January 20, 2017
CapitalPress.com
3
Blueberry farmers face price stress, expert says
Low-cost producers
best positioned to
survive turmoil
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — With global
blueberry production climb-
ing, farmers should focus on
improving effi ciencies rather
than hoping for prices to rise,
according to an industry expert.
“If you’re the lowest-cost
producer, you will survive
whatever kind of price stress
we have in this industry,” said
John Shelford, strategic advis-
er to the Naturipe Farms food
company, at the Jan. 16 Oregon
Blueberry Conference.
Cold storage inventories of
frozen blueberries have mount-
ed in recent years, depressing
prices for the processed crop,
he said.
In 2016, the amount of fro-
zen blueberries leftover from
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
John Shelford, strategic adviser
for Naturipe Farms.
the previous year’s harvest hit
145 million pounds in the U.S.,
up from 51 million pounds just
fi ve years earlier, according to
USDA.
Frozen inventories will like-
ly grow to 160 million pounds
before this year’s blueberries
enter cold storage, said Shel-
ford. “I do not see any improve-
ment in pricing for the 2017
harvest.”
Courtesy of Oregon State University
Blueberries ripen in the field. John Shelford, strategic adviser
for Naturipe Farms, said farmers will need to produce blue-
berries more efficiently as rising production depresses prices.
Shelford spoke at the Oregon Blueberry Conference in Salem,
Ore., on Jan. 16.
Shelford projects that annu-
al blueberry production in the
U.S. and Canada will increase
by roughly one-third, from 1.2
billion pounds to 1.6 billion
pounds over the next decade.
Farmers can’t depend on
domestic consumption of the
crop to grow proportionate-
ly and will have to ship more
blueberries overseas to keep
prices stable, he said.
“We can’t take our eye off
the export business,” he said.
Niche markets offer an op-
portunity for growers but they
don’t have a lot of “elasticity,”
Shelford said.
For example, the market for
organic blueberries — a rela-
tively large niche — can easily
be overwhelmed by excessive
tonnage, causing prices to col-
lapse, he said.
Surplus organic blueberries
are actually better off being
sold in the conventional market
to avoid affecting organic pric-
es, he said.
The average number of cal-
ories consumed per capita in
the U.S. is effectively fl at at
about 2,500 calories per day,
and the share represented by
whole fruits actually decreased
in recent years across several
demographics, Shelford said.
“If you eat more blueber-
ries, you’re going to displace
something else. It’s really a ze-
ro-sum game,” he said.
New blueberry plantings
have slowed in North America
and Chile, but farmers have still
been enthusiastically commit-
ting new acreage to the crop in
China, South Africa, Peru and
Mexico, said Cort Brazelton,
who heads business develop-
ment at Fall Creek Farm and
Nursery and tracks global blue-
berry production.
Mexico is in a strong posi-
tion to supply “counterseason-
al” fresh blueberries to U.S.
consumers, since the country
can ship its crop to the U.S.
much faster than Chile, a prom-
inent counterseasonal producer,
Brazelton said.
Expansion of blueberry
acreage in Peru is occurring in
conjunction with overall agri-
cultural growth in that country,
which is tied to the construction
of major irrigation projects, he
said.
“If it grows in Peru, they’re
planting it like crazy,” Bra-
zelton said.
While North America
remains an important desti-
nation for South American
blueberries, producers on that
continent are increasingly
shipping more fruit to Euro-
pean and Asian markets, he
said.
Merkley: Owyhee Canyonland monument designation unlikely
By ERIC MORTENSON
Online
Capital Press
Capital Press FIle
A sign posted in Jordan Valley opposes the Owyhee Canyonlands
National Monument in Malheur County, Ore. Jordan Valley is nearly
surrounded by the proposed monument. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley,
D-Ore., says he’s been told President Barack Obama will not
create the monument.
Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley
said he’s been told there are no
plans to designate an Owyhee
Canyonlands national monu-
ment in the remaining days of
the Obama administration.
In an interview with Oregon
Public Broadcasting, Merkley
said Department of Interior
Secretary Sally Jewell told him
and fellow Oregon Sen. Ron
Wyden that plans to designate a
monument have been put aside.
“The secretary was very
clear in the conversations that
both Senator Wyden and I had
that they were not prepared to
act,” Merkley told OPB.
