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CapitalPress.com
February 10, 2017
U.S. House
kicks BLM
planning rule
closer to curb
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
A dry bean field is harvested in September 2016. Idaho agriculture
is growing at a much faster rate than U.S. agriculture as a whole, a
University of Idaho agricultural economist told lawmakers.
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Idaho agriculture growing
faster than U.S. ag overall
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — Total cash re-
ceipts and net farm income
in Idaho declined last year,
but not as much as many peo-
ple predicted, and the state’s
farming sector has outper-
formed U.S. agriculture over
the past several years.
Those were two of the
messages that University of
Idaho Agricultural Economist
Garth Taylor delivered to law-
makers during an overview of
the state’s agricultural sector.
During a year in which
prices for most of the state’s
main farm commodities were
low, total farm cash receipts
in Idaho declined 4 percent in
2016 to $7.2 billion and net
farm income dipped 13 per-
cent to $1.6 billion, according
to projections by UI econo-
mists.
“That’s no surprise to any-
body,” Taylor told members
of the House and Senate ag-
ricultural affairs committees
last week. “The surprise is that
it’s down as little as it was.”
And compared to U.S. ag-
riculture overall, Idaho’s farm-
ing sector is growing much
faster when it comes to net
farm income and cash receipts
recently over the long term, he
said.
From 1980 to 2015, Idaho
farm cash receipts have in-
creased by 144 percent when
adjusted for inflation while
U.S. cash receipts have grown
by 116 percent.
Idaho net farm income has
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increased by 233 percent since
1980 on an inflation-adjusted
basis compared to 140 percent
nationwide.
“Idaho agriculture is on a
far different track than the U.S.
as a whole,” Taylor said. “It’s
phenomenal that we’re grow-
ing that much faster in Idaho
than the U.S. as a whole.”
The reason, he said, is that
Idaho is now a livestock state,
a trend that began with the ex-
plosion of the state’s dairy in-
dustry in the late 1990s.
The dairy and cattle indus-
tries combined account for
more than 60 percent of the
state’s total farm cash receipts
and when feed crops such as
corn silage, hay, beet pulp and
potato waste are counted, that
number rises to more than 75
percent, Taylor said.
On an inflation adjusted
basis, Idaho livestock cash re-
ceipts have grown 215 percent
since 1980 while they have
grown 113 percent nationwide,
Taylor said.
“Livestock are behind the
growth of cash receipts in Ida-
ho and it’s principally dairy,”
he said.
Taylor also stressed how
important agriculture is to the
state’s economy, pointing out
that agriculture directly and
indirectly accounts for 20 per-
cent of the state’s total sales,
14 percent of its jobs and 16
percent of its total gross do-
mestic product.
The bulk of Idaho’s farm
GDP comes from farmers as
opposed to food processing
and other agribusiness, Taylor
said. Farm GDP has grown
more than twice as fast as total
state GDP since 1997, while
food manufacturing GDP is
level, he said.
“It’s not (agribusiness), it’s
farming,” he said. “Grandma
and grandpa on a tractor.”
Sen. Jim Patrick, a Repub-
lican farmer from Twin Falls,
said it was encouraging to
see how Idaho’s ag sector is
growing compared with the
nation overall.
Courtesy of Dwight Zimmerman
Uglies kettle cooked chips, made by Dieffenbach’s Potato Chips in Womelsdorf, Pa., use
rejected spuds, capitalizing on the ugly produce movement. Backers of the idea seek to put
to use food that may not make grade for aesthetic reasons.
Chip brand finds higher
purpose for off-grade spuds
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Though Uglies ket-
tle-cooked potato chips are
made with unwanted and
rejected spuds, consumers
can’t seem to get enough of
them, according to an offi-
cial with the unique brand’s
manufacturer.
Dieffenbach’s Potato
Chips of Womelsdorf, Pa.,
launched the intentionally
flawed and light-hearted
brand about a month and
a half ago — providing a
home for local growers’
misshapen, high-sugar or
oversized chipping spuds.
Uglies are the latest
product to capitalize on the
small but steadily growing
ugly produce movement
— marketing products at
a discount from produce
that fails typical industry
specifications for aesthetic
reasons, while appealing
to consumers motivated to
help reduce food waste.
