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16 CapitalPress.com March 3, 2017 Appeals court rejects egg label lawsuit Federal agencies don’t have to require labeling of hen living conditions, 9th Circuit says By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Federal agencies don’t have to require egg producers to label cartons with production practices, such as “eggs from caged hens,” according a feder- al appeals court. Two animal rights groups — Compassion Over Killing and the Animal Legal Defense Fund — and six consumers pe- titioned the USDA, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission to write regulations requiring such labels. When those petitions were rejected, the plaintiffs filed a complaint against the federal agencies for allegedly “arbi- Courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture. Eggs produced by Great Valley Poultry and Metzer Farm near Manteca and Gonzales, Calif. A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that says the federal government doesn’t have to require egg producers to label cartons with production practices. trarily and capriciously” deny- ing the requests. The plaintiffs argued that egg cartons should be labeled with actual living conditions because too many consumers are deceived by images and words on packages alluding to cage-free chickens even though the hens are actually caged. A federal judge in Califor- nia dismissed the lawsuit and a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has now upheld that ruling. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service only has jurisdiction over liquid eggs and similar products, not shell eggs, while the agency’s Agricultural Marketing Service lacks the authority to impose such label requirements, the 9th Circuit said. The Federal Trade Commis- sion, meanwhile, properly re- jected the petition because the plaintiffs failed to prove that “unfair or deceptive” labels on egg cartons are “prevalent,” the ruling said. “While plaintiffs submitted isolated examples of potential- ly misleading egg labels and survey evidence concerning consumer confusion over the word ‘natural,’ plaintiffs have not identified any evidence submitted to the FTC tending to indicate that such practices were sufficiently widespread to justify promulgating their proposed regulations,” the 9th Circuit said. The FDA was likewise not required to draw up such label- ing rules because the agency concluded there was “insuf- ficient reliable scientific evi- dence” that caged hens were more likely to produce eggs of lower nutritional value or that were infected with salmonella, the ruling said. “The decision to take en- forcement action against mis- branded eggs on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to promulgat- ing regulations that would ap- ply to all egg producers, is left to the broad discretion of the FDA,” the 9th Circuit said. Idaho proposes fee to cover ag wildlife losses By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press POCATELLO, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is mulling a new fee on hunting, fishing and trapping licenses, promising half of the proceeds to address rampant wildlife depredation on farms and ranches. The department has met with sportsmen throughout the state to gauge support for the fee — $5 on resident licenses and $10 for nonresi- dents. The fee would be dis- counted for seniors, disabled veterans and sportsmen on military furloughs. “In a winter like this, we’ve got depredation prob- lems in spades, along with the winter feeding we’re at- tending to,” Mark Gamblin, the department’s regional su- pervisor for southeast Idaho, told sportsmen during a Feb. 23 meeting in Pocatello. “If we can do this, we can get a thorny, chronic problem off the table and focus on making hunting and fishing and trap- ping better.” Gamblin explained the fee is only conceptual at this point, and the Fish and Game Commission wanted public input prior to its upcoming meeting, when it will decide whether to submit a formal proposal to the state Legisla- ture. “I think we’ve had good, positive response from both the agricultural communi- ty and sportsmen,” Gamblin said. The department proj- ects the fee would generate about $2 million per year. Half would go toward sports- men-access improvements, such as boat docks. The re- maining $1 million would be divided between a depreda- John O’Connell/Capital Press Mark Gamblin, southeast Idaho regional supervisor with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, lis- tens to a question from a sportsman about a proposed hunting, fishing and trapping license fee during a Feb. 23 meeting in Pocatello. Half of the revenue would go toward helping farmers with wildlife depredation. tion claim fund and a depre- dation prevention fund. The new funds would be in addition to the general fund- ing the department already allocates for depredation pre- vention, which varies by year, and the roughly $200,000 now generated annually from a 75-cent fee on big game tag sales. Also, the department pro- poses to raise its current cap on collections for the depre- dation account from $750,000 to $1.5 million. Upon reach- ing the account cap, Gamblin said excess fee funding would be