10 CapitalPress.com
October 30, 2015
California
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Early pumpkin crop remains
plentiful through Halloween
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
ANDERSON, Calif. —
Pumpkin growers in Califor-
nia are making the most of an
early but plentiful crop, as the
popular seasonal vegetable has
remained available right up to
Halloween.
Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm in
Wheatland, Calif., saw a bet-
ter-than-average crop this year,
co-owner Wayne Bishop said.
A summer of mostly mild after-
noon temperatures helped the
pumpkins develop, he said.
“In the Sacramento Valley,
it can get too hot for pumpkins,
but we didn’t have much of that
this year,” Bishop said. “It was
a fairly moderate summer.”
Hawes Farms in Anderson
still had plenty of pumpkins left
as of Oct. 23, and owner Greg
Hawes expected customers to
be able to pick them from his
patch right up until Halloween,
he said.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Nathaniel Toevs, a first-grader at Antelope Elementary School in
Red Bluff, Calif., walks through a field at Hawes Farms in Anderson,
Calif., with a pumpkin he just picked on Oct. 23. Producers say mild
summer temperatures led to a fairly abundant pumpkin crop.
“The kids are still coming
out” to enjoy the farm’s corn
maze and other attractions,
Hawes said. “Last year we lost
some (pumpkins) with the rain
... so I think it’s a little bit better
than last year.”
For many growers, the har-
vest started earlier this year
than in previous years but the
overall volume of pumpkins
remains steady, the California
Farm Bureau Federation re-
ported. Early-season pumpkins
were good sized, but fields har-
vested later in the season are
producing smaller crops, the
CFBF notes.
15 th Annual
WILLAMETTE VALLEY
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Kevin Davies operates a tractor with a sweeper that picks up almonds as a bankout driver follows
during this season’s harvest in an orchard in Gerber, Calif. Almond industry leaders are pushing for
passage of a drought relief bill this year.
Almond producers seek
passage of drought bill
Industry continues
efforts to tell its
story on water use
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
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By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
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Training: CORE
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SACRAMENTO — A
new mobile device applica-
tion instructs farmworkers on
how to wash their hands well
enough to avoid contamina-
tion of lettuce and other pro-
duce.
The California Leafy
Greens Marketing Agree-
ment — created by growers
after a devastating E. coli
outbreak — has launched
the app in English and Span-
ish on iTunes for iPhone and
iPad.
The training app takes
Courtesy of California LGMA
A farmworker is shown washing
his hands on a mobile device
application announced by the
California Leafy Greens Mar-
keting Agreement.
about five minutes to com-
plete and includes step-by-
step directions, clear cap-
• And thank you to the following Dine Around Oregon sponsors: NORPAC Foods
• Reed Anderson Ranches • Manning Farms • Spring Acres Cranberries
• Oregon Dairy Women • 4 Spirits Distillery • Oregon Cattleman’s Association
For Expo updates,
follow us
on Facebook!
3700 Knox Butte Rd.
I-5 @ Exit 234 • Albany, OR
(20 Minutes South of Salem)
CORE Pesticide
Training
www.wvaexpo.com
541-967-3871
44-2/#5
44-2/#4
Linn County Fair & Expo Center
and help is going to continue
as long as we’re looking at
drought,” Vilsack said.
The meeting with Vilsack
was only the latest effort at
outreach by the increasingly
image-conscious almond in-
dustry, which has sought in
recent months to push back
against criticisms that almond
groves use too much water and
that California’s massive crop
places too much stress on hon-
eybee populations.
The House bill by Rep.
David Valadao, R-Hanford,
came as some farm groups and
politicians have responded to
water shutoffs and cutbacks in
the San Joaquin Valley by urg-
ing state and federal leaders to
temporarily relax environmen-
tal regulations to send more
water south of the Sacramen-
to-San Joaquin River Delta.
Recently a group of Repub-
lican lawmakers led by House
Majority Leader Kevin McCa-
rthy, R-Bakersfield, sent a let-
ter to President Barack Obama
and Gov. Jerry Brown urging
them to capture more rain wa-
ter this winter if El Nino’s big
storms come to fruition.
While Vilsack’s visit on
Oct. 12-13 didn’t yield prom-
ises of more water, Covello
said industry leaders were
heartened when Vilsack ex-
plained to an audience that
it takes more water to make
a cell phone than to grow an
almond.
App trains farmworkers
in proper hand-washing
Meetings: Pennington Seed Growers Breakfast (by invitation).
Forklift
MODESTO, Calif. — Al-
mond producers have called
on U.S. Agriculture Secretary
Tom Vilsack and two members
of the House Agriculture Com-
mittee to push for passage of a
compromise drought relief bill
this year.
Vilsack met here with al-
mond growers, hullers and
shippers during a recent two-
day swing through the San
Joaquin Valley.
During their discussion, al-
mond industry leaders urged
Vilsack and Reps. Jim Costa,
D-Fresno, and Jeff Denham,
R-Modesto, to work together
to merge competing House
and Senate drought-response
bills before Congress adjourns
for the year, said Kelly Cov-
ello, president of the Almond
Hullers and Processors Asso-
ciation.
House Republicans passed
legislation this summer that
would require certain mini-
mum levels of pumping from
the Sacramento-San Joaquin
River Delta for valley farms
unless it can be shown there
was no alternative for sav-
ing imperiled fish but to hold
the water back. A bill by U.S.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein and
Barbara Boxer, both D-Calif.,
would maintain environmen-
tal protections while funding
long-term projects such as de-
salination, water recycling and
storage. Lawmakers have been
working this month to try to
merge the two bills.
While the secretary made
no policy promises other than
to continue monetary drought
aid, industry professionals
came away pleased with the
discussions and more confi-
dent that their voices are being
heard in Washington, D.C.,
Covello said.
“Obviously we were stress-
ing the impacts of the drought
... and the need for getting fed-
eral legislation accomplished,”
she said. “That was definitely a
lot of the conversation.”
Vilsack told the Capital
Press in an email he “appre-
ciated the opportunity to hear
from a number of producers”
and outline steps the USDA
has already taken to help
drought-affected producers,
including additional Environ-
mental Quality Incentives Pro-
gram funding to help produc-
ers be efficient with water use.
He said a new USDA re-
gional climate hub at Uni-
versity of California-Davis is
focusing on specialty crop pro-
duction in drought conditions.
“And I want to reassure
producers that the support
tions, photographs, video
footage and exercises to re-
inforce concepts, explained
Scott Horsfall, the marketing
agreement’s president and
chief executive officer.
“With a work force that is
constantly changing, this is
very foundational and very
important,” LGMA spokes-
woman April Ward said.
“Any time a crew might have
new employees show up, this
is a great orientation tool
to use. ... It even involves a
quiz at the end to make sure
they were actually following
along and understand what it
was saying.”
Experts have been stress-
ing the importance of thor-
ough hand-washing and other
basic hygiene and cleanliness
as elements of the 2011 Food
Safety Modernization Act are
being phased in nationwide.
At workshops earlier this
year, University of Califor-
nia-Berkeley food safety
expert Jennifer Sowerwine
led growers and handlers
through hand-washing ex-
ercises, urging them to sing
their “ABCs” or “Happy
Birthday” to themselves to
signify how long they should
wash.
While such things as
hand-washing may seem el-
ementary, industry insiders
say remembering them are
key to preventing the kind
of outbreak that occurred in
2006, when more than 200
people were sickened by
tainted spinach.