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CapitalPress.com
August 28, 2015
People & Places
Seeking ways to expand grower opportunities
Glenda Humiston
to play key
role in UC
innovation efforts
Capital Press Managers
Mike O’Brien .............................Publisher
Joe Beach ..................................... Editor
Elizabeth Yutzie Sell .... Advertising Director
Carl Sampson ................Managing Editor
Barbara Nipp ......... Production Manager
Samantha McLaren .... Circulation Manager
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Photo courtesy of USDA
Glenda Humiston, the new University of California vice president for agriculture and natural resources, discusses water issues at a confer-
ence in Brazil on Aug. 18. She is serving on an innovation panel led by UC President Janet Napolitano.
for Sustainable Development
in South Africa and the 2006
World Water Forum in Mexi-
co City and earned her doctor-
ate in environmental science,
policy and management from
UC-Berkeley in 2009 with
research on U.S. Farm Bill
policy.
Humiston credits her time
in 4-H and FFA as a youngster
for both her love of agricul-
ture and penchant for leader-
ship.
“I think I am a perfect ex-
ample of what 4-H can do,”
she said. “It’s where I learned
how to run a meeting. It’s
where I learned teamwork,
how to show something and
if I lost, to move on and keep
going. I’m the very first per-
son in my family to go to col-
lege. I was a star greenhand in
Colorado.”
Having won a national 4-H
award, Humiston spent two
weeks in Washington, D.C.,
during the 1976 Bicentennial
celebration.
“That trip was magical,”
she said. “It just opened up a
whole world to me.”
Humiston also knows what
it’s like to struggle financially
in farming, she said. Both her
parents supplement her family’s
ranch income with outside jobs.
Humiston comes to the uni-
versity from a six-year stint
as the USDA’s rural develop-
ment director for California,
to which she was appointed by
President Barack Obama. She
replaces Barbara Allen-Diaz,
who retired as ANR vice presi-
dent in June.
At the UC, she’ll oversee
1,350 people in 60 county of-
fices, nine research and exten-
sion centers and three adminis-
trative centers. In her first-day
meeting with Napolitano, the
two were “on the same wave-
length as far as what this po-
sition ought to be doing,” she
said.
In announcing the hire in
July, Napolitano called Hu-
miston “a great fit for the UC
system at a time when drought
has heightened the importance
of sustainable agricultural
practices.
“She is a knowledgeable,
thoughtful and action-orient-
ed leader who will expand the
impact” of ANR, whose reach
is already global, Napolitano
said.
Humiston said she wants to
take what she’s learned over
Western Innovator
Glenda Humiston
By RYAN M. TAYLOR
OWNER, N.D. — Some
days, I think I’m about
the oldest 45-year-old
guy I know. Maybe I am. An
“old soul” has been a common
description of me, and I take it
as a compliment.
I’m certain the “oldness”
is related to my father being
just shy of 49 years old when
I was born, and my mother
was nearly 38. Having parents
a generation beyond the age
of the parents of most of my
contemporaries was bound to
have a soul-aging effect on
me.
T
Feeling my age
But I’m feeling my age
now because I look at the cal-
endar, count back and realize
I’ve been writing this Cowboy
Logic column for 21 years.
How’d that happen?
On July 18, 1994, just a
week ahead of my 24th birth-
Cowboy
Logic
Ryan Taylor
day, Cowboy Logic got its first
ink on page six of AgWeek
magazine. I’d been writing
freelance news stories for Ag-
Week and they asked me for
something a little lighter to run
on the editorial page. I had to
be an old soul for them to give
a 24-year-old cowboy free rein
on 600 words worth of ink and
newsprint every week.
Kind of like leafy spurge,
but hopefully more appreciat-
ed, it spread from there. North
Dakota Horizons magazine
picked it to run on their glossy
pages four times a year. I
reached Canadian farmers and
ranchers with the Western Pro-
ducer published in Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan.
I’m in the Capital Press
out in Salem, Ore.; the Cattle
Business Weekly in Philip,
Calendar
Saturday, Aug. 29
Farwest Nursery Show, 8 a.m.-4: .0 p.m., Oregon Conven-
vice president for agriculture and
natural resources
Age: 56
Family: Wife Grace Flannery; one grandchild
Website: http://ucanr.edu
the years and help improve
growers’ economic outlook by
seeking new opportunities in
international trade and form-
ing better relations between
urban and rural communities.
