16 CapitalPress.com
January 13, 2017
Port of Portland subsidy question
kicked to Oregon Supreme Court
Northwest farm
exports affected
by dispute
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Workers tray pack Red Delicious apples on one of Chelan Fruit’s
new packing lines in Chelan, Wash., on Jan. 3. The line requires
20 percent fewer workers. New lines like this are common in Wash-
ington state and are being installed in Michigan and New York as
packers modernize.
Michigan may best
N.Y. as second-biggest
apple producer
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
With its large crop this sea-
son, the Michigan apple indus-
try set new shipment records
from mid-October through
Christmas and is claiming the
title of second-largest apple
producer from New York.
But others are saying, “not
so fast,” and that New York had
a bad year and will regain its
No. 2 spot.
“With 11.3 million total ap-
ple trees in commercial produc-
tion on 35,500 acres, Michigan
is the second-largest producer
of apples in the United States
and distributes apples to 27
states and 18 countries,” the
Michigan Apple Committee
said in a Jan. 6 news release.
In August, the U.S. Apple
Association forecast Michi-
gan’s total fresh and processing
crop at 31 million 42-pound
boxes, surpassing New York’s
30 million but still far be-
hind No. 1 Washington at 149
million. But those are only
forecasts. End of apple year
volumes won’t be reported by
USDA until next July.
Meanwhile, from start of
harvest in August through Jan.
7, USDA shows Michigan sold
4.5 million, 40-pound boxes
of apples compared with 3.8
million for New York and 51.8
million for Washington.
“This year our crop is defi-
nitely much higher than New
York, but it’s something we will
flop back and forth on,” Diane
Smith, the Michigan Apple
Committee executive director,
told Capital Press.
Cynthia Haskins, new pres-
ident of the New York Apple
and Cherry Growers Associa-
tion, declined comment.
But Mark Seetin, director of
industry and regulatory affairs
at the U.S. Apple Association,
said while Michigan may well
surpass New York for the first
time, it wouldn’t have hap-
pened had Michigan not had a
very good year and New York
a bad one.
New York’s crop was re-
duced by spring frost, cold
weather during fruit set and a
long summer drought, he said.
New York has the capacity
to be running 33 million to 34
million-box crops, Seetin said.
New York’s five-year
USDA average is 28.5 million
boxes. Michigan’s is 20.8 mil-
lion. However, Michigan’s was
skewed downward more than
New York’s by a crop wiped
out in 2012 by an early spring
warm-up followed by a freeze.
Both states have been in-
creasing new, high-density
plantings and shifting to more
fresh market sales away from
processing because of the 30
percent or more price advan-
tage, Seetin said.
Desmond O’Rourke, a con-
sultant and retired Washington
State University agriculture
economics professor, said
Michigan beating New York is
an anomaly.
While Michigan and New
York are both modernizing and
developing new varieties, New
York has probably the strongest
regional marketing association,
has the huge New York market
on its doorstep and can better
exploit the “buy local” move-
ment.
SnapDragon and RubyFrost
are new Cornell University va-
rieties exclusive to New York
growers, he said. Michigan,
New York and Pennsylvania
are in league with some Wash-
ington companies on new vari-
eties and all will become tough-
er competitors for Washington
in their home regions, he said.
Researchers find jointed
goatgrass resistant
to Beyond herbicide
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Jointed goatgrass resistant
to Beyond herbicide has been
found in Eastern Washington,
according to researchers.
BASF’s Clearfield technol-
ogy allows farmers to use im-
idazolinone herbicides, mar-
keted under the Beyond trade
name, to combat weeds such
as jointed goatgrass.
The jointed goatgrass found
is resistant to imazamox, the
active ingredient in Beyond.
The resistant biotype — a
group of genetically identical
plants within a species — is
144 times more resistant than
other goatgrass plants, ac-
cording to Washington State
University researchers. To see
even a little response in the re-
sistant plants, researchers had
to use six times the labeled
use-rate of Beyond.
“It’s definitely of concern,
because there’s only one her-
bicide that controls jointed
goatgrass,” said Ian Burke, an
associate professor of weed
science at WSU. “It’s a big
deal because we grow a lot
of seed wheat. It can’t have
any jointed goatgrass in there.
If this were to become wide-
spread, we would have some
real problems.”
The resistant plants were
found on one farm, Burke said.
The problem occurred in a dry-
land wheat producing area in
the intermediate rainfall zone.
He declined to identify the
farmer or give a specific loca-
tion.
Burke believes his research
team will be able to kill all the
resistant plants, but he said oth-
er resistant plants could appear.