“So it was set aside,” he
added, “and I have a feeling
it will be set aside for quite a
OPB’s report: http://www.opb.
org/news/article/owyhee-mon-
ument-no-monument-merkley/
while.”
The Owyhee Basin Stew-
ardship Coalition, a group of
Malheur County residents or-
ganized to oppose the designa-
tion, reacted cautiously.
“While this news is prom-
ising, it doesn’t mean that it’s
time to stop making our voice
heard,” the group said in an
email statement. “Until Pres-
ident Obama leaves offi ce ...
we’re in the danger zone for
a monument declaration. Re-
member: President Clinton
named eight new monuments
in his fi nal three days.”
The Bend-based environ-
mental group Oregon Natural
Desert Association, backed by
the Keen Footwear company
of Portland, proposed the 2.5
million-acre Owyhee Canyon-
lands wilderness and conser-
vation area.
Ranchers and other Mal-
heur County residents are dead
set against it. “Not only no, but
hell no,” as prominent rancher
Bob Skinner told the Capital
Press in 2016.
The proposed area was
bigger than either the Yel-
lowstone, Yosemite or Grand
Canyon national parks, critics
pointed out, and would cover
40 percent of Malheur County.
Residents believe designation
would be accompanied by re-
strictions and regulations that
would prohibit or severely
complicate grazing, mining,
hunting and recreation. Sup-
porters of the monument said
traditional activities would be
allowed, but Skinner and oth-
ers said they don’t believe en-
vironmentalists.
Presidents have authority
under the federal Antiquities
Act to unilaterally designate
national monuments, and
Obama has used it several
times. Most recently, he add-
ed 48,000 acres to the Cas-
cade-Siskiyou National Monu-
ment in Southern Oregon.
At the recent American
Farm Bureau Federation annu-
al convention, delegates voted
in favor of revoking a presi-
dent’s authority to designate
such conservation areas. They
said Congress should have
that authority.
Ranchers dread effects of Cascade-Siskiyou monument expansion
Area in
detail
Original monument boundary
Newly expanded boundary
140
Medford
238
99
5
Sis
kiyo
Ashland
tns.
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66
r
Cattle groups reacted
with dread at the expansion
of the Cascade-Siskiyou Na-
tional Monument in Oregon
and California, which they
fear will gradually eradicate
ranching in the area.
The Obama administration
announced Jan. 12 the mon-
ument will be increased by
about 49,000 acres, up about
80 percent from its current
62,000 acres.
While the federal govern-
ment touted the decision as
improving “vital habitat con-
nectivity, watershed protec-
tion, and landscape-scale re-
silience for the area’s unique
biological values,” cattle
groups fear it marks the be-
ginning of the end of ranching
in the expanded monument.
“They start out OK, but
pretty soon the restrictions
start coming in,” said Bob
Skinner, an Oregon rancher
and vice president of the Pub-
Cascade-Siskiyou National
Monument expansion
ive
Capital Press
Ore.
N
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Ore.
Calif.
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By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Kl a m a
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Calif.
10 miles
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
lic Lands Council, which rep-
resents grazing interests.
Ranchers with grazing
allotments aren’t allowed to
properly maintain fences, wa-
ter structures and other range
improvements, diminishing
the land’s suitability for graz-
ing, Skinner said.
That dynamic has already
been seen on the original por-
tion of the Cascade-Siskiyou
National Monument, which
many ranchers have left since
its designation in 2000, he
said.
“You can’t bother any-
thing, you have to leave it in
a natural state,” Skinner said.
As private ranch properties
are sold or passed down to
new generations, the federal
government does not have to
honor grazing agreements on
adjacent public land, said Je-
rome Rosa, executive director
of the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association.
“Over time, all the grazing
is eliminated,” Rosa said.
As gates to public land are
closed and roads fall into dis-
repair, private property sur-
rounded by a national monu-
ment decreases in value until
ranchers have little choice but
to sell it to the federal govern-
ment, he said.
“There’s no value any-
more,” Rosa said, noting that
as property is taken off local
tax rolls, county services are
also reduced. “It’s really an
abuse of power.”
Not only does the land
within the expanded monu-
ment offer excellent pastures
for cattle, but it also contains
old growth forests and wild-
life habitat, he said.
“Without it being grazed, it
will be just a lightning strike
away from a huge fi re,” Rosa
said. “It’s really tragic.”
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