14 CapitalPress.com
January 6, 2017
Producers who paid for outside service face earlier filing deadlines
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Farmers and ranchers who paid
for common agricultural services
face an earlier tax filing deadline this
year, a Portland accountant said.
Melissa Carlgren, a CPA and se-
nior tax manager with the Portland
firm Geffen Mesher, said the change
may have slipped past some produc-
ers. The most likely problems in-
volve 1099-Misc forms, which must
be filed anytime you pay someone
$600 or more for services.
For producers, the 1099-Misc
forms typically involve payments
for such things as custom harvest-
ing, spraying or other services that
would be reported as “non-employee
compensation” in Box 7 of the 1099
form. Producers are required to send
the forms to payment recipients by
Jan. 31, and now must file the forms
with the IRS by the same deadline.
“What the IRS is trying to do is
get the information in the system
sooner so they can match them up,”
Carlgren said.
In Oregon, people who file 10 or
more 1099 forms are required to file
electronically, Carlgren said.
Other changes of note include:
Employer copies of W-2 forms
must be filed with the Social Securi-
ty Administration by Jan. 31.
Farms operating as partnerships
now must file returns by March 15,
a month earlier than previously. The
change puts partnerships at the same
filing deadline as S Corporation
farms. Both entities issue Schedule
K-1 income statements to individu-
als involved in the partnership or S
Corporation that they must include
with their personal tax returns, due
April 15.
The earlier deadline provides
more time for individuals to gather
the information they need for their
personal returns, Carlgren said.
Farms operating as C Corpo-
rations, common in agriculture,
now have until April 15 to file.
They previously had a March 15
deadline.
Geffen Mesher, which lists agri-
business as one of its practice areas,
has an article about the changes on
its website, www.gmco.com.
GMO vegetable oil lawsuit to proceed
Consumers claim to be
deceived by ConAgra
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Several consumers can proceed with
a lawsuit alleging they were deceived by
vegetable oil labeled as “100 percent nat-
ural” despite containing genetically engi-
neered ingredients.
In 2015, a federal judge in California
agreed to certify the lawsuit against the
ConAgra food company as a class action,
allowing other consumers to be included
in the litigation.
However, the case was put on hold
while ConAgra challenged the class
certification before the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals.
The 9th Circuit has now reject-
ed ConAgra’s arguments that the
case doesn’t meet the requirements
for class action status, allowing the
litigation to continue.
Conagra had claimed there was no
way to reliably determine which con-
sumers had bought its Wesson brands of
cooking oils, and so there was no “ad-
ministratively feasible way” to identify
class members.
Possible difficulties in locating and
verifying class members aren’t enough
to disqualify such cases from being class
actions, according to the 9th Circuit.
If such obstacles could prevent law-
suits from obtaining class action status,
many similar cases would effectively be
blocked from the courts because no re-
alistic alternative exists, the ruling said.
When the potential financial compen-
sation for each consumer is minuscule,
it’s unrealistic for them to file individual
lawsuits, the court held.
“Class actions involving inexpensive
consumer goods in particular would like-
ly fail at the outset if administrative fea-
sibility were a freestanding prerequisite
to certification,” the 9th Circuit said.
ConAgra made several other argu-
ments against class certification, arguing
that most consumers didn’t rely on the
100 percent natural claim to buy Wesson
vegetable oils and that they didn’t expect
“natural” to mean the produce was free
of genetically engineered ingredients.
The 9th Circuit rejected these claims,
ruling that a federal judge did not abuse
her discretion in certifying the lawsuit as
a class action.
Three similar federal lawsuits over “nat-
ural” labeling for foods containing biotech
ingredients were filed in the past, prompt-
ing those judges to ask the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration for guidance.
The FDA responded that it doesn’t
have a formal definition of “natural” and
would need to seek input from the pub-
lic and other agencies before developing
one.
Bob Andrel/Idaho Department of Fish and Game
White-faced ibises feed in a flood-irrigated pasture in the Mud Lake
area of Eastern Idaho. USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation
Service recently awarded three grants for Eastern Idaho agricul-
tural projects, including one encompassing an effort to retain flood
irrigation near the lake to benefit wildlife and boost the aquifer.
Grant to provide relief to
IGWA settlement participants
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Researchers track cattle to
determine riparian area impact
Study finds cows
spend little time
in streams or
buffer areas
Online
The study is published in the
Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
A five-year study of cat-
tle grazing on federal range-
land showed they spend only
1 percent to 2.5 percent of
their time in streams or in ri-
parian buffer areas, a finding
that may prove important as
debate continues over the im-
pact of cattle on public land.
