
“We need to be able to
cover 20,000 to 30,000
acres in a day,” Blair said.
He also said the industry
could benefit from UAVs
that apply herbicides and
from sensors that could de-
tect plant diseases in early
stages.
Idaho State Department
of Agriculture Director Ce-
lia Gould told attendees the
agtech movement would be
driven by industry and not
the state.
“What agritech comes
to mean in Idaho is really
up to you,” she said. “And
it’s about doing this the Ida-
ho way — organically and
from the ground up. Not
from the top down. This is
not about the state rolling
out an initiative.”
Sayer told ag industry
leaders the state’s technol-
ogy sector genuinely wants
to help them tackle mar-
gin-changing issues.
“They are very, very in-
terested in having that con-
versation with every one of
you on the ag side,” he said.
“This is about making your
lives more profitable.”
The next step is up to the
two sectors, he said, but the
state wants to help in any
way it can.
“We’re going to continue
to nudge this,” he said. “We
think we’re on to some-
thing.”
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Leaders of Idaho’s technology sector participate in a panel
discussion June 16 during the state’s first-ever AgriTech Summit.
The event brought together leaders of Idaho’s farming and hi-tech
sectors.
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By SEAN ELLIS
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