diverted toward depreda- tion prevention. Jason Beck, the landowner and sportsmen coordinator for the department’s southeast re- gion, said the prevention fund would cover materials to help farmers install panels or fenc- ing around haystacks, or take other measures to keep wild- life from eating or damaging crops. The depredation claim fund compensates farmers for losses due to wildlife feeding on their property, provided that they allow “reasonable” hunting access. Beck said the department must more clearly define reasonable access, but landowners are expected to grant some access to the gen- eral public. Beck believes welcoming hunters is the most effective way to address depredations, and special depredation hunts can be arranged outside hunt- ing season. Blackfoot area hay farm- er Jerry Elliott, said this has been the most challenging winter for wildlife depreda- tion since the late 1980s. “At one point, we had 250 head of deer here and 40 head of elk,” Elliott said. “I had people out working at night keeping them out.” He plans to move his hay- stacks about a mile and a half closer to home next season to minimize damage, and he may approach Fish and Game for help in fencing them. A few of the sportsmen at the Pocatello meeting balked at the idea of spending tag money to help farmers, sug- gesting it could instead be used to improve winter range. Others said they’d prefer to raise the money by increasing out-of-state tags. Most, how- ever, supported the concept. “Everyone can afford $5, and it’s not going to drive the out-of-staters away at $10,” said Joe Arave, a Blackfoot hunter. “I think it’s a good idea.” California growers assess damage amid storms, flooding By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press CASTROVILLE, Ca- lif. — Farmers are still taking stock of the damage from last week’s heavy storms that flood- ed fields, blew trees over and caused havoc with the almond blossom. Standing water was still in farm fields in the Sacramento Valley a week after heavy rain forced the evacuation of Max- well, Calif., Colusa County ag- ricultural officials said. In the Salinas Valley, the ar- tichoke and cauliflower fields that weren’t under water after nearly 3 inches of weekend rainfall were so muddy that workers couldn’t get to them. The conditions slowed harvest and caused delays in planting. “We’ll have to throw away all these artichokes, sure,” said Joe Pezzini, president of the Castroville-based Ocean Mist Farms, as he looked at a flood- ed field near the Central Coast town. “We really need a few days to dry out.” In the San Joaquin Valley, several dairy farms near the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers had to move their ani- mals to higher ground as river Tim Hearden/Capital Press An artichoke field near Castroville, Calif., is flooded last week after storms dumped nearly 3 inches of rain on the area. Artichoke, cau- liflower and other fields in the Salinas Valley that weren’t flooded were muddy and hard to get to. levels rose, and other farmers were nervously watching river levels and preparing to move animals out, the California Farm Bureau Federation re- ported. With the wet winter prompting dam operators to send more water downstream, state and federal workers joined farmers with tractors to shore up weak spots in nearly 1,600 miles of levees in the Central Valley, The Associated Press reported. It could take several weeks for growers to assess damage from the storms, which com- bined with already saturated ground and high river levels from reservoir releases to cause widespread flooding. The storms’ peak was Feb. 17, when Santa Barbara sopped up 4.16 inches of rain. Elsewhere, 3.26 inches of rain fell on Oxnard, 2.34 inches were recorded in Red Bluff and 1.72 inches were dumped on Salinas, according to the National Weather Service. Two to 3 feet of new snow fell on the northern Sierra Nevada over the weekend, according to the National Agricultural Sta- tistics Service. The storms came a week af- ter growers in Butte, Yuba and Sutter counties were among the 188,000 people forced to evacuate as the Oroville Dam’s secondary spillway was in dan- ger of failing. Crews later used trucks and helicopters to move large rocks and gravel to fill in erosion on the emergency spill- way. A large portion of the East- ern Sacramento Valley’s $1.5 billion agriculture industry is directly in the path of flood waters from Lake Oroville if the dam or its spillway were to fail. Perhaps the biggest concern from all the stormy weather is with the almond blossom. Bees don’t fly in the rain or strong winds and prefer temperatures higher than 55 degrees, so even the clear but cool afternoons af- ter the rain weren’t much help. “While today is a beauti- ful day and yesterday was a beautiful day, it’s downright chilly,” Butte County Farm Bureau manager Colleen Cecil said on Feb. 23, when the high temperature was 52 degrees. “I know that bees are pretty resil- ient.” John O’Connell/Capital Press File Sugar beets are harvested in southeast Idaho on Oct. 27 for Amal- gamated Sugar Co. The company has been raising funds toward a campaign to change consumer perceptions about biotech crops. Amalgamated raising funds toward GMO education campaign