February 24, 2017
CapitalPress.com
5
Oregonian national Make It With Wool winner
By JAN JACKSON
For the Capital Press
Rebecca Sintek, a long-
time 4-H and FFA leader from
Sandy, Ore., is the 2017 Na-
tional Make It With Wool
adult winner.
The contest was held
during the American Sheep
Industry Association annual
convention in Denver.
A two-time national win-
ner and three-time state win-
ner, Sintek submitted her
black-and-white two-piece
houndstooth jacket and slacks
along with a three-minute
video and photo for the pre-
event judging.
Two other Oregon contes-
tants competing at the nation-
al level were Oregon Senior
first-place winner Kyra For-
ester of Corvallis and Ore-
gon Junior first-place winner
Hannah Palmer of Heppner.
All three contestants re-
ceived all-expense-paid trips
to Denver for the competi-
tion.
Zoey Townsend of Med-
ford won first place in the
Pre-Teen state category,
which does not advance to
the national competition.
Sintek, a native of Wyo-
ming, moved to Oregon 21
years ago. She is the main
leader of the Sandy 4-H and
FFA.
“My family raised most-
ly beef, though we did keep
a few sheep,” Sintek said. “I
am a huge believer in 4-H
and FFA. I work every day
with FFA students helping
ready them for contests, ag
sales, ag issues and speeches.
I have 70-plus Sandy Live-
stock Club members and 30
in my Kids-R-Us 4-H clubs
this year. It is going to keep
me busy.”
The objectives of the na-
tional and Oregon Make It
With Wool contests are to
promote the beauty and ver-
satility of wool and other
specialty fiber fabrics and
yarns, encourage personal
creativity in sewing, knitting
and crocheting and recogniz-
ing creative skills.
Fabrics or yarns must con-
tain a minimum of 60 percent
wool. Specialty fibers include
mohair, cashmere, alpaca,
camel, llama and vicuna.
Chandra Worman, Oregon
director of the competition,
got her start in 1998 in one of
Sintek’s 4-H groups.
“I competed in MIWW
every year but two until
2013, when Maureen Krebs
retired and I became direc-
tor,” Worman said. “Wool is
easy to sew with but because
no two pieces of wool are the
same it is challenging at the
same time.”
She’ll be accepting entries
from contestants and recruit-
ing sponsors to help with
prizes for the fall contest,
which will be on Saturday,
Oct. 28, in The Dalles, Ore.
“I’m excited because we
are holding it on the Co-
lumbia Gorge Community
College campus in conjunc-
tion with the 2017 Columbia
Gorge Fiber Festival,” Wor-
man said.
The contest is open to any
age and every level of sewing
or knitting ability.
“We had 34 contestants
last year and hopefully we’ll
have 50 contestants in Octo-
ber,” she said.
For more information
about Oregon MIWW, email
Worman at cwloves2sew@
yahoo.com or visit www.ore-
gonmiww.com.
For more information
about the Columbia Gorge
Fiber Festival, visit www.co-
lumbiagorgefiberfestival.com.
Courtesy of National Make It with Wool
Becky Sintek from Sandy Ore., second from right, is the 2017 adult Make It With Wool winner. She
stands with, from left, fashion/apparel design award winner Daiane Bierhalz Elbert from Houston
Community College; junior wool ambassador Alison Faber of Ohio; and senior wool ambassador
Sarah Thelen of Minnesota. A total of 45 finalists represented 26 states and the New England region to
model their creations at the national competition.
Report quantifies value of Washington’s H-2A workers
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Foreign
guestworkers harvested about
one-third of the total value of
Washington’s apple, pear and
cherry crops in 2014, accord-
ing to a new report.
H-2A visa agricultural
foreign guestworkers were
responsible for $922 million
worth of production value in
Washington in 2014 and $1.7
billion in total economic im-
pact, according to an analysis
done for the farm labor orga-
nization, WAFLA.
The $1.7 billion includes
indirect supply chain and in-
duced payroll effects from lo-
cal production of apples, pears
and cherries, says a report by
ECONorthwest, a Portland
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Francisco Trinidad, an H-2A visa foreign guestworker for Zirkle
Fruit Co., Selah, Wash., thins Gala apples last July at Zirkle’s CRO
Orchard south of Rock Island. H-2A workers picked about a third of
the state’s tree fruit value in 2014.
business consulting firm.
USDA statistics show the
$922 million was a little over
one-third of the total apple,
cherry and pear production
value of $2.6 billion in 2014.
The report is related to the
political questions of immi-
gration and immigration re-
form since it focuses on the
economics of the H-2A pro-
gram, the report states.
“There is uncertainty
about immigration and we
cannot speculate about future
policies and how they will
influence use of guestworker
programs. However, we can
safely project that, absent an-
other major recession, there
will be a shortage of workers
who are motivated to seek
seasonal agricultural jobs.
Therefore, it is highly likely
there will be a growing need
for seasonal farm labor,” the
report states.
ECONorthwest built an
economic impact model using
federal and state data and used
literature and worked with
industry representatives to
determine assumptions about
H-2A worker concentration in
the tree fruit industry, wages
and remittance.
H-2A worker economic
contributions were measured
for value of production as-
sociated with harvesting tree
fruit and for payroll expendi-
tures.
There were 8,468 H-2A
workers in state tree fruit in
2014 with their economic ac-
tivity supporting 5,814 jobs in
the related supply chain.
The report assumed an av-
erage annual wage of $24,690
based on data for crop pro-
duction in 2014.
It assumed an 80 per-
cent remittance of wages to
the home country based on
previous survey research on
spending patterns of migrant
laborers and discussions with
workers.
The number of domestic
tree fruit workers in the state
has been declining in recent
years resulting in the number
of H-2A workers increasing,
the report states.
The number of domes-
tic workers has declined 10
percent since 2010 with one
cause being aging workers,
the report says.
Growers are becoming in-
creasingly concerned about
the future supply of ag labor
and Washington State Univer-
sity projects farm labor will
drop between .7 to 1.4 percent
a year through 2038, the re-
port says.
Decline
expected in
Oregon grass
seed harvest
acreage
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Oregon’s grass seed farm-
ers will harvest slightly fewer
acres this year due to a com-
bination of freezing weather,
heavy rain and damage from
the usual suspects: slugs,
voles, cut worms, geese and
mice, according to a survey
by USDA’s National Agricul-
tural Statistics Service.
In some cases, fields were
so wet last fall that farmers
weren’t able to plant, said
Roger Beyer, executive direc-
tor of the Oregon Seed Coun-
cil. He said grass seed prices
have been fairly strong and
sales brisk, however.
Regarding pests, Beyer
said growers are hopeful Or-
egon State University’s new
slug expert, Rory McDonnell,
will “make some dents” in the
problem.
The annual NASS survey
said some Washington Coun-
ty growers reported slow re-
growth of established fields
and that some newly planted
fields froze this winter. On a
brighter note, the heavy win-
ter snowpack means there will
be adequate moisture.
The NASS survey indicat-
ed annual ryegrass acreage
available for harvest this sum-
mer will increase by 1 percent
to 119,000 acres. Perennial
ryegrass acreage, however,
dropped from 87,000 acres
harvested last year to 75,000
acres available this summer.
Plantings of turf type tall
fescue also dropped, from
101,000 acres harvested last
summer to 93,000 available
for harvest in 2017. Plantings
of forage type tall fescue and
K-31 tall fescue increased by
about 1,000 acres each, ac-
cording to the survey.
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