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12 CapitalPress.com December 23, 2016 EPA has not disclosed how much it spent on What’s Upstream DELAY from Page 1 FOIA request, but had no other com- ment. The EPA has released dozens of emails and other documents in par- tially fulfilling FOIA requests by Save Family Farming and the Cap- ital Press. The additional records sought by Save Family Farming could clarify EPA Northwest Adminis- trator Dennis McLerran’s role in allowing What’s Upstream to pro- ceed, Baron said. “They seem to be intent on delaying this until af- ter the administration changes,” he said. Baron also said the records could be relevant to an investigation by the Washington Public Disclosure Com- mission. The PDC may decide as soon as this month whether to take action against the EPA or the Swinomish Indian tribe. The Puget Sound tribe used an EPA grant to hire Seattle lob- bying firm Strategies 360 to develop the What’s Upstream media cam- paign to influence state lawmakers. What’s Upstream did not report its activities to the PDC. The tribe denies that the PDC has any jurisdiction over it. The EPA told the PDC that the state agency should let the EPA’s inspector general deter- mine whether a grant to the North- west Indian Fisheries Commission was misspent. A PDC official said Friday that the agency decided to also ask Strat- egies 360 to respond to the com- plaint. The response is due Dec. 20. The EPA records released so far show that some agency officials were concerned about the tone and accuracy of the tribe-led campaign. Staff members raised questions about whether the campaign was a legal use of EPA funds. With the issue coming to a head in mid-2015, Swinomish environ- mental policy director Larry Wasser- man met with McLerran. According to EPA meeting notes, McLerran asked Wasserman to soften attacks on agriculture, but also said he didn’t see the campaign as a legal issue. Subsequently, the tribe, in part- nership with environmental groups, launched a website timed to influ- ence the 2016 Legislature. Baron said Save Family Farming will not withdraw its FOIA, but may submit a new one more narrowly fo- cused on McLerran’s actions after he met with Wasserman. In his only remarks made public on What’s Upstream, McLerran told a House member in a letter that his agency determined the campaign was lawful, and that the EPA could not dictate its content. With the inspector general’s audit unfinished, the EPA in September awarded the 20-tribe Northwest In- dian Fisheries Commission $25 mil- lion for Puget Sound projects. The EPA says it has added restrictions to prevent projects such as What’s Up- stream from being funded. U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., said this month that the agency’s response has been inade- quate. The EPA-funded What’s Up- stream website remains up, but the agency cut off further support last spring when confronted by angry federal lawmakers, who said the campaign falsely accused farmers of being unregulated polluters and violated laws against using federal funds to lobby. EPA has not disclosed how much it spent on What’s Upstream, though records show the campaign had counted on receiving more than $650,000. Christmas-related plants a cash-flow source for Northwest growers CROPS from Page 1 Across the U.S., farmers sold more than $1.3 million worth of cut coniferous ever- greens in 2014, according to the most recent USDA data. To compare, the total value of cut Christmas trees — the king of the holiday’s crops — topped $366 million that year. Despite the relatively small market for boughs and Christmas-related plants such as poinsettias and holly, they provide an important niche for Northwest growers, tapping a source of cash flow at a time of year when most other crops have long been harvested. Christmas cactuses are grown at Fessler Nursery near Wood- burn, Ore. The plants must be covered part of each day to make them flower. Christmas color Poinsettias provide a way for greenhouse nurseries that sell flowering bedding plants in springtime to keep their employees busy during the fall, too. Last year, growers nation- wide sold nearly $140 million worth of potted poinsettias, according to USDA. Though the plant isn’t par- ticularly profitable, it does provide enough revenue to keep workers who might not otherwise return from being laid off, said Vern Johnson, owner of Johnson Brothers Greenhouses near Eugene, Ore. Because they’re a tropical plant, poinsettias need more heat during the cool months preceding Christmas, adding to the cost of growing them, he said. They’re also prone to fun- gal disease, requiring frequent sprays and more spacing be- tween plants to ensure proper air circulation. “It’s not a bread-and-butter crop,” said Johnson, who also produces bedding plants, pe- rennials, shrubs and trees. Photos by Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press Vern Johnson, owner of Johnson Brothers Greenhouses near Eugene, Ore., examines poinsettias growing in one of his greenhouses. Christmas decorations made with holly grown at Mill Creek Holly Farms near Stayton, Ore. International crop Poinsettias are a truly in- ternational industry, he said. Breeding occurs in tropical countries such as Costa Rica and Guatemala. Cuttings are then shipped to large green- houses, where they’re root- ed. The rooted poinsettias are then sold to greenhouses such as the Johnson Brothers op- eration for the final stage of production. Night temperatures must be kept above 65 degrees Fahrenheit for poinsettias, though breeders in recent years have turned their atten- tion to developing varieties that can withstand lower tem- peratures, Johnson said. A worker harvests holly with red berries at Mill Creek Holly Farms near Stayton, Ore. “We’re loving that, be- cause a lot of your money goes to heating these things,” he said. Improved genetics in poin- settias have also reduced the need to screen many varieties from the sun to induce flow- ering, said Kyle Peterson, production manager at Fessler Nursery near Woodburn, Ore. Within the greenhouse, wires are suspended above the crop, which is manually cov- ered in plastic each day and uncovered in the morning. “It’s quite a chore pulling that plastic each day,” he said. While fewer poinsettia