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CapitalPress.com
July 29, 2016
Camelina, quinoa studied as alternative crops in E. Oregon
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
ONTARIO, Ore. — East-
ern Oregon researchers are
looking at camelina and qui-
noa as possible alternative
crops that might not neces-
sarily make farmers a lot of
money but could prove help-
ful during drought years or as
a second crop.
Field trials for both crops
have been conducted the past
three seasons at Oregon State
University’s Malheur County
research station.
The quinoa crop was har-
vested for the irst time this
year after three tries, said
OSU Cropping Systems Ex-
tension Agent Bill Buhrig.
Buhrig said if tempera-
tures are above 90 degrees
when quinoa, a gluten-free
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Oregon State University researcher Bill Buhrig talks about cameli-
na ield trials at OSU’s Malheur County research station. OSU trials
are trying to determine whether camelina and quinoa can beneit
area farmers as alternative crops.
grain alternative, is lower-
ing, the pollen will be steril-
ized. That’s a problem in the
Treasure Valley area of East-
ern Oregon and Southwestern
Idaho, where temperatures are
routinely higher during the
summer.
However, OSU research-
ers are looking at quinoa in
this area as a “double crop,”
planted in the same year after
crops such as wheat or peas
are harvested, when tempera-
tures are lower.
“The interest I’m hearing
from growers for quinoa is as
an alternative crop to help ill
the cash low in behind wheat
... and have it lower during
the latter part of the summer
when we don’t have those
heat units,” Burhig said.
The results of this year’s
camelina trial, which was
planted in November and har-
vested in June, are not yet in.
But the past two seasons, the
oilseed crop has yielded about
1,500 pounds an acre without
irrigation.
The crop received 5.79 and
4.17 inches of natural pre-
cipitation in 2015 and 2014,
respectively. Camelina could
provide an option during
drought years, Buhrig said.
At about 25 cents a pound,
the camelina crop would have
fetched about $375 an acre the
past two seasons, Buhrig said,
but fallowing ground is not
cheap. Area farmers fallowed
signiicant portions of farm-
land due to a lack of water in
2014 and 2015.
“You still have to main-
tain weeds, pay water and
taxes and you’re still making
payments on equipment, but
you’re not getting anything
back,” Buhrig said. “For
(camelina) to be a good idea,
it doesn’t have to be incredi-
bly proitable; it just has to be
a little bit proitable.”
By comparison, onions,
the area’s main cash crop, will
bring a grower about $4,000
per acre on average, said Nys-
sa farmer Bruce Corn.
While camelina can’t
match that, “When you’re in a
drought, leaving a ield fallow
is a real struggle,” said Corn,
who’s glad OSU is research-
ing camelina and quinoa.
“As you do research,
sometimes things will pan out
in unexpected ways,” he said.
As an example, he pointed
to the ield trials that Malheur
County research station direc-
tor Clint Shock did on drip ir-
rigation in the 1990s.
“Commercially, it didn’t
seem feasible at that time but
now we’re headed toward 100
percent drip irrigation of on-
ions in the valley,” he said.
“If you don’t explore it, you
won’t know what ... the po-
tential might be.”
WAFLA says 2016 wage survey better than last year’s
Farm labor group
says key issues
unresolved
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Courtesy of Washington State Mint Commission
OLYMPIA — The Wash-
ington State Employment Se-
curity Department has done a
good job engaging the indus-
try in drafting an agricultural
wage and prevailing practices
survey but key issues about
survey questions remain un-
resolved, says the farm labor
association WAFLA.
ESD will send the volun-
tary survey to about half the
state’s approximate 6,000 agri-
cultural employers in Septem-
ber. It asks about wages, bo-
nuses and housing and is used
by the U.S. Department of
Labor to set minimum piece-
rate wages and employment
standards for employers using
H-2A-visa foreign agricultural
guestworkers that affect pay
for domestic workers.
DOL uses a separate man-
datory USDA National Agri-
cultural Statistics Service sur-
vey to set a minimum hourly
wage for H-2A workers known
as the Adverse Effect Wage
Rate.
“The 2016 survey is a clear
improvement from the 2015
survey and comes much clos-
er to the standards required by
the Department of Labor,” said
Dan Fazio, WAFLA executive
director.
ESD was “extremely re-
sponsive” in working with
WAFLA and other stakehold-
ers and adopted “nearly all our
recommendations,” Fazio said.
The Ferguson Mint Still in Harrah, Wash., processes mint into oil.
Legislative auditors have recommended that lawmakers end a sales
tax exemption for processors that fuel their stills with propane.
Tax breaks for mint processors,
tractor buyers under scrutiny
Auditors present
report on tax laws
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Francisco Trinidad, an H-2A-visa foreign guestworker, thins Gala apples at the Zirkle Fruit Co. CRO
Orchard near Rock Island, Wash., on July 14. His minimum wage of $12.69 per hour is set by govern-
ment wage surveys.
WAFLA remains the sub-
ject of a state attorney gener-
al’s investigation into whether
it violated state or federal laws
by advising growers to report
hourly wages instead of piece-
rate wages in ESD’s 2015
wage and prevailing practices
survey.
ESD concluded WAFLA’s
advice skewed how much
workers earn picking Granny
Smith, Golden Delicious and
Fuji apples.