By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press BOISE — Amalgamat- ed Sugar Co. officials say they’ve raised $16 million in the span of a year toward a possible campaign to improve public perceptions about ge- netically modified organisms. Sugar beets are grown al- most exclusively from GMO seed engineered to resist gly- phosate. The herbicide is ap- plied to kill weeds but does not damage the sugar beets. Beet sugar industry leaders say a few large food manufac- turers have recently given in to public pressure — resulting from GMO opponents’ “mis- information” campaigns — and moved away from beet sugar in favor of convention- ally bred cane sugar, though there’s no detectable differ- ence in the finished product. “Technology is a positive thing for agriculture, and we know intuitively when we lose the license to use technol- ogy, we are really losing the license to exist in the future,” said Duane Grant, chairman of the cooperative that owns Amalgamated, Snake River Sugar Co. Grant said Amalgamated launched the fund drive after hearing the findings of a mar- ket research company it com- missioned to conduct a series of focus groups east of the Mississippi River. The com- pany’s report concluded an “overwhelming” majority of the public had negative opin- ions about biotechnology, but perceptions about GMOs im- proved significantly after just 5 minutes of exposure to “fac- tual, positive messages.” Grant said players in the U.S. beet sugar industry, including Amalgamated’s growers, pledged a combined $10 million toward the cam- paign. Other interested enti- ties — including cooperatives that supply growers, banks in- volved in agricultural lending and dairy industry sources — offered $6 million. Grant said Amalgamated’s board of directors initially set out to raise $30 million per year for a three-year cam- paign. Having fallen short of the goal, officials will soon meet with contributors to de- termine how to proceed. Amalgamated President and CEO John McCreedy be- lieves biotechnology makes farming more sustainable and environmentally sound, mini- mizing the use of inputs such as fuel and pesticides. “We’re going to move forward and tell the story we think is accurate, one way or another,” said McCreedy, who envisions a multi-year campaign will be necessary to meet the company’s goals. Grant said customers that once represented about 15 percent of Amalgamat- ed’s sales have switched to conventional cane sugar, although new buyers have picked up the slack. Refined cane sugar cur- rently gets about a nickel per pound price premium over refined beet sugar, following consecutive years of record beet production, said Jack Roney, director of econom- ics and policy analysis with American Sugar Alliance. He said the price of raw cane sug- ar, at about 30 cents a pound, is the same as finished beet sugar — largely a result of Mexico shipping more fin- ished sugar than unrefined cane sugar. The good news, Roney said, is beet sugar deliveries were up 20 percent during the quarter that ended in Decem- ber, compared to the previous year, which he attributes to re- luctance among buyers to pay such a premium for cane. “We’re optimistic this cur- rent imbalance on the mar- ket will work itself out over time,” Roney said. WSDA readies hemp rules, but needs federal approval Spring plantings depend on DEA permit By DON JENKINS Capital Press OLYMPIA — The Wash- ington State Department of Agriculture has prepared rules for licensing hemp farmers, but growers who want to plant this spring still lack an essential input — seeds. WSDA hopes to someday have an in-state supply of certified hemp seeds. But for now, seeds must be imported from Canada and elsewhere. Since hemp seeds are federally controlled, WSDA needs an import permit from the Drug Enforcement Ad- ministration. The state applied for a permit Aug. 23. Regional DEA officials have inspected where WSDA would secure the seeds in Yakima and sent a report to Washington, D.C. DEA has not given the state any indication when it will make a decision, the head of WSDA’s hemp program, Emily Febles, said Wednes- day. “I’m very hopeful, but ob- viously, it’s another agency. It’s hard to say what it’s going to do,” she said. “We’ve been operating under the assump- tion that everything will work out.” A regional DEA spokes- woman referred questions to the agency’s national head- quarters in D.C. A spokesman there said the agency doesn’t disclose the status of applica- tions to the DEA because of privacy issues. Several states have re- ceived DEA permission to import hemp seeds. Oregon authorized hemp farming without such a permit. In contrast, Washington has painstakingly followed the 2014 Farm Bill, which authorized state-supervised hemp farming. Washington lawmakers approved the hemp program last year, but too late for 2016 plantings. Over the winter, WSDA drew up plans for a self-supporting program in which hemp farmers would buy a license and pay for field inspections and laboratory tests. The rules could be in place by May, but planting will de- pend on whether the state has a DEA permit. Hemp advocate Joy Beck- erman, who’s advised law- makers on staying within federal guidelines, said she’s optimistic DEA will issue the permit.