Dwight Zimmerman,
vice president of business
development with Dief-
fenbach’s, believes Uglies
could set a chipping indus-
try trend, based on the ear-
ly response.
“They’re flying off the
shelf,” Zimmerman said.
Uglies, which are dis-
counted at least 15 per-
cent, have also been a hit
with area farmers.
“We’re able to give
them more money than the
dehy plant,” Zimmerman
Courtesy of Dwight Zimmerman
Uglies kettle cooked chips, made by Dieffenbach’s Potato
Chips in Womelsdorf, Pa., use rejected spuds, capitalizing
on the ugly produce movement.
said.
The company, which
produces about 250,000
pounds of finished chips
per week, still does the
bulk of its business in
its Dieffenbach’s and
One Potato, Two Potato
brands, made with flaw-
less tubers. But a survey
of Uglies customers found
about half prefer the taste
of a darker, imperfect
chip, Zimmerman said.
He said the company
is approaching large re-
tailers, such as Walmart,
about Uglies and plans
to publicize the brand in
early March at the Natu-
ral Products Expo West in
Anaheim, Calif.
“They’re good pota-
toes, and it’s ridiculous
that they’re being thrown
away,” Zimmerman said.
The company has put
off-grade chipping spuds
to good use since the
1960s, when current own-
er Nevin Dieffenbach’s
grandfather sold Factory
Seconds to locals in plain
bags. But the company
never pushed the prod-
uct. Recently, when ugly
produce started to gain at-
tention, Zimmerman sug-
gested, “Why don’t we
create a brand and tell the
story right on the bag?”
California native and
ugly produce champion
Jordan Figueiredo said
the movement is grow-
ing as consumer aware-
ness about food waste
increases. Figueiredo cit-
ed a 2016 collaborative
study, called the ReFED
report, concluding the
U.S. spends $218 billion
growing, processing and
transporting food that is
never eaten, and 20 bil-
lion pounds of food is
simply left on the farm to
go to waste.
In 2016, he said, seven
U.S. supermarket chains
started selling ugly produce
— some in response to pe-
tition drives he organized
— compared to a single
chain offering ugly produce
during the previous year.
The U.S. House moved quickly
to pass a resolution that would repeal
BLM’s Planning 2.0 rule, which op-
ponents say makes sweeping, harmful
changes in how BLM develops re-
source management plans.
The House passed the resolution on
Tuesday, just eight days after it was in-
troduced by Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.
The Obama administration approved
the rule in December. Under the Con-
gressional Review Act, Congress has
up to 60 legislative days to pass a joint
resolution of disapproval.
“Planning 2.0 dilutes local and state
voices and centralizes power here in
Washington, D.C., … This puts special
interest groups above local elected offi-
cials, which is not the way it was ever
intended,” said Rob Bishop, R-Utah,
chairman of the House Natural Re-
sources Committee, during floor debate
on the resolution.
“Counties all across the West expect
their BLM officials to be responsive to
their needs and manage their land with
the best interest of the community in
mind. Their livelihoods depend on it,”
he said.
The rule’s disregard of local and
stakeholder input, as well as its elim-
ination of requirements for economic
analyses, are serious concerns for the
Public Lands Council and National Cat-
tlemen’s Beef Association.
But the agency also rankled ranch-
ers in its intention to move away from
managing for multiple use to prioritize
social and environmental change in re-
source management planning.
“Planning processes are critical to
the ability of grazing permittees to op-
erate in the West,” said Ethan Lane, ex-
ecutive director of PLC and the NCBA
public lands division.
The shift in management focus and
the elimination of stakeholder and local
input makes the rule “unworkable for
the more than 18,000 ranchers operat-
ing on BLM-managed lands,” he said.
House passage of the resolution to
repeal the rule is a “huge victory for
America’s cattle producers and a sign
that some common sense is finally be-
ing restored in Washington,” he said.
A concurrent resolution was intro-
duced in the Senate on Jan. 30 by Sen.
Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwom-
an of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee.
PLC and NCBA are hoping for quick
approval in the Senate as well, which
would send the joint resolution to the
White House for President Trump’s sig-
nature.
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