18 CapitalPress.com
February 17, 2017
2016 meat exports end on strong demand
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Strong exports of U.S. beef
and pork in December topped
off a year of steady growth,
according to the U.S. Meat Ex-
port Federation.
Shipments of beef in De-
cember were the largest ever
for December and the largest
monthly beef exports since
July 2013.
At 116,847 metric tons,
they were up 22,261 metric
tons, or 24 percent, over De-
cember 2015 and accounted
for 15.6 percent of U.S. pro-
duction. At $619.1 million
the value of those exports in-
creased $111.1 million, or 22
percent.
Pork shipments in Decem-
ber were up 18 percent and
34,225 metric tons year over
year to 222,635 metric tons.
The value of those exports in-
creased $95.9 million, or 20
percent, to $564.2 million.
A strong December put the
finishing touch on healthy per-
formance in 2016.
Demand from Mexico and
China and Hong Kong led the
way for increased pork exports,
while the Asian markets drove
the growth in beef exports,
USMEF reported.
Pork exports reached a re-
cord 2.31 million metric tons
in 2016, up 8 percent year over
year and 2 percent above the
previous record of 2.26 million
metric tons in 2012. Value in-
creased 7 percent to $5.94 bil-
lion.
Export value per head
slaughtered averaged $50.20,
up 4 percent, from 2015.
“A remarkable second half
pushed 2016 pork export vol-
ume to Mexico to its fifth con-
secutive record at 730,316 met-
ric tons – breaking the previous
record by 2 percent. Export
value to Mexico totaled $1.36
billion, up 7 percent year-over-
year and the second-highest on
record, trailing only the $1.56
billion mark reached in 2014,”
USMEF reported.
“At this time of record-large
pork production, it would be
hard to overstate the impor-
tance of Mexican demand to
the U.S. industry,” said Philip
Seng, USMEF president and
CEO.
“This is especially true for
hams, as we are locked out of
Russia — once a large desti-
nation for U.S. hams — and
China’s demand for imported
hams has moderated in recent
months,” he said.
Despite that moderated de-
mand, pork shipments to China
and Hong Kong set a new vol-
ume record of 544,943 metric
tons, up 61 percent, and broke
the $1 billion mark for the first
time at $1.07 billion, up 53 per-
cent.
Beef exports for the year
were up 11 percent to 1.19
million metric tons. Value only
increased 1 percent to $6.34
billion. Shipments accounted
for 13.7 percent of U.S. pro-
duction.
Export value per head
slaughtered averaged $262.17,
down 6 percent from 2015.
“Driven by strong demand
for higher-value chilled cuts,
beef exports achieved new val-
ue records in South Korea and
Taiwan in 2016, and rebounded
strongly in Japan,” USMEF re-
ported.
“In addition to the strength
of the U.S. dollar, U.S. beef
overcame other severe chal-
lenges in these north Asian
markets and achieved remark-
able results,” Seng said.
“Despite facing higher tar-
iff rates in Japan compared to
Australian beef, U.S. beef dis-
placed its competition and won
back significant market share.
And the investment the U.S.
industry made to rebuild con-
sumer confidence in Korea is
paying tremendous dividends,”
he said.
Beekeeper develops ‘smart
bee’ winter storage system
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
TWIN FALLS, Idaho – A
love of bees and an entrepre-
neurial spirit have driven one
Southern Idaho beekeeper to
tackle storage issues that take
a huge toll on the pollinators
every winter.
Designing “smart bee
storage” to revolutionize the
industry has been a labor of
love for Israel Bravo for the
past 15 years – and it appears
it’s an idea whose time has
come, given the success of a
prototype facility this winter.
Bravo had looked for a
system that could depend-
ably control the climate in a
storage facility to keep bees
healthy during their winter re-
prieve from pollinating crops
and producing honey for hu-
man consumption.
He finally found it in the
expertise at Agri-Stor, a Twin
Falls company that has been
designing potato cellars for
60 years.
“I figured I would find that
brain to control everything
inside, but I didn’t think I’d
find it in my backyard,” Bra-
vo said.
Large commercial bee-
keepers park their bees in po-
tato cellars all along Idaho’s
I-84 corridor every winter, but
Agri-Stor had no expertise in
bees.
It did, however, have en-
gineers who could design
Bravo’s smart bee facility.
Its owner, Eric Evans, had al-
ready developed the “brains”
Bravo needed to be able to
monitor storage facilities re-
motely – and he was able to
see Bravo’s vision.
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Israel Bravo, bee storage consultant with Agri-Stor in Twin Falls, looks at a specimen to check for
nosema ceranae spores at his office on Feb. 1.
Bee boxes are loaded onto semi trucks for transport to California
almond orchards.