Researchers at Oregon
State University outfitted
cows from three ranches
with homemade GPS track-
ing collars and mapped their
positions during spring to
fall grazing seasons over five
years. The collars reported the
cows’ positions about every
five minutes and compiled
more than 3.7 million data
points over the course of the
study. The technology was
able to pinpoint when the
collared cows were within 30
meters of streams.
The study took place on
federal grazing allotments in
the Wallowa-Whitman and
Umatilla national forests.
The findings are potentially
significant because critics of
public land grazing practices
have long contended cattle
trample and erode stream-
banks and pollute water.
But John Williams, an
OSU Extension rangeland
expert in Wallowa County,
said cows enter riparian areas
for two reasons: “One is to
drink, the other is to cross,”
he said.
The cows typically did not
rest or graze near streams.
Instead, they spent most of
their time grazing on higher
ground or resting in dry areas
Courtesy of Oregon State University
A cow and calf drink from Catherine Creek in Northeast Oregon.
Using GPS tracking collars over five grazing seasons on federal
land, researchers determined cows spend 1 to 2.5 percent of their
time in streams.
away from streams, accord-
ing to Williams.
Not surprisingly, the lo-
cation of good forage was
the primary factor in their
movement. Water sources,
fences, and previous log-
ging or fires also influenced
cattle movement, as did
topography and the herd’s
point of entry at the begin-
ning of the season. Cows
used 10 to 25 percent of the
stream area in each grazing
allotment.
Williams said the find-
ings could be important to
livestock management. The
cattle impact on riparian ar-
eas “isn’t for very long, and
it isn’t for all of the stream,”
he said. “What might we
look at in management op-
tions that let us be more ef-
ficient?”
Cows were more likely
to enter stream areas during
the heat of summer, but in
the cool spring showed lit-
tle interest in riparian areas,
Williams said. That sug-
gests adjusting management
practices across the seasons
may be appropriate.
“If talking about ripari-
an pasture grazing in April,
maybe it isn’t a big issue,”
he said. “But in August,
maybe you take a look at it
in a different light.”
Williams said he’s shared
the study findings with the
U.S. Forest Service, which
manages grazing allotments
in the national forests.
“I believe it’s real
straightforward in terms of,
here’s where cows go,” he
said.
The study had some
quirks. Researchers select-
ed cows at random from
among the 300 to 400 in
each of the three herds, and
kept some of them collared
for several years. About a
third of the collared cows
were new each year as old-
er participants were sold or
disappeared, or collars wore
out.
Williams said funding
for the research was tight,
and the team chose to make
their own GPS collars to
save money. They bought
plastic boxes to hold the elec-
tronics, made leather collars
to fit around the cows, bought
motherboards and “soldered,
taped and glued” the devices
for about $450 apiece in ma-
terial. Williams said he was
told pre-assembled GPS units
would have cost $2,000 to
$3,000 each.
Capital Press
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho —
A nearly $5.18 million grant
recently awarded by USDA’s
Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service should provide
relief for Eastern Snake Plain
groundwater users, who have
agreed to cut back on irriga-
tion to reverse declines to their
aquifer.
The Idaho Eastern Snake
River Plain Aquifer Stabiliza-
tion Project was among three
Eastern Idaho efforts NRCS
supported with Regional Con-
servation Partnership Program
funds.
“The $5 million, I think
that’s as much as we’ve gotten
in quite a while, and the things
(NRCS) is really concentrating
on are some of our high prior-
ities,” said Idaho Water Re-
source Board Chairman Roger
Chase.
Nationally, NRCS funded
286 projects, for a combined
$825 million investment.
The Snake River project
provides incentives for drying
farm ground or removing pivot
end-guns, “soft” conversions
of sprinklers from groundwa-
ter to surface water, installing
well flow meters and improv-
ing infrastructure to retain
flood irrigation to bolster the
aquifer and benefit wildlife.
Lynn Tominaga, executive
director of Idaho Ground Wa-
ter Appropriators Inc., expects
the bulk of the grant will go
toward flow meters and end-
gun removal. Tominaga said
about 3,500 of the roughly
4,900 wells on the plain are
now metered, and all wells
will be required to have the
devices by 2018. Tominaga
said IGWA also received $1.6
million toward installing flow
meters last year from the Bu-
reau of Reclamation and plans
to request additional funds to-
ward meters from NRCS in its
next spending cycle.
Tominaga believes the
grant will go a long way to-
ward helping his members
meet the terms of a 2015 wa-
ter call settlement agreement
with the Surface Water Coa-
lition, requiring well irrigators
to reduce water use by 12 per-
cent annually on average.
Neeley Miller, senior water
resource planner with the Ida-
ho Department of Water Re-
sources, said terms of the pro-
grams must still be negotiated.
