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12 CapitalPress.com May 5, 2017 Duvall: Tax reform makes us a little nervous tions on foreign relations and trade. “Trump and his admin- istration are figuring out what a lot of administrations have figured out: It’s a small world and China is a big customer.” TRUMP from Page 1 Trump kept another cam- paign pledge by withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pa- cific Partnership, a 12-nation Pacific Rim trade agreement supported by many farm groups. He also continues to call the North American Free Trade Agreement a “disas- ter.” Last week, his position seemed to move from rene- gotiation to termination and back to renegotiation within 24 hours. For some groups, there is no upside to reopening NAFTA. “NAFTA has been fantas- tic to us,” Woodall said. “It’s as good as it gets.” On labor, Trump inher- ited a farmworker shortage. Absent data, it’s difficult to judge whether his adminis- tration is making it worse. “I think it’s hard to tell because the situation was already very, very bad,” said John Keeling, CEO and executive vice president of the National Potato Council. “Degrees of worse are where we are.” Duvall said he can’t deny the “tough talk” on immi- gration has probably hurt. “I don’t think it’s intentional,” he said. “Just call us collater- al damage.” Still, Duvall said, “people are excited” about the Trump presidency. “But if we think our job is done, we are badly mistak- en,” he said. “Engage is my theme this year.” Regulatory revolt In a pre-election debate on agricultural issues, a Hillary Clinton surrogate presented a 10-point plan. Trump’s surro- gate offered less regulation. Rural America went for Trump. “There was a collective sigh of relief on election night,” said sixth-generation farmer Jay Gordon, policy director of the Washing- ton State Dairy Federation. “That’s what I picked up from producers.” Trump promised to rein in federal agencies seen as hostile to agriculture. Scott Nielsen, president of the Cat- tle Producers of Washington, said the thought of a new fed- eral land management policy makes ranchers “incredibly optimistic.” “Let us do what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years,” Nielsen said. “I think that’s more Trump’s ap- proach.” Duvall was in the Roo- sevelt Room at the White House in February when Trump sent back to the EPA and Army Corps of Engi- neers the Waters of the Unit- ed States rule. “It’s a horri- ble, horrible rule. Has sort of a nice name, but everything else is bad,” Trump said. Duvall said it was a priv- ilege to be there. “We were really encouraged by that,” he said. The new administra- tion’s accessibility has been “refreshing for us,” he said. Farmworker woes Photos by Don Jenkins/Capital Press Commercial beekeeper Tim Hiatt says he’s not sure the farm labor shortage can get any worse under Trump. “Domestic workers interested in getting stung are few and far between,” he says. Community organizer Edgar Franks says of the new administra- tion that “The fear has always been there, but now it has gone to another level.” Last week, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and a national FFA officer flanked Trump as he signed the order to review farm regulations. The next day, the president signed the order to review national monuments. “Some- times I look at some of the things I’m signing, I say, ‘Maybe people won’t like it,’ but I’m doing the right thing. And no regular politician is going (to) do it,” Trump said. Some warn, however, there will be regulatory acts not universally embraced by agriculture. It’s already hap- pened. The USDA announced April 11 that it will delay implementing an Obama ad- ministration rule broadening the scope of the Packers and Stockyards Act. The NCBA hopes the six- month delay will be a prelude to killing the rule, calling it a counterproductive govern- ment intrusion into the free market. For R-CALF USA, an association of ranchers, the delay was a huge disappoint- ment, the group’s CEO, Bill Bullard, said. The rule would protect cattle producers from possible market manipula- tion by a small number of meat packers, according to R-CALF. R-CALF is also dismayed the Trump administration hasn’t banned Brazilian beef in response to that country’s meat-packing inspection scandal. R-CALF has cited the scandal in pushing for the reinstatement of coun- try-of-origin labels on meat sold in supermarkets. The NCBA opposes the labels, which the U.S. gave up after the World Trade Or- ganization threatened sanc- tions. Bullard said he’s optimis- tic Trump will make coun- try-of-origin labels part of NAFTA talks, but he’s not sure which way the USDA will go on the meat-packers rule. “If they adopt the rule, it will tell us good things about the administration. If they don’t, it will tell us bad things,” he said. Renewable fuels National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said rejecting the Waters of the U.S. rule was easy. More difficult, he said, will be handling the Renewable Fu- els Standard, which created a stable market for biofuels such as corn-based ethanol. “The RFS is a bundle of reg- ulations,” he said. “You may like RFS, but if you determine you don’t like the regulations and you get rid of them, RFS is of no val- ue. You’ve gut it,” Johnson said. “If you gut RFS, there will be folks in farm country upset about that.” Johnson said he hoped that Trump would oppose consolidation in the agricul- tural industry. “I think that hope faded pretty quickly,” Johnson said. Trump met with the CEOs of Bayer AG and Monsanto Co. shortly before