May 20, 2016
CapitalPress.com
7
Idaho approves plan calling for ag land acquisition
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
BOISE — The State Board
of Land Commissioners has
approved a plan that’s drawn
criticism from some agricultural
groups, suggesting that purchas-
ing forest and farm land could be
a good investment for the state.
Idaho Department of Lands
Director Tom Schultz said his
agency is already in discussions
with Potlatch Corp. about pur-
chasing a 2,000-acre parcel of
timber land.
The board’s consultant, Cal-
lan Associates, released a draft
of its Strategic Reinvestment
Plan on March 15, advising ag-
ricultural land would be a good
investment for the department,
assuming it could generate at
least a 4.5 percent rate of return,
and timber would also be worth
considering, if the rate of return
were at least 3.5 percent.
Some agricultural groups
submitted public comments on
the draft plan, concerned about
the potential for the state to com-
pete with farmers and ranchers
for land acquisitions and rentals,
and that too much of the state’s
land is already in public control.
Following the board’s 5-0
vote to implement the draft,
Schultz explained his agency
will evaluate land purchases but
may also opt to put revenue in its
Permanent Fund, where it would
be invested in stocks and bonds.
IDL, which has a mandate
to maximize proits from its
assets, began selling cottage
lots it owns along Priest Lake
and Payette Lake in 2007, in-
vesting revenue generated in
commercial property. In April,
Callan advised IDL that own-
ing commercial property was a
poor strategic it, leading to the
department’s decision to sell
about $30 million in Boise-area
commercial properties.
IDL expects to generate
about $160 million by the end of
Fiscal Year 2020 through both
sales of commercial property
and cottage lots.
Schultz said IDL met with
the commissions of eight coun-
ties where land purchases are
likely to occur and agricultural
groups including Idaho Farm
Bureau Federation, Idaho Cat-
tle Association and Idaho Wool
Growers. He said most of the
public feedback was positive,
though the agricultural groups
had concerns. Farm Bureau
submitted a letter in opposition
to the plan.
“At this point, we’re still
analyzing what the decision
may mean but we’re hopeful it
means they’ll cautiously move
forward and not start buying,
buying, buying,” said Farm
Bureau spokesman Russ Hen-
dricks.
Hendricks said 2.3 million
acres are already off the tax
roles due to state ownership,
competition with agricultural
interests would be no less of
a problem than competition
with commercial owners and
the state faces many hurdles in
terms of managing and dispos-
ing of property that could be
avoided through investing in
inancial markets.
Schultz said his agency al-
ready employs foresters and
range managers — and owns
16,000 acres of farm land for
lease — and the report suggests
forest and agricultural proper-
ty would be a better it for its
portfolio than commercial and
residential land.
Schultz said the board will
likely focus on purchases of
forest land, and would seek to
avoid buying highly demanded
irrigated land in Southern Ida-
ho in favor of dryland farms
in Northern Idaho. He said
the board would also have to
go through a lengthy process,
taking more than a year and
involving public comment, to
purchase land.
Researchers test almonds
as potential crop in Idaho
Relentless winds cause headaches
for growers in Treasure Valley
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Capital Press
PARMA, Idaho — Re-
searchers have planted an al-
mond orchard trial in response
to a large number of inquiries
from commercial growers who
want to know if that crop can
grow well here.
Essie Fallahi, who heads
the University of Idaho’s po-
mology program at the Parma
research center, said he has
received a lot of calls about al-
monds from commercial grow-
ers in California as well as other
states and even Canada.
Almond trees have been
grown at the Parma research
center in Southwestern Idaho in
the past but this is the irst time
the station has a full almond or-
chard trial.
Researchers know almonds
can be grown in Idaho but the
increased interest from com-
mercial growers warrants a full-
blown trial to conduct more in-
depth research, Fallahi said.
“There is a huge amount of
interest (so) we decided to have
a more comprehensive test,” he
said.
Researchers will study
several aspects involved with
growing almonds but at the
top of their list will be ind-
ing cold-hardy varieties that
can withstand Idaho’s winters,
which are much colder than
California’s.
Courtesy of Essie Fallahi
Almonds grow on a tree at University of Idaho’s Parma research
station in this photo. Researchers have planted a new almond
orchard trial in response to an increasing number of calls from
commercial growers in other states who want to know if the crop
can grow well in Idaho.
“We have a tendency to
have late spring frosts and early
fall frosts and we have to see
what kind of an effect that is
going to have on the almonds,”
said Tom Elias, a research as-
sistant at the Parma station.
“It’s going to be our only prob-
lem growing almonds here that
I can foresee.”
The one-acre almond or-
chard trial was planted this
year and includes 16 varieties
obtained from nurseries in Cal-
ifornia.
“What we’re doing now is
a trial with multiple different
kinds of almonds to … get that
research done so growers will
know what to plant up here and
how to do it,” Elias said.
Interest in the possibility of
growing almonds in southern
Idaho has soared since Califor-
nia’s most recent drought be-
gan, he said.
“We’ve had some almond
growers … who are very, very
interested in coming up here,”
he said. “In the next three to
ive years, I think you’re going
to see some big almond or-
chards in Idaho. It’s something
that’s coming.”
Elias said having commer-
cial almond orchards in Idaho
would be good news for Idaho
beekeepers. Many of them trav-
el to California to pollinate the
almond crop.
Listeria recall creates frozen
vegetable industry conundrum
Pathogen is common
but now more likely
to be discovered
By SEAN ELLIS
NAMPA, Idaho — Per-
sistent winds for more than
a month have created head-
aches for Treasure Valley
growers in Idaho and Ore-
gon, making it a struggle for
them to spray their crops and
keep the ground wet.