He noted partner organizations
have also made contributions,
including $900,000 in in-kind
monitoring and measurement
by his department, $225,000
toward acquiring water for soft
conversions and $4 million
toward installing flow meters
by IGWA, $30,000 in financial
and technical assistance by the
Idaho Department of Fish and
Game, $15,000 in technical
assistance by the Nature Con-
servancy, $7,500 in technical
assistance by the Wood River
Land Trust and $6,000 in tech-
nical assistance by Ducks Un-
limited.
The Fish and Game De-
partment and Ducks Unlimit-
ed will assist with a project to
help growers upgrade flood ir-
rigation systems, targeting the
Mud Lake and Market Lake
areas. Sal Palazzolo, Fish and
Game’s public lands coordina-
tor, said flooded fields provide
critical feeding habitat for wa-
ter fowl, including the white-
faced ibis.
However, flood irrigation is
rapidly disappearing as grow-
ers convert to sprinklers. The
two lakes are also in an area
where flood waters that seep
into the aquifer are retained
for an especially long period.
NRCS also awarded
$719,000 to the Shosho-
ne-Bannock Tribes to im-
prove a Portneuf River dam,
which should aid in both fish
passage and irrigation man-
agement, and $825,000 for
projects involving Friends
of the Teton River, the Teton
Regional Land Trust and the
Teton Water Users Associa-
tion. The groups plan to ac-
quire agricultural land con-
servation easements to protect
farms from development.
The grant will also support
projects aimed at improving
stream and river water quality
and promoting no-till farm-
ing.
“It’s really about working
with farmers who want to
stay on their land and finding
ways we can support them,”
said Joselin Matkins, the land
trust’s executive director.
Idaho farmer says growers need not abandon cover crops
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
ABERDEEN, Idaho —
Rob Giesbrecht believes he’s
come up with a solution for
regional growers who have
given up on raising cover
crops due to a recent mandate
that they curb groundwater ir-
rigation.
Farmers typically don’t
harvest cover crops, planting
them instead to keep a living
root in the soil for erosion
control and allowing them to
decompose in fields to replen-
ish nutrients and build soil or-
ganic matter.
But Giesbrecht believes
interest is waning in the once
trendy soil-health practice
throughout Idaho’s Eastern
Snake Plain, where ground-
water users must reduce their
irrigation by 12 percent on
average under the terms of
a 2015 water call settlement
with the Surface Water Coa-
lition.
Giesbrecht
anticipates
strong demand for new cover
crop blends he’s developed to
maximize water-use efficien-
cy.
“You’re talking 4 to 5
inches of water versus the
other cover crop mixes that
are taking anywhere from 8
to 10 inches of water,” Gies-
brecht said.
Giesbrecht said five former
customers, who had plant-
ed his seed over 1,000 acres,
canceled 2016 orders to meet
their reductions. He predicts
more growers on the plain
will quit using cover crops in
future years, as they realize
they’re not doing enough to
make their required cutbacks.
Giesbrecht believes aban-
doning cover crops based on
water concerns is short sight-
ed. He argues the benefits of
cover crops aren’t fully real-
ized until after about five con-
secutive years of use. On his
farm, he’s saved on herbicides
for weed control, enjoyed a
roughly 8 percent water sav-
ings due to improved soil
organic matter and water in-
filtration and significantly cut
back on nutrient applications.
He’s tested his water-ef-
ficient blends for two years,
producing “phenomenal” cov-
er crops on 5 inches of irriga-
tion water.
His fall mix includes
buckwheat, annual rye grass,
oil radish, clover and peas
— species he said have sim-
ilar root systems and don’t
out-compete one another.
Buckwheat reaches flowering
within about 35 days. Gies-
brecht recommends cutting
the fall mix before winter to
allow the buckwheat, which
won’t overwinter, to decom-
pose and provide nutrients to
support spring growth of the
other plants. Giesbrecht be-
lieves phosphate recaptured
by buckwheat alone provides
enough value to cover the
$20- to $30-per-acre cost of
his seed blend.
His spring mixture doesn’t
include peas, as they need
more growth time to fix ni-
trogen, but Giesbrecht be-
lieves peas would be a good
option for dryland farmers
planting cover crops to grow
season-long on fallow fields.
Thresher Artisan Wheat is
also offering a water-efficient
cover crop blend, designed by
La Crosse Seed of Wisconsin
for Eastern Idaho. It includes
barley, field peas, cowpeas
and three clover varieties.
Rather than planting cov-
er crops, Aberdeen farmer
Ritchey Toevs simply waters
his volunteer wheat to keep a
living root in his soil.
“The cost of power and
other demands for water has
limited my interest in cover
crops,” Toevs said.