va- rieties now require this treat- ment, Fessler Nursery has in recent years also begun grow- ing Christmas cactuses, which must be covered from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. beginning in Sep- tember to initiate flowering, he said. Despite the extra labor, Christmas cactuses are more profitable because they’re not as sensitive to cold and prone to diseases as poinsettias, Pe- terson said. “They require a lot of at- tention,” he said. The nursery has dispatched an efficient remedy to combat the white flies, aphids and thrips that feast on poinset- tias: Baskets of mullein — a common roadside plant with leathery leaves — are hung throughout the greenhouse. The mullein harbors a beneficial bug, dicyphus hes- perus, which eats the pests, Peterson said. “We’re always trying to find additional ways to reduce pesticide use.” Holly threats While poinsettias are fin- icky because of their tropical origins, farmers also encoun- ter difficulties with a Christ- mas crop that naturally thrives in the region — holly. The plant is vulnerable to phytophthora, a genus of fun- gal-like pathogens that dam- age it. “There’s no cure for it. All you can do is try to prevent it,” said Don Harteloo, who owns Mill Creek Holly Farms near Stayton, Ore. More than $1 million worth of cut holly was sold in the U.S. in 2014, according to the latest USDA data. Fungicide sprays are nec- essary during the rainy sea- son, and during summer dead leaves and other debris are vacuumed from beneath the holly trees to keep the disease away. Unless a grower is aggres- sive in fighting the pathogen, it can defoliate and wipe out an entire orchard, especially in a year like 2016, when dis- ease pressure has been high, said Harteloo. “It seems to be getting worse all the time, and this seems to be a particularly bad year,” he said. Once a healthy holly tree is established, which takes about a decade, branches can be cut vigorously each year, Harteloo said. Cutting seems to stimu- late growth, so overly zealous harvesters have never been a problem, he said. Harteloo and his wife, Sue, sell their holly to whole- sale buyers. They also make wreaths and other decora- tions, which are sold online. Most buyers want red ber- ries on their holly and pre- fer variegated cultivars with leaves that have cream-col- ored edges, Sue Harteloo said. To prevent leaves and ber- ries from falling off after har- vest, the branches are dipped in a rare plant hormone, Don Harteloo said. “It’s very expensive. A thousand dollars a gallon,” he said. Harvest by shotgun The Harteloos also sell “kissing balls” that incor- porate mistletoe, a parasitic plant that infects oak trees. A farmer near Silverton has enough mistletoe growing wild on his property to supply their yearly needs. “It doesn’t take much to go a long ways,” Harteloo said. The mistletoe is collect- ed using ladders or shears on long poles, but when it’s particularly inaccessible, Har- teloo resorts to firearms. “You can shoot it down, usually with a shotgun,” he said. Vandalism, uncertainty make genetic engineering an unattractive investment GMO from Page 1 Courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture A new USDA report says that while European consumers reject genetically modified food products, European farmers are eager to feed GMO corn and soy- beans to their livestock because it’s cheaper and more readily available than non-GMO feed. European farmers are ex- pected to annually harvest 2.2 million metric tons of soybeans in 2016 and 2017, up from 1.8 million metric tons in 2014 and 2015, USDA said. Even if they succeed, however, that production will still be dwarfed by the 32 million metric tons of soybeans the continent im- ports annually, the report said. Much of those imports come from the U.S. and oth- er countries where a major- ity of commodity crops are genetically engineered. Meanwhile, the pros- pect of developing genet- ically engineered crops suitable for growing in “It’s a mixed bag. We’re only one GMO ban away from not being viewed as reliable.” Mary Boote, executive director of the Global Farmer Network Europe has ground to a halt, the USDA found. “Repeated vandalism of test plots by activists, to- gether with the uncertainty and delays of the EU approv- al process, makes genetic engineering an unattractive investment,” the report said. While the European Union is a reliable market for U.S. soybeans and corn byproducts, such as distill- ers dried grains from ethanol production, the situation is precarious, said Mary Boote, executive director of the Global Farmer Network, a pro-trade and pro-GE non- profit. “It’s a mixed bag,” she said. “We’re only one GMO ban away from not being viewed as reliable.” In 2017, for example, Poland is scheduled to pro- hibit the import of live- stock feed produced from biotech crops, according to FAS. In the past, though, the ban has been twice delayed because of opposition from the country’s livestock industry. Such potential disrup- tions create a great deal of uncertainty, since they’re politically motivated, said Boote. “That’s a tenuous po- sition to be in from a market- ing angle.” For biotech critics, the higher price commanded by conventional crops in Europe could inspire more farmers to diversify away from genetically engineered varieties. “Usually, with the non- GE market, there’s some- what of a price premium,” said Doug Gurian-Sherman, director of sustainable ag- riculture for the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit crit- ical of biotechnology. It’s unclear whether these premiums are enough to overcome the labor-sav- ing economic advantages of crops that have been genet- ically engineered to with- stand herbicides and repel insects, he said. “Is that demand being satisfied, and if not, why?” Gurian-Sherman said. European consumers ap- pear to draw a distinction between biotech crops used for human food — which must be labeled and are gen- erally resisted by consumers — and livestock feed, which consumers have grudgingly accepted, he said. Livestock is essentially viewed as a “filter” for bio- tech crops, so it’s unlikely Europe’s reliance on biotech feed will translate to grow- ing acceptance of genetical- ly engineered food crops, Gurian-Sherman said. “It’s an interesting co- nundrum,” he said.