She told of attending a re-
cent two-day economic sum-
mit in San Jose, at which the
words “agriculture,” “natural
resources” and “water” were
rarely mentioned.
“It was as if our policy-
makers … somehow think the
California economy is living
on some barren rock in outer
space,” Humiston said, adding
there’s a lack of knowledge
among urban leaders of how
ag and natural resources un-
derpin the economy.
In addition to her work on
the innovation panel, Humis-
tion Center, Portland.
Aug. 29-Sept. 7
Oregon State Fair, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Oregon State Fair-
grounds, Salem.
Thursday, Sept. 10
Oregon State University Dairy Open House, 10 a.m.-.
p.m. OSU Dairy, Corvallis, Ore. The OSU Dairy has been
converting to a grazing-based operation.
Thursday-Friday, Sept. 17-18
California Poultry Federation Annual Meeting and Confer-
ence, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monterey Plaza Hotel, Monterey, Calif.
Thursday-Sunday, Sept. 17-20
Mount Angel Oktoberfest, 11 a.m.-11: 55 p.m., Mount
Angel, 1-855-899-6..8. Mount Angel’s Oktoberfest will
celebrate 50 years of festival, bringing together .50,000
people to celebrate the harvest. Something for everyone.
Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 3-4
Alpaca Harvest Fest, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Alpacas of Oregon,
Sherwood, Ore., 50.-628-202.. Two farms, one convenient
location. If you’re curious about starting a fiber farm or
breeding fiber animals — sheep, goats, alpacas, llamas —
we’ve raised them all and love to talk about them.
Second generation
Spice of life
My mother wrote a column
for about 30 years in our local
weekly paper called “Mean-
while, Back at the Ranch,”
right up until her passing. She
wrote them out in longhand on
a yellow legal pad and I think
she got $20 a column.
Someone rather innocently
asked her once what she had
to pay to get that space in the
paper. They figured it was like
buying advertising. They were
pleased to find out that she ac-
tually got paid a little for writ-
ing it!
I’ve always liked life best
when it’s had a lot of variety.
I had the variety of all that
ranching entails from day to
day, and combined that with
communications work for
a beef cooperative in seven
states and two Canadian prov-
inces; a sales career in animal
health for a major corporation;
10 years serving as a state sen-
ator and two years as the mi-
nority leader; and a fellowship
with a foundation that allowed
me to study Norway’s oil de-
velopment policies, travel to
ton will have a key role in Na-
politano’s Global Food Initia-
tive, which seeks to align the
university’s research, outreach
and operations to figure out
how to nutritionally and sus-
tainably feed a world popula-
tion expected to reach 8 billion
by 2025.
Her work will often take
Humiston out of the country.
She was in Brazil last week at-
tending a forum on water and
said she will likely visit Mex-
ico in her first year on the job.
“I’m a firm believer that
there’s room in our system for
all types of agriculture,” Hu-
miston said. “What’s import-
ant to us here at ANR is that
we’re developing the research
that will enable that ag to be as
sustainable as possible.”
the old country and even heli-
copter out to a drilling platform
in the middle of the North Sea.
To say the least, my life has
been blessed with variety.
A new adventure
Now, my wife and family
and I are embarking on a new
adventure as the appointed state
director for the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s Rural De-
velopment agency. We’ll still
have cows and horses, and the
ranch will never be for sale, but
I am stepping away from writ-
ing my Cowboy Logic column
as I start my new work.
I leave several hundred
columns and three books of
my past columns in my wake,
a website to find them, www.
mycowboylogic.com, and 21
years of good memories. I’m
not going too far, so we’ll see
you around. And if we meet
on a gravel road, I’ll smile and
give the customary wave from
the top of the steering wheel.
Happy trails, folks.
Sevenoaks has been growing for 37 years
CORVALLIS, Ore. — When
Mike Ridling and Scott Anderson
bought Corvallis-area Sevenoaks
Native Nursery in 2006, there were
not many wholesale native nurser-
ies in Oregon. They began selling to
the few Portland and suburban-area
nurseries that sold natives, but grow-
ers closer to the metro area soon en-
tered the market.
Ridling and Anderson re-evaluat-
ed their markets and, although they
continue to sell to the Portland area,
that market makes up fewer of their
sales than before.
About half of Sevenoaks’ sales is
bare-root stock to contractors and
businesses conducting restoration
projects that require native plants.
These projects include highway con-
struction where disturbed areas are re-
planted with native trees and shrubs.
Conservation groups continue
to be a staple of Sevenoaks’ sales.