“We don’t know if this
particular biotype might have
spread. We don’t think so,” he
said. “We know there’s wide-
spread use of Beyond in the
region for jointed goatgrass
management.”
It’s just as likely that another
biotype could have developed
resistance, Burke said.
The resistance developed
because of the repeated use of
Beyond, he said.
“I don’t want to suggest that
the grower disobeyed (BASF
stewardship guidelines), but
just because of the rotation he
was in, it was the ideal condi-
tions to set it up for failure,” he
said.
In a statement, BASF said
it supports the university’s
research to preserve the long-
term benefits of the Clearfield
wheat production system.
“Wheat producers are asked
to help protect and prolong the
usefulness of these technologies
and requirements highlighted
in the Clearfield stewardship
guidelines to help prevent the
onset of herbicide resistance in
weeds,” BASF stated.
Capital Press
Questions about the legal-
ity of a Port of Portland sub-
sidy for ocean carriers have
been kicked to the Oregon
Supreme Court by a federal
appeals court.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals has ruled that the
financial system used to man-
age the subsidy program isn’t
clearly legal under current Or-
egon case law.
“We are hesitant to expand
Oregon law in a manner that
may be contrary to Oregon’s
wishes and in an important
subject matter in Oregon’s
history,” the ruling said.
At issue is a Port of
Portland program that paid
ocean carriers to stop at
its beleaguered Terminal
6 container terminal, off-
setting the carriers’ costs
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
A container stacker operated by a longshoreman works at
the Port of Portland’s container terminal in this file photo. The
container terminal has stopped operating but the longshoremen’s
union still opposes a subsidy program that attracted ocean carri-
ers to the facility.
of calling on the facility.
The port created the sub-
sidy because of alleged work
slowdowns by the longshore-
men’s union due to a labor
dispute that discouraged
ocean carriers from calling on
Terminal 6.
The International Long-
shore and Warehouse Union
filed a lawsuit challenging the
subsidy program for allegedly
using taxpayer dollars for the
benefit of private organiza-
tions, thereby violating Ore-
gon’s constitution.
Northwest
agricultural
exporters depended on the
Portland container facility to
ship crops to Asia, but ocean
carriers stopped calling on
Terminal 6 in 2015 due to low
productivity — despite the
subsidies.
Local agricultural export-
ers are now saddled with
greater transportation costs,
as they must truck goods to
Seattle-area ports, but the Port
of Portland hopes to eventual-
ly restart Terminal 6.
The dispute over the sub-
sidy is part of a broader le-
gal war between the port, the
longshoremen’s union and
terminal operator ICTSI that’s
seen as hindering the resump-
tion of container service.
The Port of Portland ar-
gues the subsidy program is
legal because the money is
drawn from rent payments
paid by ICTSI, not tax dollars.
The ILWU counters that
the subsidy program is im-
permissible because the funds
were commingled with tax
money in a single bank ac-
count.
“The Port has demonstrat-
ed that, as a factual matter, its
accounting and financial man-
agement systems adequately
tracked, managed, and segre-
gated the tax and non-tax rev-
enues,” the 9th Circuit said.
Even so, Oregon le-
gal precedents are silent on
whether such accounting
methods are allowable, the
9th Circuit said.
E.J. Harris/EO Media Group
Josue Arenas of Hermiston, Ore., sorts out rocks, grass and rotten potatoes as the tubers travel on a conveyor belt outside Hermiston in
this file photo. The U.S. potato industry has taken exception to a diet that mimics what Stone Age people ate, and excludes potatoes and
processed foods.
Potato industry targets Paleo diet
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
SALT LAKE CITY — The
U.S. potato industry has taken
umbrage to a popular dietary
fad, which is based on the prem-
ise that humans ate healthier
during the Stone Age than fol-
lowing the advent of agriculture.
The Paleolithic diet —
coined by Colorado State Uni-
versity emeritus professor Lo-
ren Cordain — promotes foods
that would have been available
to hunter-gatherers more than
10,000 years ago — such as
grass-fed meat, wild game,
nuts, fruits and non-starchy
vegetables.
In addition to processed
foods and salt, the popular diet
frowns upon some of the ma-
jor commodities produced in
the Northwest, including pota-
toes, cereals, dairy, sugar and
legumes. Cordain reasons the
foods weren’t present during
the Paleolithic Period, and hu-
mans, therefore, haven’t adapt-
ed to eating them.
