July 1, 2016
CapitalPress.com
Is pot Oregon’s top crop?
Sales figures might
prove if marijuana
is most valuable
commodity
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
E.J. Harris/EO Media Group
Oregon is now one of just
four states that has legalized
marijuana for recreational use.
It may also have become one
of the state’s top cash crops.
already legal. The state reve-
nue department collects a 17
percent tax on recreational pot
purchases, while the OLCC li-
censes producers, processors,
retailers, wholesalers and
labs.
The information, however,
poses another head-scratcher.
Most agricultural statistics
published by the ag depart-
ment come from the USDA’s
National Agricultural Sta-
tistics Service, or NASS.
2015 that Oregon’s marijuana
crop had an annual value ap-
proaching $1 billion.
Meanwhile, the OLCC
continues to process license
applications as entrepreneurs
seek opportunities in the rec-
reational cannabis market.
As of June 21, there were
723 applications to grow
pot in Oregon. Of those,
122 were in Jackson County
and 91 were in neighboring
Josephine County. South-
ern Oregon has long been
the state’s cannabis produc-
tion hotbed, legal or illegal.
The Portland area, includ-
ing Multnomah, Clackamas
and Washington counties,
accounted for 250 license
applications.
Of processing facilities, 25
of the 82 license applications
were from Multnomah Coun-
ty, as were 69 of 193 retail
outlet applications.
The state also received ap-
plications from seven testing
labs, 57 wholesalers and one
research facility.
Some licenses have been
approved, many others are
in draft form or are being re-
viewed for land-use compli-
ance by local governments.
Oregon juniper loan program off to slow start
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
An Oregon loan program
intended to jump start the
Western juniper market has
had only one applicant so far,
and people in the industry
say it remains stalled in a sit-
uation where good intentions
and strong demand for juni-
per lumber aren’t matched
by log supply and mill infra-
structure.
Business Oregon, the
state agency in charge of an
$800,000 juniper fund ap-
proved by the 2015 state Leg-
islature, recently tweaked the
details of its loan program
in an effort to provide better
terms and spur more interest.
Meanwhile, small rural ju-
niper mills sputter along and
hope for better times.
“I feel like a zombie,
caught between the living and
the dead,” said Kendall Derby,
owner and operator of In the
Sticks sawmill in Fossil, Ore.
Derby entered the spring with
little supply — “Demand is
through the roof and I’m out
of logs,” he complained. At
the end of June he received
three truckloads of logs, only
to have some of his equipment
break down.
The predicament is another
in the series of starts and stops
that has long marked the juni-
per market.
Western juniper is an intru-
sive tree in much of Eastern
Oregon and other dry parts of
the West. It covers an estimat-
ed 9 million acres in Oregon
alone and is a prodigious water
“thief,” as some landowners
call it. Mature trees can use up
to 30 gallons a day, and crowd
out native sage and grasses.
An Oregon State Univer-
sity study showed that cutting
juniper quickly restores wa-
tersheds and improves stream-
lows, which in turn improves
grazing conditions for cattle
and habitat for species such
as Greater sage grouse. Pol-
iticians, agency experts and
environmentalists believe a vi-
brant juniper logging and mill-
ing industry could revitalize
the economy in parts of rural
UI enters agreement to
manage 10,400-acre
Rock Creek Ranch
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
HAILEY, Idaho — A
three-way partnership be-
tween University of Idaho,
USDA and environmental
groups will allow UI research-
ers to perform extensive range
and grazing-related research on
the 10,400-acre Rock Creek
Ranch in southcentral Idaho.
The parties signed a mem-
orandum of agreement June 28
that will allow UI to operate the
working conservation ranch for
ive years.
The ranch is owned by The
Nature Conservancy and the
Wood River Land Trust. Their
agreement with UI will allow
the university to establish a
rangeland research and educa-
tional facility that encompasses
ranching, conservation and rec-
reation.
UI has hired former Idaho
Cattle Association Executive
Vice President Wyatt Prescott
to manage the 150-cow ranch-
ing operation there.
The research that will be
conducted under the agreement
and the fact that Prescott will
manage the ranch came as wel-
come news to the state’s cattle
industry.
“We’re really happy that
Wyatt has been tasked to man-
age that. It will be really well
run,” said Britany Hurst, the
ICA’s feedlot coordinator and
communications director. “It’s
hugely exciting for us.”
UI researchers will use the
ranch to study rangeland re-
lated issues, as well as how
responsible grazing and sound
conservation practices can
work together, according to a
UI news release.
“Leading research and out-
reach in Idaho is the funda-
mental land-grant mission of
the University of Idaho,” UI
President Chuck Staben said in
a news release. “Together with
The Nature Conservancy and
the Wood River Land Trust,
we will continue to do what UI
has done for 125 years — pro-
vide sound data from which our
state’s industries can improve,
expand and thrive.”
