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8 CapitalPress.com September 25, 2015 Idaho Subscribe to our weekly Idaho email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters Chance meeting results in African student touring Idaho farm country Feds plan wild-horse sanctuary in SW Idaho By SEAN ELLIS Capital Press BOISE — A friendship that started as a conversation in a hotel lobby has resulted in a 10-day tour of Idaho farm country for a young African man with a hunger for agri- culture. Cedric Nwafor, 26, from Cameroon, met members of Leadership Idaho Agriculture in 2014 while he was working as a bellman in a Washington, D.C., hotel. LIA trains community and business leaders in Idaho to be advocates for agriculture and members of the group were in D.C. for an advanced training experience when they met and befriended Nwafor, who has lived in the United States for five years and is working to- ward becoming a U.S. citizen. During a return visit to D.C. this April, the group met Nwafor at a restaurant and heard about his interest in ag- riculture and how he wants to eventually take best farming practices back to Africa to help feed people there. He also said he would like to visit Idaho some day so he could see what real agriculture is all about. LIA members agreed that night to help him achieve that dream and funded his 10-day trip to Idaho, which began Sept. 10. The tour included visits to multiple farms, livestock op- erations and processing oper- ations. Nwafor told the Capital Press Sept. 15 that he was blown away by the depth of farming in this area and its use By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A 150-square-mile area in southwestern Idaho will be- come home for several hun- dred non-reproducing wild horses from around the West that have failed to be adopted, federal officials say. “It would sort of act as a sanctuary area,” said Heidi Whitlach of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The agency on Monday announced the release of its approved Resource Sanage- ment Plan for the Jarbidge Field Office. The herd of wild hors- es in the Saylor Creek Herd Sanagement Area will be sterilized either chemically or physically and kept to be- tween 50 and 200 horses, said Whitlach, the plan’s project manager. Officials said that process is likely years away, though, as details are worked out. The herd will be replen- ished with wild horses from Idaho and sometimes other states, she said. Wild horses are sometimes rounded up and offered for adoption when their numbers exceed the amount of food available to support them. But not all the horses get adopted. Currently, the Bureau of Land Sanagement has about 47,000 wild horses and burros that are being held and fed in corrals and pastures. The 72-page Range San- agement Plan, or RSP, guides Sean Ellis/Capital Press JC Watson Co. production manager Duane Chamberlain, left, gives Cedric Nwafor a tour of the company’s onion packing facility in Parma Sept. 15. Leadership Idaho Agriculture members took Nwafor on a 10-day tour of Idaho farm country after learning of his interest in agriculture. of technology. “I used to think philoso- phers were smart but now I know farmers are smarter,” he said. Parma farmer John Hart- man, one of a dozen LIA alumni who showed Nwafor around farm country, said that type of in-depth tour of agri- culture would benefit anyone. “(LIA) gave him quite a gift,” Hartman said. “You don’t get a tour like this ev- ery day. You can tell people all this stuff but some times showing them is a whole dif- ferent deal.” Nwafor agreed. “One day here is like a semester in college,” he said. “Getting to see these things is way more educational than sitting in a classroom and writing thesis topics about it.” Seridian farmer Drew Eggers took Nwafor on a tour of the valley’s irrigation and dam system, showed him a mint still and rode with him on a corn chopper. “He was very inquisitive, very attentive and asked a lot of questions,” Eggers said. “He was a joy to have around.” LIA Development Director Kendra Dustin said a lot of people and groups involved with agriculture have invested in the leadership training pro- gram and the group wants to start providing more of these types of experiences. “It’s time for us to make an investment in other people,” she said. Nwafor, who is studying business with an emphasis in agriculture at the University of Maryland, said the visit made a huge impact on him. “After coming to Idaho, things are really changing now in my mind; I’m seeing more opportunities in focus- ing more on agriculture and economics,” he said. “I want to keep the momentum go- ing because I have gained so much information here. I do believe I chose the best state ... to come and learn all of this.” Habitat key to attracting beneficial insects, farmers told Capital Press SIDDLETON, Idaho — During a tour of an organic farm Sept. 16, farmers were shown how to increase habitat to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects. If farmers make the effort to provide habitat for beneficial insects, the effort will pay off, said Northwest Center for Al- ternatives to Pesticides Direc- tor Jennifer Miller. “Yes, you build it and they will come,” she said to about 35 people who attended the farm tour, which was spon- sored by NCAP and the Xerces Society. The three-hour tour was held at Purple Sage Farms, a 50-acre organic operation that grows fresh herbs and special- ty produce in greenhouses and fields. Purple Sage co-owner Mike Sommer said the farm has made a concerted effort for about two years to attract bene- ficial insects by adding habitat enhancements where it can. That includes letting crops flower for another week or so after harvest instead of plant- ing another crop right away, not tilling over the greenhouses all at once but doing it in sec- Sean Ellis/Capital Press People look at flowering plants that provide habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects at Purple Sage Farms Sept. 16. A tour of the farm was held to show other farmers how they can attract beneficial insects through basic habitat improvements. I’m liking what I’m seeing so far.” Jessa Kay Cruz, the Xerc- es Society’s senor pollinator conservation specialist, said wildflower plantings are also important for attracting and sustaining pollinators. Sustaining pollinators and other beneficial insects provide two main benefits, she said. “One, you’re helping pol- linators and a lot of pollina- tor species are in