Watershed councils, conservation
districts and other groups also pur-
chase nursery natives for planting
along creeks and rivers and in upland
areas, to conserve water or improve
its quality, create shade and prevent
erosion. Some of the bare-root stock
also goes to nurseries that grow the
plants in larger containers.
The other half of Sevenoaks’
sales is container stock, much of
which also goes to restoration proj-
ects. The demand for larger and larg-
er container plants is increasing, An-
derson said. As a result, Sevenoaks
is expanding their 5-gallon container
sales and is growing larger trees.
When they first purchased the
business, Ridling and Anderson
began improving the looks of their
products and increased their vari-
eties from 150 to nearly 400 native
plants, all grown on the nursery’s 16
acres. Federal construction projects
To Reach Us
N. California
Tim Hearden .................... 5.0-605-.072
E Idaho
John O’Connell ................. 208-421-4.47
I’ve been pleased, too, that
a handful of papers and maga-
zines around the Western U.S.
and Canada have been willing
to pay me for writing. Every
dollar earned was welcome, es-
pecially that year I sold the steer
calves for 62 cents a pound.
The columns, and the speak-
ing jobs that came from them,
helped skid the ranch across the
thin ice of the lean times.
For the Capital Press
POSTMASTER: send address changes to
Capital Press, P.O. Box 2048 Salem, OR
97.08-2048.
News Staff
Residence: Novato, Calif.
S.D.; and the Nebraska Fen-
cepost, Ogallala, Neb.
I’ve had papers and mag-
azines in Kamloops, British
Columbia; Great Falls, Mont.;
and Boise, Idaho, dedicate
space to Cowboy Logic over
the years as well. It’s probably
run in a few papers that never
minded tracking me down to
send a little remuneration for
my words, and that’s OK.
By GAIL OBERST
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It’s the end of the trail for Cowboy Logic column
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Mike Forrester ..........................President
Steve Forrester
Kathryn Brown
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Corporate officer
John Perry
Chief operating officer
By TIM HEARDEN
OAKLAND, Calif. — In a
meeting with her new boss on
her first day on the job, Glen-
da Humiston took a bold step.
“I suggested I should
be active on her innovation
council,” said Humiston, who
has been the University of
California’s vice president in
charge of agriculture and nat-
ural resources since Aug. 3.
The panel she was vol-
unteering for was a group of
business leaders and investors
assembled by UC President
Janet Napolitano last year to
look for innovations in en-
trepreneurship and technolo-
gy that can be applied in the
commercial sector.
For Humiston, the panel
is a great way to explore the
opportunities for developing
agricultural technology, she
said.
“When you look at tech-
nology and the things of agri-
culture, they come together in
California,” she said.
Humiston, 56, has spent
her career looking for ways
to enhance farmers’ econom-
ic opportunities and bridging
urban-rural divides.
After growing up on her
parents’ cattle ranch in north-
western Colorado and having
been a Peace Corps volun-
teer in Tunisia, she had what
she called her “dream job” in
the early 1990s as executive
director of the now-defunct
Sonoma County Farmlands
Group working on farmland
preservation.
“I’ve pretty much stayed in
that (type of) work,” Humis-
ton said.
In 1998, then-President
Bill Clinton appointed her
as USDA under secretary for
natural resources and envi-
ronment, a position she held
until 2001. She had key roles
in the 2002 World Summit
Capital Press
along Interstate 5, Army Corps of
Engineers, buffer zones in forested
areas, farmers working on conser-
vation plans, landowners who want
to landscape natives for drought tol-
erance — all of these projects and
activities are increasing the demand
for native plants.
Sevenoaks was founded in 1978
by Ron and Barbara Cameron, who
developed the raised sand-bed sys-
tem still in use today. Walking past
the long bed of small aspens, Mike
spots a weed and pulls it effortless-
ly from the sand bed, roots and all.
Aspens are still one of the nursery’s
mainstays. The nursery grows about
150,000 aspen seedlings every year.
Scott and Mike met at the Univer-
sity of Oregon and connected their
passion for native plants to a business
plan. Mike worked for a year with
the previous owners and then Scott
joined for the last few months before
they took over the business.
Idaho
Carol Ryan Dumas .......... 208-860-.898
Boise
Sean Ellis .......................... 208-914-8264
Central Washington
Dan Wheat ........................ 509-699-9099
E Washington
Matthew Weaver .............. 509-688-992.
Oregon
Eric Mortenson ................ 50.-412-8846
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Graphic artist
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Index
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