INSIDE: OUR ANNUAL VITICULTURE SPECIAL SECTION
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Capital
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The West s
Weekly
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
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VOLUME 88, NUMBER 37
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
“I’m a fi rm believer that, if we ate everything that was grown
or already in the food system, we would have no hunger in the U.S.”
Elise Bauman, executive director of Salem Harvest
WASTE NOT,
WANT NOT
$2.00
Farmers
confi dent
they’ll beat
county
GMO ban
Lawsuit claims
ordinance is
pre-empted
by state law
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
and ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Oregon Food Bank employee Mark Bigley spends fi ve days a week collecting food donations from Portland area retailers.
Courtesy of Oregon Food Bank
Farmers, nonprofi ts redirect leftover food to help needy
By ZANE SPARLING
Capital Press
BROOKS, Ore. —
E
lise Bauman wants to work herself out of a job.
The executive director of Salem Harvest, a
gleaners organization that picks surplus crops fol-
lowing harvest, believes hunger can be defeated
across America if only food didn’t go to waste.
“I’m a fi rm believer that, if we ate everything that was
grown or already in the food system, we would have no hun-
ger in the U.S.,” she said.
When that happens, she won’t need to get up early, as she
did on a recent Saturday in Brooks, Ore., to coordinate a corps
of volunteers picking blueberries.
Entire families of gleaners were working. Bauman
schooled the younger members on what she called the “tickle
method” of blueberry harvesting: hands cupped, thumbs out,
gently rolling the blueberries off the stem.
Turn to WASTE, Page 12
Zane Sparling/Capital Press
Salem Harvest Executive Director Elise Bauman, left, helps her daughter Abigail,
6, pick blueberries at the Beilke Family Farm on Aug. 8.
Farmers who are challeng-
ing the genetically engineered
crop ban in Oregon’s Jose-
phine County expect they’ll
have no problem winning an
injunction against the ordi-
nance.
The county and supporters
of the ban, meanwhile, are
still deciding how to respond
to the lawsuit.
An attorney for the sug-
ar beet farmers, Robert and
Shelley Ann White, said state
lawmakers have made it clear
that no local government oth-
er than Jackson County can
regulate genetically modifi ed
organisms.
“We think the ordinance is
completely pre-empted,” said
John DiLorenzo, their attor-
ney.
In 2013, the Oregon Leg-
islature passed Senate Bill
863, which holds that the
state government has sole
authority over restrictions on
agricultural seed.
At the time, Jackson
County was excluded from
the bill because its GMO ban
was already on the ballot.
The following year, how-
ever, voters in Josephine
County passed a similar ordi-
nance prohibiting the cultiva-
tion of biotech crops.
The county announced
that the ordinance went into
effect on Sept. 4, which
prompted Robert and Shelley
Ann White to fi le a complaint
seeking a declaration that
the GMO ban is invalid and
a permanent injunction pre-
venting its enforcement.
The couple said they’ve
grown genetically engineered
sugar beets for fi ve years
but are now forced to pro-
duce a less lucrative crop in
a leased fi eld because of the
ordinance.
Turn to GMO, Page 12
Rancher, environmentalists make tentative pact on wolves
Dashiell eyes returning sheep to wolf country
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
TUMWATER, Wash. — A ranch-
er whose wolf-imperiled sheep were a
fl ash point between environmentalists
and livestock producers last year may
get support from conservation groups
to return his fl ock to northeast Washing-
ton, a possible partnership that a state
wildlife offi cial called “amazing.”
The loose-knit deal was struck
Sept. 3 among the state Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s 18-member wolf
advisory group, which includes envi-
ronmentalists and the rancher, Dave
Dashiell, who estimates he lost more
than 300 sheep in 2014 to the Huckle-
berry wolf pack.
The department outraged wolf ad-
vocates by responding to Dashiell’s
losses in 2014 by killing the pack’s
breeding female. Still unable to fi nd
safe and suitable grazing land, Dashiell
moved his fl ock this year to Central
Washington, where he’s spending
more than $10,000 a month on hay, an
expense that he says may force him out
of the sheep business.
The advisory group’s environmen-
talists tentatively agreed to publicly
support Dashiell’s return to graze in
wolf country. In return, Dashiell said
he will welcome their involvement in
putting together a plan to protect his
sheep with non-lethal measures.
After the meeting, Dashiell said he
and the environmentalists were risking
being criticized by their colleagues for
collaborating.
Turn to PACT, Page 12
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Confl ict-resolution consultant Francine Madden, far right standing, taps the shoul-
der of Stevens County rancher Dave Dashiell during a meeting of the Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife’s wolf advisory group Sept. 3 in Tumwater. Others
pictured are Washington Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice President Jack
Field, standing left, and, sitting from left, WDFW wolf policy cordinator Donny Martro-
rello and Wolf Haven International Executive Director Diane Gallegos. The advisory
group agreed to consider supporting Dashiell returning his wolf-ravaged sheep fl ock
to northeast Washington.