CapitalPress.com
October 14, 2016
Canned fruit producer puts
non-GMO status on labels
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Courtesy of Oregon Fruit Products
The Salem-based company’s
labels now tell consumers
they are non-GMO, don’t use
high fructose corn syrup and
don’t use BPA can linings.
telling us, ‘If you want to
win with consumers, and if
you want to win with us, get
out of BPA cans and get cer-
tifi ed non-GMO.’”
The USDA has said
GMO food is safe, and the
Food and Drug Administra-
tion said high-fructose corn
syrup is “generally recog-
nized as safe” and BPA lin-
ing is “safe at the current
levels occurring in foods.”
But activist and consum-
er groups question the gov-
ernment’s fi ndings and have
thrown enough shade on the
topic that some food compa-
nies have take pre-emptive
action to escape criticism
and to grab or retain market
share.
Over the past year, Camp-
bell’s, General Mills, Kel-
logg’s, Mars, and ConAgra
announced they will label
their products.
Sarles acknowledged that
labeling the company’s fruits
and berries as non-GMO, not
to mention gluten-free, may
seem like “stating the obvi-
ous.” But in a competitive
market, with many consumers
opting to buy fresh or frozen
fruit and vegetables, canned
goods are facing tough com-
petition.
SAGE Fact #133
Oregon grows more than 10% of the
nation’s peas and Umatilla and
Morrow County are the leading
producers in the state.
MUD LAKE, Idaho —
Agricultural pilot Leif Isaa-
cson believes the vole popu-
lations are fi nally in decline,
following two years in which
the stubby-tailed rodents ran
rampant in some Idaho farm
fi elds.
But the headaches haven’t
subsided for growers, who are
now replacing vast acreages
of alfalfa that never recovered
from the 2014 and 2015 vole
onslaught.
Isaacson, owner of Des-
ert Air Ag in Mud Lake, said
voles continue to support
his bottom line, as he’s been
spraying alfalfa fi elds with
glyphosate herbicide or 2,4-
D, enabling farmers to plow
their heavily damaged alfalfa
fi elds and replace them with
other fall crops.
“There are thousands of
acres of alfalfa coming out
this fall,” Isaacson said, add-
ing that many fi elds are com-
ing out after two years that
should have remained produc-
tive for six years.
Isaacson said mature alfal-
fa stands can be permanently
damaged by voles, and many
hay growers didn’t realize
the extent until well into this
season. In many cases, yields
plunged by more than half.
He said hay prices around
$75 per ton have also made
it tough for growers to keep
vole-damaged alfalfa fi elds in
production.
Isaacson still sees voles
along ditch banks and has re-
cently treated some grain fi eld
edges to stop voles from mov-
ing into potatoes.
“We’ve done some (treat-
ment), but probably a tenth
of what we’ve done in the
past,” said Isaacson, who fl ew
members of the Idaho De-
partment of Agriculture over
vole-infested fi elds to witness
the losses at the height of the
infestation.
Blackfoot area grower
Jerry Elliott took 400 acres
of vole-damaged hay out of
Voles caused widespread
damage in Idaho during
2014 and 2015.
Courtesy of University of Idaho
A hay fi eld in Eastern Idaho shows a signifi cant vole infestation. Voles caused widespread damage in
Idaho during 2014 and 2015, but their populations now appear to be in decline, according to experts.
production early, following a
dismal third cutting last fall.
“We
probably
spent
$10,000 on different kinds of
poison to put on them, but it
didn’t seem to kill them,” El-
liott said.
Elliott still sees a few voles
on his farm but said the vast
majority died off this spring.
Monteview grower Will
Ricks, president of the Ida-
ho Hay and Forage Associ-
ation, plans to pull out about
400 acres of vole-damaged
alfalfa this fall, about a year
earlier than he would prefer.
He hasn’t yet noticed a pop-
ulation decline, though he’s
pleased by reports from else-
understood, Baldwin specu-
lates disease, parasites, food
scarcity and predator increas-
es could be factors.
Though vole numbers
are down, Danielle Gunn,
a UI Extension educator in
Fort Hall, advises growers
to continue monitoring and
controlling populations with
rodenticide, and by mowing
around fi elds to remove cover.