The environmental groups
purchased the land in 2014 for
$2.2 million from the Harry
Rinker family, which previ-
ously obtained a $3.8 million
Natural Resource Conserva-
tion Service Grassland Re-
serve Program easement on
the property.
In addition to protecting
wildlife habitat and prevent-
ing future development, the
easement requires that graz-
ing continue on the property,
along with other uses, includ-
ing conservation efforts and
recreational opportunities, said
John Foltz, special assistant to
the UI president for agricultural
initiatives.
The ranch includes core
sage grouse habitat, including
50 leks, and provides critical
water and habitat for other
wildlife, including pygmy rab-
bits, beavers and elk.
According to the UI news
release, “Grazing and the is-
sues around it are key com-
ponents of the future of the
property, as the UI Rangeland
Center strives to provide sci-
ence-based answers to Idaho’s
large ranching industry.”
According to a UI fact
sheet on the ranch, “Active
and relevant data on best
management practices ob-
tained through research on
this property can be directly
applied across the state and
the region.”
The ranch is adjacent to
11,000 acres of federal and
state land that is primarily
used for livestock grazing and
outdoor recreation.
The private and public land
combined include almost the
entire area’s watershed, which
will allow researchers to con-
trol most of the uses that will
impact research results, ac-
cording to the fact sheet.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Kendall Derby of Fossil, Ore., takes a break beside a load of juniper posts destined for shipment to
Portland in this photo from November 2014. Demand for juniper wood is strong, but the logging and
milling infrastructure is hobbling.
Oregon, as well.
For that purpose, the state
Legislature approved the
$800,000 Western Juniper In-
dustry Fund in 2015. Of that,
$500,000 was intended as
loans to increase harvesting
and manufacturing; $200,000
was for technical assistance;
and $100,000 was for work-
force training.
But six months into 2016,
only one loan application has
been completed and the other
two parts of the program hav-
en’t started. Business Oregon
spokesman Nathan Buehler
said the department revised
the loan program details. Now,
producers can get loans for up
to 90 percent of the project
cost, instead of 75 percent.
Also, companies the handle
other types of wood are now
eligible to apply.
Mill owner Derby said
part of the supply problem is
because loggers pursued pine
and ir logs available through
wildire salvage sales. Pine
and ir are easier to get to, cut
and haul, Derby said.
“They don’t want to mess
with juniper,” he said.
Derby and other mill opera-
tors sell their wood to Sustain-
able Northwest Wood in Port-
land, a for-proit offshoot of
Sustainable Northwest. Ryan
Temple, president of Sustain-
able Northwest Wood, agreed
with Derby’s assessment that
loggers turned their attention
to salvage logs rather than ju-
niper.
He said loggers and mill op-
erators need to communicate
better with ranchers whose
rangeland is covered with juni-
per trees. He said some ranch-
ers simply cut it and shove it
into a jumbled pile.
“If ranchers de-limb it and
put it into something that looks
like a log deck, somebody will
buy it,” Temple said.
He said demand for juniper
products is strong and varied.
Oregon vineyards moving to
organic production want juni-
per trellis posts because they
are naturally rot-resistant and
don’t have to be chemically
treated, while a new brew pub
adjacent to Oregon Health &
Science University opted for
a bar top made from a long,
polished juniper slab.
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Sales and tax igures col-
lected by state agencies may
inally solve one of Oregon’s
long-running farm crop ques-
tions: whether marijuana
is indeed the state’s most
valuable crop, as cannabis
advocates have always main-
tained.
Tight controls and report-
ing requirements by the Ore-
gon Department of Revenue
and Oregon Liquor Control
Commission should result in
accurate information about
pot, said Bruce Pokarney,
spokesman for the state De-
partment of Agriculture. The
department compiles an annu-
al list of the state’s most valu-
able crops.
Recreational use of mar-
ijuana became legal in Ore-
gon last October, in addition
to medical use, which was
Although it’s now legal in
several states, the feds still
classify marijuana as an ille-
gal drug. Dave Losh, Oregon
state statistician for NASS,
said the agency won’t in-
clude marijuana in its annual
crop statistics due to federal
policy.
For the same reason, peo-
ple can’t use water from fed-
eral projects to irrigate mari-
juana, he said, and such things
as Natural Resources Conser-
vation Service programs can’t
be applied to pot crops.
Pokarney, of ODA, joked
the department might have
to put an asterisk beside the
pot crop value in its annual
report. “We will have sales
numbers, but I don’t know
how we would report it,” he
said.
Oregon crop statistics
from 2014 list cattle and
calves as the state’s top agri-
cultural product, at $922 mil-
lion value. Greenhouse and
nursery plants was second at
$829 million, and hay was
third, at $703 million.
Seth Crawford, an Ore-
gon State University sociol-
ogy professor who teaches a
pot policy class, estimated in
5