decline, so you’re being a great environ- mental steward,” Cruz said. “The other huge benefit is to your farm. You’re making your farm more resilient. Instead of tions, and leaving the sides of greenhouses untilled to provide some permanent habitat for in- sects. The Sommers are also planting starts in a 325 by 12 foot hedgerow that will pro- vide permanent habitat for insects. The hedgerow is be- ing installed next to the green- houses to enable pollinators to move freely between the two. The farm also uses annual plantings and cover crops to support insects. Sommer said while the farm hasn’t conducted any in- sect surveys, “anecdotally I’d say it is making a difference. W ALTER IMPLEMENT “ Your Farm Equipment Specialists” just having honeybees to pol- linate your crops, you have all these other native bees that can help. Then you have a lot of beneficial insects that can help reduce the pest populations on your farm.” She said she works with a lot of large almond producers in California who are adding habitat improvements to attract beneficial insects. “It’s not just something for small organic farmers; it’s something for everyone,” she said. The NCAP and Xerces Society have developed an as- sessment guide for Southern Idaho that can help farmers de- termine the best way to make habitat improvements to attract beneficial insects. “It’s been tested for Idaho ... and can help you figure out where to start,” Miller said. “It’s a really handy tool that can simplify the process and help people make meaningful changes.” The Idaho guide can be found by going to the Xerc- es Society website at www. xerces.org and typing the key words “Idaho pollinator guide” into the site’s search engine. The results will include assess- ment guides for other areas as well. Odessa, WA 509-982-2644 1-800-572-5939 Groups upset after release of range management plan By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press 39-2/#14 By SEAN ELLIS management of everything from wild horses to cattle grazing to recreation to sage grouse habitat restoration on the 2,200-square-mile Jar- bidge Field Office that con- tains desert canyons and re- mote rangelands. “One thing that’s very dif- ferent about this RSP is that we will be moving this herd from a producing herd to a nonproducing herd,” Whit- lach said. Anne Novak, executive director of the wild-horse advocate group Protect Sus- tangs, said the federal agency is making a mistake. “These are not feral cats,” she said. “These are wild horses that have a very dy- namic social structure. They have a whole herd dynamic that’s going to be completely ruined by sterilizing them.” Heather Tiel-Nelson of the Bureau of Land Sanagement said one of the options in the management plan was remov- ing wild horses from the area altogether because they have no natural water supply. But she said the agency ultimately decided to have a non-repro- ducing herd. The herd twice since 2006 has been rounded up and held in the agency’s Boise Wild Horse Corrals after wildfires destroyed rangeland forage, she said. “These horses do tend to be fairly familiar with peo- ple,” she said. “They tend to roam in areas that are fairly accessible for people to go out and see them.” BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A new federal land management plan for southwest Idaho and northern Nevada created af- ter the settlement of a lawsuit aimed at reducing cattle graz- ing has been released — and it allows an increase. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management last week ap- proved its Resource Sanage- ment Plan for the Jarbidge Field Office. The settlement agreement with conservation- ists was reached in 2005. “This demonstrates that the BLS cannot be trusted to put the priority of wildlife and multiple use over cowboys,” said Todd Tucci, an attorney for Advocates for the West rep- resenting Western Watersheds Project. “Cowboys are running the show.” The conservation group will consider another lawsuit, Tucci said. “We can’t let an increase in cattle go unchallenged,” he said. The previous plan allowed up to 260,000 animal unit months, which increased to 326,000 under the new plan. The BLM defines an animal unit month as the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. In the 76-page plan, the BLS cited the 2005 federal lawsuit settlement agreement with Western Watersheds Proj- ect as one of the reasons for cre- ating the new plan for the 1.4 million acres of public lands in the Jarbidge Field Office. In the decade during the settlement agreement and the release of the new plan, the area has been hit by repeated giant rangeland wildfires — typi- cally driven by invasive and fire-prone cheatgrass. Some areas have burned multiple times, adding up to more than a million acres burned over the years. Heidi Whitlach, project manager for the Rangeland Sanagement Plan, said the wildfires in the area and other parts of the state often pulled workers off the project and ac- counted for the length of time needed to complete the plan. “We’ve had a lot of hurdles that came up,” Whitlach said. “It’s taken us quite a while to get this process completed, and we’re very happy that we final- ly have.” Rehabilitation efforts in the burned areas, she said, result- ed in the planting of grasses to prevent non-desirable invasive species, particularly cheatgrass, from returning. She said the initial years of the new Range Sanagement Plan call for in- creased grazing and more cattle because of the additional forage with the planted grasses. “We’ve tried hard to have different treatments that will allow the land to better recov- er after some of these wildfires that we’ve had,” she said. “So we’ve tried to build into it re- siliency.” Over the years, she said, the number of animal unit months will be reduced to 279,000 as more native plants and shrubs return. Western Watersheds Project has a history of fighting against the planting of non-native seeds after a wildfire. The group con- tends that it can lead to turning sagebrush steppe needed by wildlife, such as sage grouse, into pastureland for cattle. “We know where this ends,” said Tucci. “It ends in the extir- pation of wildlife.” The BLS plan also calls for sterilizing a herd of about 200 wild horses in the area, which was blasted by the American Wild Horse Preservation Cam- paign. That group in a statement called it a “pest control” act for ranchers “who view mustangs as competition for cheap, taxpayer subsidized grazing on public lands.”