“The stinking wind blows
every day,” said Nyssa, Ore.,
grower Paul Skeen, who said
the winds have resulted in
poor onion stands in some
ields.
The wind also takes the
wax off onions, which can
be injured if they are sprayed
before the wax builds back
up, he said.
The wind is also creating
problems in other crops, in-
cluding sugar beets, corn and
alfalfa, because farmers are
struggling to ind windows to
spray.
“We always have wind
in the spring but this year it
just seems like it’s been non-
stop for a month,” said Nam-
pa farmer Kevin Tuckness.
“We haven’t been able to
spray very much because
the wind’s been blowing
non-stop.”
Richard Durrant, owner of
Big D Ranch, which grows
1,100 acres of sugar beets,
corn, wheat, beans and alfal-
fa near Meridian, Idaho, said
he had to re-plant some sugar
beets this year because the
wind dried the soil out before
there was water in the canals.
Trying to keep the ground
wet has been a real challenge
this year because of the wind,
said Neil Durrant, Richard
Durrant’s son.
“You couldn’t keep the
ground wet enough,” he said.
“It seemed like every time
you would get it wet, the
wind came and dried it all out
again.”
The Big D operation
wasn’t able to get its alfalfa
sprayed this year and that
crop has a lot of bug damage
as a result, Richard Durrant
said.
The farm’s biggest con-
cern right now is trying to
get its sugar beets and corn
sprayed.
“I think we’ll suffer some
on yields if we can’t get in
and spray soon,” said Neil
Durrant. “This year has been
a lot worse than any year I
can recount. You can’t spray
when the wind is blowing 15
to 20 mph.”
Tuckness said the wind
has made a lot of sugar beet
ields in the area uneven.
“You have stuff that’s 4
inches and stuff that’s just
coming up,” he said. “It dried
out portions of the ield so
you have stuff that germi-
nated and came up and other
spots of the ield where it’s
dry (and) we had to water ev-
erything up.”
Some pre-emergent chem-
icals that growers were able
to spray aren’t having their
normal effect because of how
dry the soil is, Tuckness said.
Bill Buhrig, an Oregon
State University Extension
cropping systems agent in
Ontario, said the wind has
made it a challenge to apply
some critical timing sprays.
He said it’s been a strug-
gle for many farmers in the
area, including himself, to
spray their alfalfa ields for
weevils this year.
If weevil spraying is
pushed back a week, “That’s
one more week that they’ve
had the opportunity to dam-
age your crop,” he said.
Find the
Cream of the
Crop...
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
After numerous frozen veg-
etable brands were recalled for
possible contamination with
pathogenic listeria, attorney Bill
Marler’s phone has been ringing
“off the hook.”
Most of the callers are com-
plaining of gastrointestinal
ailments after receiving “ro-
bo-calls” from grocers inform-
ing consumers that the food they
bought had been recalled, said
Marler, whose Seattle practice
focuses on foodborne illness
outbreaks.
Marler said the callers gener-
ally aren’t the type of clients he’d
represent — the link between
their illnesses and the recalled
product is too tenuous — but he
nonetheless sees the “huge reac-
tion” as an ominous sign for the
frozen vegetable industry.
“I can’t imagine that it’s not
having an impact on sales,” he
said.
Though the recent frozen
vegetable recalls are associated
with only eight illnesses, experts
say the incident highlights a co-
nundrum for food processors.
Listeria is a common mi-
crobe in the environment that
rarely causes serious problems
for healthy people, but genetic
testing can connect food prod-
ucts with outbreaks that proba-
bly would have gone unrecog-
nized in the past, experts say.
For that reason, the pathogen
is taking on new signiicance for
processors.
Contaminated foods can now
be matched with illnesses that
AP Photo ile
A microbiologist pulls listeria bacteria from a tube to be tested for its DNA
ingerprinting in a foodborne disease outbreak lab at the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in this 2013 photo.
are entered much earlier into a
database maintained by the fed-
eral Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
The current outbreak, for ex-
ample, was found to extend back
to September 2013.
“In a sense, it’s like a hand
reaching out of the grave to grab
the producer,” said Marler. “It
puts a lot of pressure and burden
on the producer.”
There’s also the matter of
negative consumer perception,
which may be ampliied by the
multitude of recalled products.
Federal authorities have
identiied CRF Frozen Foods of
Pasco, Wash., as a likely source
of the disease outbreak, but the
recall has extended to more than
350 individual products made
by the company under 42 sepa-
rate brand names.
Several other food proces-
sors, including ConAgra, Twin
City Foods, Stahlbush Island
Farms, Pictsweet and NORPAC,
have since initiated their own re-
calls of products that may con-
tain vegetables supplied by CRF
Frozen Foods.
“There are relatively few
frozen vegetable processors but
many, many brand names,” said
Charles Breen, a consultant and
retired district director of the
U.S. Food and Drug Adminis-
tration.
For food processors and the
farmers who supply them, the
risk is that shoppers will react
to the recalls by avoiding frozen
vegetables.
During past recalls, the ini-
tial drop in sales was caused by
retailers pulling products from
shelves, but this phenomenon
was short-lived, said Carlos Ar-
nade, an agricultural economist
with USDA.
Recalls didn’t have much
short-term impact on consumer
behavior, but the sales decrease
became noticeable when aware-
ness of the problem became
widespread, he said.
“Stores react quickly and
bounce back quickly. Consum-
ers react slowly and bounce
back extremely slowly,” Arnade
said.
When spinach contaminat-
ed with E. coli caused an out-
break in 2006, Arnade and other
researchers found that consum-
ers reacted by switching to re-
lated products, such as bagged
lettuce.
However, it’s tough to draw
conclusions for frozen vegeta-
bles from that study.
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