Bravo and Agri-Stor
teamed up a year ago to de-
sign a building that would
control temperature, humidity
and carbon dioxide levels and
allow for smart phone moni-
toring to keep those condi-
tions stable, alert the beekeep-
er to any problems and give
the bees the quiet and the to-
tal darkness they need to stay
healthy.
With off-site monitoring,
“you don’t have to disturb the
bees. You want to keep things
as quiet and dark as possible
until it’s time to go to work,”
he said.
With almond orchards
calling, that time has come
— and the results look prom-
ising. Bees are coming out
of storage healthier than they
would in conventional stor-
age. Frames are fuller, the
bees are livelier and there’s
more honey reserve to nourish
them, he said.
“They’re in better condi-
tion for traveling to California
orchards,” Bravo said.
Perhaps the biggest mea-
sure of success is the death
rate is only 6 to 7 percent,
compared to 20 to 40 percent
in conventional storage.
There are fewer stress-
ors than in conventional po-
tato-cellar storage, which
doesn’t do an adequate job of
controlling climate, noise and
lighting and builds up mold
and pesticides in dirt floors,
he said.
Courtesy of University of Idaho
Matt Roth, left, the new greenhouse manager for the University of
Idaho’s nuclear potato seed program, and the program’s manager,
Jenny Durrin, work on mini-tuber production. Durrin was recently
hired and Roth was recently made full-time, and UI has plans to
expand the program’s production.
UI to grow nuclear
potato seed program
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
MOSCOW, Idaho — Uni-
versity of Idaho has hired a
new director for its nuclear
seed potato program and plans
to build additional facilities to
help her expand production.
The planned investments
— which include construction
of a new greenhouse and labo-
ratory — would move the uni-
versity toward its long-term
goal of becoming a national
repository for potato germ-
plasm.
Jenny Durrin filled the di-
rector position vacated when
Lorie Ewing retired last July.
She conducted research in po-
tato virus Y resistance in com-
mon Idaho cultivars while
obtaining her master’s degree
in plant science under UI vi-
rologist Alex Karasev, and she
spent two years studying pale
cyst nematode at the univer-
sity.
UI also promoted a part-
time worker, Matt Roth, to be
the program’s full-time green-
house manager.
The self-sufficient nucle-
ar seed program maintains
more than 300 potato cross-
es — including experimental
lines, public and private va-
rieties and the Potato Variety
Management Institute’s entire
collection. The program also
produces disease-free tissue
cultures and pre-nuclear seed
for seed growers, representing
the first step in potato produc-
tion.
Mark McGuire, director
of the Idaho Agricultural Ex-
periment Station, hopes the
greenhouse will be complete
by mid-summer to produce a
fall crop. He said the program
currently can’t keep up with
orders.
“The seed potato produc-
tion is limited by the green-
house space,” McGuire said.
“We’re looking to really dou-
ble the capacity.”
State offers 3,000-acre lease
in Horse Heaven Hills
By DAN WHEAT
Wine packaging competition getting keener
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
KENNEWICK, Wash. —
Global competition continues
to impact quality, pricing and
availability of wine bottles,
says one of the largest wine
packaging suppliers in North
America.
New suppliers are in the
game, traditional channels
continue to change and some
long-standing manufacturers
are selling direct, says Andrew
Bottene, senior vice president
of TricorBraun WinePak in St.
Louis, Mo.
Industry shifts can be
confusing for customers but
TricorBraun WinePak reaf-
firms its position as a suppli-
er of value, Bottene said in a
Feb. 3 news release.
“As our industry’s lead-
ing wine bottle distributor,
we have watched the industry
grow and evolve, as we have
continued to focus our efforts
on delivering unique custom
packing solutions for our
many customers,” he said.
The company, a subsidi-
ary of TricorBraun, has more
than $150 million in annu-
al sales and a $2 million,
360,000-square-foot automat-
ed repacking plant in Fair-
field, Calif., where it repack-
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Suzanne Fenton, vice president of brand marketing, TricorBraun
WinePak of St. Louis, Mo., at a company bottle display during the
Washington Winegrowers meeting in Kennewick, Wash., on Feb.
7. The company offers more than 900 sizes and styles of wine
bottles.
ages bottles it sources from
around the world.
TricorBraun WinePak has
been one of the hundreds of
vendors at the Washington
Winegrowers Association an-
nual meeting in Kennewick
for the past 10 years.
At this year meeting, Feb.
7-9, Suzanne Fenton, vice
president of brand marketing
of TricorBraun WinePak, told
Capital Press the company’s
outlook is still good because
it provides useful one-stop
shopping for wineries for bot-
tles, caps, capsules and car-
tons.
The company offers more
than 900 styles and sizes of
bottles, custom designs bot-
tles and competes with 30 to
40 wine bottle suppliers west
of the Rockies, Fenton said.
Bag-in-box packaging for
wine has increased in the last
several years, beginning with
bulk wines and moving into
higher-end wines, she said.