taking of- fice and said he won a pledge that the merged companies would spend billions on re- search and development in the U.S., but he didn’t speak against the pending merger. “The first 100 days have been a failure from that stand- point,” Johnson said. Commercial beekeeper Tim Hiatt, whose hives pol- “The minimum wage issue is ... something we keep an eye on’ MOVE from Page 1 Officials from both com- panies said the heavy damage their businesses sustained this winter was the impetus for the move happening sooner rath- er than later. Both companies lost main packing sheds and several storage facilities when roofs collapsed under the weight of snow and ice. “We had some big deci- sions to make and we had been contemplating going to Idaho anyway,” said Owyhee Produce General Manager Shay Myers. The damage “re- ally forced the opportunity upon us.” Golden West built a refrig- erated onion storage in Idaho last year and had planned to move its onion packing oper- ation to Idaho within the next five years, said Troy Seward, CEO of sales. “The impetus (for speed- ing up the move) was when we lost our packing facility and several storages this win- ter,” he said. There are 16 onion pack- ing sheds in Idaho and 13 in Malheur County, Oregon. Several onion businesses have in the past told Capi- tal Press that Oregon’s much higher minimum wage was pushing them to seriously consider moving to Idaho. But Seward and Myers said that didn’t play a major role in their decision. “The minimum wage issue is ... definitely something we keep an eye on but it wasn’t the primary reason we moved to Idaho,” Seward said. He said Golden West is ex- periencing growth and a lack of room for expansion at their Nyssa premises is what ulti- mately drove the company’s packing operation to Idaho. Myers said Oregon’s rules and regulations are more onerous to businesses than Idaho’s and that is ultimately what drove Owyhee Produce across the river. Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association, said Or- egon has not been as friendly toward agriculture as Idaho has in the past but he’s hope- ful that could be changing somewhat. After visiting the region in February to view this win- ter’s heavy damage, Gov. Kate Brown ordered state agencies to cut through red tape as much as possible to speed the rebuilding process for onion businesses and others who suffered heavy damage, Skeen said. And a proposed bill co-sponsored by House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Port- land, who visited the area last summer at Skeen’s re- quest, would create a special economic development re- gion in Eastern Oregon with the goal of helping Oregon businesses there compete fairly with their Idaho coun- terparts. “At least they are trying to help,” Skeen said. “They ... are trying now to change this around and I am hop- ing we can keep the number of businesses moving from Oregon to Idaho to a mini- mum.” Cattle Producers of Washington President Scott Nielsen supports the president. “Let us do what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years,” Nielsen says. “I think that’s more Trump’s approach.” linate crops in California and Washington, said the EPA un- der President Barack Obama had become increasingly fo- cused on bees. “It’s a concern as to what direction Pruitt will go,” Hiatt said. “Will he make room on the agen- da for pollinators, or let it go by the wayside because it’s associated with the previous administration? “There’s potential for a lot of damage if he doesn’t get good advice,” Hiatt said. Herron, the Washington grain commissioner, said the president will have to move beyond unilateral actions. Tax reform and the next farm bill will require working with Congress, he said. “The Trump administra- tion has primarily ruled by executive order and passed very little legislation, so all of us are anxiously waiting for the coalition building, so we can pass constructive leg- islation,” Herron said. The Trump administra- tion last week released the outlines of a tax reform pro- posal. The proposal lacked key details, but the direction was to cut tax rates while eliminating deductions. Farm groups would like to see the estate tax repealed, but their members benefit from some deductions. “Tax reform makes us a little nervous,” Duvall said. Trade impact Since Trump took office, Herron has traveled to Japan, South Korea and the Philip- pines. Overseas trips to talk up the state’s wheat — its quality and dependability — are a regular part of doing business, no matter who oc- cupies the White House. But the meetings have had extra urgency with Trump in of- fice. “We’re doing a little pre- ventive damage control,” Herron said. “They’re upset. They were looking forward to TPP,” the Pacific Rim trade pact. So were many other farm groups, but not all. The Na- tional Farmers Union op- posed TPP. The organization leans liberal, but Trump’s fo- cus on trade deficits won him support within the member- ship, Johnson said. “We had a lot of members vote for this administration for that very reason,” he said. The NFU says its criti- cism of trade deals, including NAFTA, the trade pact that includes Mexico and Cana- da, is based on the position that the agreements have hurt the overall U.S. econo- my and eventually that will hurt farmers who depend on U.S. consumers. Like Trump, NFU says it’s not against trade, but against purportedly bad deals. Although Trump and NFU are on the same page on trade, Johnson said Trump’s style worries him. “He seems hard-wired to slap people before he talks nicely to them,” Johnson said. “The tactics may be