Gunn warned that voles
are prolifi c, becoming sexual-
ly mature at about one month
old.
Gunn said vole tunnels are
visible in the snow, and they
nest in conical-shaped areas
of clipped stalks.
LIVESTOCK & HORSE Idaho wheat yield a record?
Special Section
Dec. 2nd, 2016
Top executive believes so
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
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42-7/#6
where in the state.
Steve Hines, the Univer-
sity of Idaho Extension edu-
cator in Jerome County, said
voles also declined this spring
in Magic Valley.
“I haven’t seen a vole all
summer,” Hines said. “Last
summer you couldn’t walk
without seeing the ground
move.”
Vole populations are cy-
clical, tending to spike every
eight to 10 years for a season
or two, said Roger Baldwin, a
University of California-Davis
Extension specialist who is re-
searching better vole poisons.
Though the “trigger mech-
anism” for their decline isn’t
Idaho wheat farmers may
have set a record for yields this
year, the executive director of
the state Wheat Commission
says.
They averaged 91.3 bush-
els per acre in 2016, up from
77.5 bushels per acre in 2015,
according to the National Ag-
ricultural Statistics Service.
Blaine Jacobson, the com-
mission’s executive director,
checked records back to 1980
and believes this year’s yield
is “an all-time record” for the
state.
Nationally, only Arizona
posted higher yields, at 97.8
bushels per acre, down from
101 in 2015 and 110 in 2014.
California averaged 79.7
bushels per acre, up from 79.1
the year before. Oregon aver-
aged 50.1 bushels per acre, up
from 47.3 in 2015. Washing-
ton averaged 71.5 bushels per
acre, up from 50.3 the previ-
ous year.
New Mexico had the low-
est average yield at 22 bushels
per acre. The U.S. average was
52.6 bushels per acre.
Jacobson credited well-
timed rain for the boost in
yield this year.
“It’s nice, it’s both weath-
er-related and refl ects the
breeding of better varieties
that grow and give good quali-
ty and yield,” he said.
Average yield in the 1980s
ranged from 50 to 60-plus
bushels per acre, Jacobson
said. Yield increases since then
are based on improved agro-
nomics and better breeding.
About 25 percent of the
crop in Northern Idaho had
falling number problems, in-
dicating lower quality, but the
rest of the state fared well, he
said. Exporters are segregat-
ing low falling number wheat
from higher-quality wheat ac-
cording to customer specifi ca-
tions.
“It’s unpleasant to have —
the growers were so thrilled
with what was looking like a
wonderful crop, and then to
have a certain percentage of it
with low falling numbers was
really tough for them,” he said.
ROP-40-42-4/#17
SALEM — By the end
of the year, labels on Ore-
gon Fruit Products’ canned
goods and “Pourable Fruit”
containers will proclaim the
company doesn’t use geneti-
cally engineered ingredients
and has verifi cation from the
Non-GMO Project to prove it.
The company has never
used genetically modifi ed
fruit and berries and the list
of such products includes
just two things: papaya and
three apple varieties.
But today’s consumer “is
a thorough label-reader,”
company CEO Chris Sarles
said in a news release. “And
as an 81-year-old company,
it is crucial that we maintain
and build upon the brand
trust we have built over the
decades.
“We have always held
our sourcing, ingredients,
processing, and packaging
to the highest standards,”
Sarles said in the prepared
statement, “and now our la-
bels refl ect that unwavering
dedication.”
The company labels also
will say it doesn’t sweeten
its products with high-fruc-
tose corn syrup, which it
hasn’t used for years. And
beginning with the 2016
harvest, the company is us-
ing cans without Bisphenol
A (BPA) lining.
The company’s decision
comes as GMO labeling has
become a social and politi-
cal wedge issue.
In a followup interview,
Sarles said the label changes
are a “small price to pay” for
remaining relevant to con-
sumers.
“If you call on retailers,
they typically have very hot
buttons on their mind, things
that are very important to
them,” Sarles said. “The last
couple years, they’ve been
Idaho vole outbreak subsides,
but fi eld damage remains
ROP-41-4-4/#13
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