Generally, medium and small-
er-size wineries are sticking
with bottles, she said.
TricorBraun WinePak sells
some bag-in-box but far more
bottles, she said.
Bag-in-box has been “a
cost savings and a way to mar-
ket wines to a larger audience
including people who want to
have wine on hand to serve at
parties that was not the focus
of the evening,” Fenton said.
“It’s an easy way to have a
glass or two at a time and not
worry about the wine losing
tastiness once a cork is re-
moved,” she said.
Bag-in-box was developed
and used before bottle screw
caps took hold to secure tast-
iness, she said.
Fenton attends about 10
trade shows a year, including
United Wine & Grape Sympo-
sium in Sacramento and Ore-
gon Wine Symposium in Port-
land. It’s a means of gaining
new customers and touching
base with existing customers
to make sure they are getting
the products and service they
need.
TricorBraun, the parent
company, is one of the world’s
leading suppliers of bottles,
jars and other rigid packaging
components with annual sales
approaching $1 billion and
more than 41 locations in the
United States, Canada, Mexi-
co, Asia and Europe.
McGuire said UI is in the
early stages of planning and
estimating costs of a new
building to accommodate the
nuclear seed program’s labo-
ratory, as well as office space
for marketing UI cereal and
oilseed varieties. UI plans to
approach commodity groups
and industry partners for fi-
nancial support and hopes to
start construction of the build-
ing some time after July 2018.
As a national reposito-
ry, Durrin said her program
would maintain USDA variet-
ies and add 20 new lines per
year on average from potato
breeding programs through-
out the U.S. Most U.S. potato
lines are now stored at a Colo-
rado laboratory, where they’re
frozen cryogenically, a stor-
age method that significantly
lengthens propagation time.
Durrin said UI’s plans for
a national potato seed bank
have “been put on hold, but
we’ll be moving forward with
it in the future.”
Roth, who served a tour
of duty with the Air Force in
Afghanistan before enrolling
at UI, plans to start gradu-
ate school in the fall. His
research will involve testing
the feasibility of using hy-
droponics in the program.
He explained with no soil,
mini-tubers can be removed
as they reach the ideal size
for growers, many of whom
have requested smaller, more
uniform seed.
A continuous harvest,
however, poses challenges as
seed stored for longer periods
behaves differently than new-
er seed.
Roth plans to research
how exposing newer seed to
warmer storage conditions
may accelerate its aging, as a
tool to homogenize hydropon-
ic seed of varying ages. He’s
already tested a small-scale
hydroponic system he devel-
oped and plans to try out a
larger system this season.
Capital Press
PATERSON, Wash. — The
state Department of Natural
Resources is seeking bidders
to lease approximately 3,000
acres of agricultural land in
Horse Heaven Hills between
Paterson and Prosser.
The offering is unique for
its size, atypical lease struc-
ture and the availability of
3.9 acre-feet of non-interrupt-
ible Columbia River water
per acre, according to a DNR
news release. Bids are due
April 6.
The site is within 27 miles
of processing facilities and
distribution centers in Prosser
and within 40 miles of facili-
ties in the Tri-Cities.
The lease offering is un-
usual in that DNR is looking
for the winning bidder to con-
struct a system to deliver the
water to the land. To that end,
the agency will allow propos-
als with rental terms designed
to reimburse the winning
bidder’s investment, such as
a long-term lease of up to 35
years and reduced rates.
DNR is looking for the ap-
plicant’s ability to perfect the
agency’s water rights, finan-
cial capabilities, plus environ-
mental considerations such as
use for organic crops or pres-
ervation of shrub-steppe as
wildlife habitat.
“We know this is not a typ-
ical agricultural land lease,
but we also know that access
to prime irrigated farmland is
valuable. We want applicants
to be creative and propose
what can work for them, and
us,” says DNR Southeast Re-
gion Manager Todd Welker.
“We’ve done a lot of work up-
front. We think this approach
will preserve a valuable water
right, generate revenue for
public beneficiaries and pen-
cil out for someone.”
To reduce risk, the agen-
cy has negotiated agreements
and rights of way for the wa-
ter supply system. It’s also
providing water pipeline and
pump station engineering
drawings, electrical drawings
and a project cost estimate of
$11 million.
DNR is pitching the land
as suitable for row crops, ap-
ples, mint, blueberries and
wine grapes. It is within the
Horse Heaven Hills American
Viticultural Area. Upon full
development and perfection
of the water right, a minimum
of 250 acres of orchard, vine-
yard or berries is expected,
DNR says.
Some of the land has
grown dryland wheat, and that
could be continued until the
water system is developed,
said Carrie McCausland,
DNR spokeswoman. DNR
has owned it a long time and
leased it in smaller segments
and now wants to develop the
water right before it expires in
a couple of years, she said.