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.