very incorrect.” R-CALF’s opposition to TPP was consistent with its efforts to distinguish domes- tically raised cattle in the U.S. market. “The action on trade is monumental,” Bul- lard said. “This country had bought into the notion that free trade benefits everyone.” The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association was an avid supporter of TPP. The organi- zation hoped the agreement would increase U.S. beef sales to Japan. It worries about losing customers to Australia, which already has a trade agreement with Ja- pan. But it’s time to move on from TPP, the group’s Wood- all said. He described TPP as “dead, gone, not coming back to life.” Woodall said he was en- couraged by Trump’s meet- ings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Beef was on the menu, liter- ally, and the meeting with Xi raised hopes China will al- low in U.S. beef. “It’s hard to throw rocks at the president,” Woodall said. “This is a pres- ident who has not wasted any time whatsoever in taking action.” Farm Bureau leader Du- vall said that he would prefer Trump not reopen NAFTA. “Give us a choice, we just as soon leave it alone,” he said. Nevertheless, Duvall said that he’s not as worried about Trump’s approach to trade as he once was. “Some peo- ple want to tell me he’s an- ti-trade. He’s not anti-trade. He’s a businessman,” Duvall said. Gordon, the dairy farmer, said he sees Trump turning to more conventional posi- The farm labor shortage worsened as the Obama ad- ministration deported more than 2 million people, ac- cording to Tom Nassif, pres- ident and CEO of Western Growers, a large association of produce farmers in Cali- fornia, Arizona and Colora- do. “Parents in this coun- try simply do not raise their children to be farmworkers, which makes our industry persistently reliant on foreign labor — a workforce that has been dwindling for more than a decade,” Nassif said in an email. “We understand Pres- ident Trump was tough on illegal immigration during his campaign, but we are confident he will not target farmworkers for deportation because he understands the unique realities of agriculture and will work with Congress to craft legislation that pro- vides a pathway to legaliza- tion for current farmworkers and a workable guestworker program for future flows of labor.” Applications to bring in temporary agricultural work- ers under the H-2A visa pro- gram increased by 16 per- cent in Obama’s last year in office, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Farmworker advocate Edgar Franks said agricul- tural employers, rather than turning to temporary foreign workers, could increase the domestic labor supply by of- fering higher wages and bet- ter benefits. Growers also could help the labor supply by pushing back against Trump on im- migration, said Franks, civic engagement coordinator for Community to Community, a farmworker advocacy group in northwest Washington state. “Trump is always talking about making America great, that should include farm- workers,” Franks said. Franks said that Trump “has really put a lot of fear into the farmworker commu- nity,” but that he hasn’t seen workers staying away from farms. “They have to go to work,” he said. “If there’s an increase in deportations and detentions, I haven’t seen it.” Hiatt, the beekeeper, has nine workers pollinating fruit trees in Washington. Eight are H-2A workers. Before bringing in foreign employ- ees, Hiatt had to advertise for American workers in several states. Nobody answers those ads, he said. “Domestic workers in- terested in getting stung are few and far between,” Hiatt said. “I don’t know how (the labor shortage) can get any worse.” Without container service in Portland, ag exporters must truck products to Seattle and Tacoma EXPORTS from Page 1 However, the total freight capacity represented by smaller ships has shrunk while the share of new me- ga-vessels has grown, he said. Of the 12 carriers that service the Northwest, eight have ships small enough for Termi- nal 6 to handle. Traditional container ex- ports from the Port of Port- land mostly consisted of hay, other agricultural crops and wood products, which were generally of lower value than imports from Asia, such as furniture, shoes, apparel, tires and electronics. Effectively, exporters were dependent on vessels calling on Portland to offload import- ed products. Those ships then returned with lower-value agricultural goods, which was financially preferable than heading back across the Pacific with empty containers. This dependency on im- ports complicates the poten- tial for shipping hay and other Capital Press file photo Containers are unloaded from this a Hanjin ocean carrier ship at the Port of Portland in this Capital Press file photo. farm products by rail from the facility. Terminal 6 has an inter- modal railyard that’s only been used sporadically in the past but could be used for transloading export contain- ers from trucks onto trains, said Leavitt. Without container service in Portland, agricultural ex- porters must truck products to more distant ports in Seattle and Tacoma. Shipping agricul- tural goods to these cities by rail, on the other hand, would allow them to avoid traffic congestion. For the idea to work, though, exporters need access to empty containers. Since Portland isn’t a major consumer market, importers were less likely to use Termi- nal 6 even when ocean carriers were still calling on the facili- ty. That meant fewer contain- ers were available to exporters. The problem is now obvi- ously worse, since container shipping has halted altogether, Leavitt said.