Fazio has said he’s coni-
dent the guidance was legal,
that the survey made grow-
ers choose between reporting
hourly wages or piece rates at
peak of harvest.
WAFLA warned farmers
reporting piece rates when la-
bor demand is highest could
artiicially inlate prevailing
wages for the next season.
WAFLA and ESD will
meet in late August to discuss
the investigation, Fazio said.
WAFLA will host webinars
for its members with ESD staff
to explain the 2016 survey to
growers.
The biggest change is ESD
plans to separately survey
workers to test the veracity
of employer responses as re-
quired by DOL, Fazio said.
The survey will be con-
ducted by the University of
Washington.
The most important unre-
solved issue is determination
of piece-rate wages, Fazio
said.
Survey guidance was writ-
ten over 30 years ago when
employers were allowed in
many places to pay solely by
piece rate without any min-
imum hourly guarantee, he
said. Federal survey guidance
documents require ESD to in-
dicate when a piece rate carries
ROP-27-5-2/#24
an hourly guarantee, he said.
He said the ESD survey
must quantify the hourly guar-
antee employers offer to accu-
rately determine the true wage.
“Piece rates are a dynamic,
market-driven pay scale that
are not amenable to govern-
ment surveys, mandates and
wage setting,” he said. “How
do you capture the difference
between my hourly guarantee
and yours if we’re not required
to report it?”
Gustavo Aviles, an ESD
program manager, said DOL
does not require reporting of
both piece rate and the hour-
ly guarantee. He said ESD is
only trying to establish the
prevailing wages actually paid,
whether hourly or piece-rate.
Surveys will be sent to
about 3,000 employers and
6,500 workers. There is a great-
er chance of employers with
more workers getting a survey,
said Zoe Zadworny, an ESD
economic analyst.
Responses are due in
mid-November, she said.
The H-2A program requires
free housing for workers and
could also require free housing
to non-employee family mem-
bers if it is a prevailing prac-
tice among employers who
do not use the H-2A program,
Fazio said.
Washington state lawmak-
ers should end a tax break for
mint oil processors and re-
view a longstanding law that
reduces the sales tax on some
farm equipment purchases,
according legislative auditors.
The
recommendations
are in an annual report on
tax preferences presented
Wednesday to a joint House
and Senate committee.
Auditors said a sales tax
exemption for propane used
to power spearmint and pep-
permint oil distilleries was not
justiied because the savings
were not enough to encour-
age processors to replace die-
sel-powered stills.
Meanwhile, a trade-in de-
duction, used mostly by car
buyers but applicable to virtu-
ally all goods, including trac-
tors, has failed to increase tax
revenue by stimulating sales,
as promised by its proponents
three decades ago, according
to auditors.
The Legislature began re-
quiring yearly studies a de-
cade ago to scrutinize the pub-
lic beneit of tax exemptions.
Over the 10 years, auditors
have analyzed 235 tax exemp-
tions. Lawmakers have termi-
nated two.
This year’s report includ-
ed a look at a tax break law-
makers passed in 2013 to help
mint processors meet clean-
air standards.
Since then, six more of the
state’s 28 mint oil distilleries
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have converted from diesel
to propane or natural gas,
Washington State Mint Com-
mission Executive Director
Shane Johnson said Thursday.
The state has six diesel-fu-
eled stills left. Converting to
cleaner-burning fuels can cost
up to $250,000, Johnson said.
“I would say (the tax in-
centive) has been successful,”
he said. “Any bit helps. It isn’t
a cheap conversion.”
The tax exemption will
expire July 1, 2017, unless re-
newed by the Legislature.
Auditors estimate that the
exemption saves 12 proces-
sors who use propane a total
of about $100,000 a year.
Processors that use natural
gas don’t see any savings be-
cause they pay a public utility
tax, not a sales tax.
Diesel used on farms is
also exempt from the sales tax
and costs less than propane,
according to auditors.
Auditors suggested that
lawmakers consider inding
another way to encourage
processors to convert the six
remaining
diesel-powered
stills.
Johnson said he welcomed
discussing other incentives,
but said he hoped growers and
processors who have convert-
ed to cleaner-burning fuels
won’t lose the tax exemption.
“It would be great to en-
courage the stills that have
not converted to do so, but my
concern is how it would af-
fect the growers who already
have made the conversion,”
he said.
Washington is the leading
producer of spearmint oil and
second in peppermint oil pro-
duction behind Oregon.
Washington mint oil had a
farm gate value of about $68
million in 2014, according to
the U.S. Department of Agri-
culture.
In 1984, voters approved
an initiative that allows con-
sumers to deduct the value
of trade-ins when calculating
the sales tax on new purchas-
es. Car buyers received more
than 80 percent of the savings
in iscal year 2015, while buy-
ers of farm equipment pock-
eted about 2 percent, or nearly
$5 million, auditors found.
Supporters in the 1984 vot-
ers guide stated that the trade-
in deduction would stimulate
sales of consumer goods and
increase tax revenues.
Auditors concluded that
hasn’t happened. They es-
timate the deduction costs
state and local governments
$182 million a year and rec-
ommended lawmakers review
the law.
Rep. Drew Macewen,
R-Union, rejected the idea
that the state was being de-
prived of money.
“A tax structure that has
been on the books for 32 years
— kind of hard to say that we
are losing revenue,” he said.