Cordain vows Paleo dieters
achieve weight loss, reduced
diabetes and diseases, increased
energy, fewer allergies, better
digestion and increased mus-
cle. Critics counter that modern
foods, developed over centuries
of selective breeding, don’t re-
semble Paleolithic foods. They
also note the diet’s conspicuous
absence of Stone Age dietary
staples — such as rats, mice,
squirrels, stripped bark, insects
and lizards — and question the
wisdom of emulating an an-
cient people who typically died
in their 30s.
The potato industry — still
seeking to improve consum-
er perceptions affected by the
low-carbohydrate Atkins diet
craze — recently launched a
campaign highlighting the im-
portance of the spud’s protein,
vitamin C, potassium and car-
bohydrates to athletic perfor-
mance.
“I think a lot of people are
really getting tired of all of these
really restrictive diets and are
more interested in learning how
to eat properly in a way they can
work into their lifestyle, based
on the basic ideas of moderation
and good diversity,” said John
Toaspern, chief marketing offi-
cer at Potatoes USA.
The organization has been
publicizing a paper critical
of the Paleo diet, published
in the December issue of the
American College of Sports
Medicine’s Health and Fitness
Journal. The author, Katherine
Beals, an associate professor
in Utah State University’s De-
partment of Nutrition and Inte-
grated Sociology, has consulted
for Potatoes USA in the past,
though her paper wasn’t com-
missioned by the industry.
During the peak of the At-
kins diet’s popularity, Beals
conducted a clinical study
finding its benefits were short-
lived, and weren’t sustainable
beyond a year. She has similar
suspicions about the Paleo diet,
and her recent paper found no
scientific basis to support eating
like a caveman.
Gov. Otter recommends $10M for major ag research center
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — In his state of
the state address Jan. 9, Gov.
Butch Otter recommended
providing $10 million in state
funds toward a proposed $45
million livestock and agricul-
tural research facility in Ida-
ho’s Magic Valley area.
That news was quickly ap-
plauded by supporters of the
proposed facility, which is a
University of Idaho initiative
and would be called the Cen-
ter for Agriculture, Food and
the Environment.
“We are extremely pleased
that the governor recognized
the value of this research fa-
cility,” said Idaho Dairymen’s
Association Executive Direc-
tor Bob Naerebout.
Cutting-edge dairy re-
search would be conducted at
the facility, as well as research
on nutrient and wastewater
management, water conser-
vation, food safety, food sci-
ence and manufacturing, soil
health and fertility, and forage
cropping and agronomy.
“It will be a substantial ag-
ricultural research facility and
it will be an extremely valu-
able asset to the agricultural
industry as well as ... the state
as a whole,” Naerebout said.
The plan is for the state, UI
and the agricultural industry
to each contribute $15 million
toward the facility.
Otter, a Republican ranch-
er, told Capital Press later that
he will also ask legislators to
provide $5 million next year
only if UI and industry have
come up with two-thirds of
their share.
In a news release, UI of-
ficials said the center would
conduct research on many im-
portant issues for the state’s
livestock, crop and food-pro-
cessing industries.
Otter’s proposed budget
also includes $400,000 to
support state efforts to control
wolves.
Lt. Gov. Brad Little, a Re-
publican rancher, said that
money is important to con-
tinue the state’s wolf man-
agement efforts, especially
in rural areas that have been
heavily impacted since the
predators were re-introduced
in Idaho in 1994.
“I’ve been around them.
They’re the top of the food
chain,” said Little. “There are
quite a few rural areas where
you have to manage wolves.
We have an obligation to help
those guys out.”
Otter’s proposed fiscal
year 2017 budget includes
$500,000 in ongoing funding
for graduate student housing
at UI’s agricultural research
and extension stations.
It also includes $750,000
to help develop animal track-
ing software that the Idaho
State Department of Agricul-
ture’s Brand Board will use to
electronically manage animal
identification numbers and oth-
er data about livestock move-
ments into and out of the state.
Otter also recommends
$750,000 to continue Idaho’s
efforts to protect sage grouse
and improve the bird’s habi-
tat.
The governor said he’s op-
timistic that meaningful reg-
ulatory efforts can be accom-
plished under the new Trump
administration “to keep such
agencies as the EPA, the
BLM, the Forest Service and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service in check.”
He said he would not ad-
vocate that Idaho take control
of federal land in the state.
He gave a shout-out to the
eight volunteer Rangeland
Fire Protection Associations
in Idaho that have helped the
state and BLM fight wildfires
the past several years.
The RFPAs, which con-
sist mostly of ranchers, offer
“a first-attack capability that
helps stop range fires before
they devastate the landscape,”
Otter said.