May 12, 2017
CapitalPress.com
3
Friends, foes of national monuments
jockey for Interior secretary’s ear
By MICHELLE L. PRICE
Associated Press
MONTICELLO,
Utah
(AP) — Fifth-generation Utah
rancher Bruce Adams enjoyed
a prime seat next to U.S. In-
terior Secretary Ryan Zinke
as he toured a national mon-
ument created on land in Utah
that Adams’ ancestors helped
settle in 1879.
Adams, a county commis-
sioner, joined Zinke on a he-
licopter ride and described the
landscape of Bears Ears Na-
tional Monument — one of 27
such sites that President Don-
ald Trump has ordered Zinke
to review to determine if they
were properly established as
monuments.
Adams, who opposes a
monument in the area, said
Tuesday he gave Zinke a cow-
boy hat bearing the phrase
“Make San Juan County
Great Again” and told him the
monument designation could
hurt residents’ ability to earn
a living from livestock and
agriculture.
Adams was one of many
opponents and supporters of
Bears Ears who jockeyed for
position with Zinke on his
four-day visit to Utah. Some
Native Americans and envi-
ronmental groups worried that
Zinke listened much more to
opponents.
Zinke met for an hour on
Sunday with a coalition of
tribal leaders who had spent
years campaigning for the
Francisco Kjolseth/Associated Press
U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan
Zinke visits the historic Dugout
Ranch along Indian Creek near
Monticello, Utah. It is operated
by Heidi Redd, right, under a con-
servation easement with the Na-
ture Conservancy. Zinke toured
two monuments in Utah this
week as part of a review ordered
by President Donald Trump of 27
monuments to determine if they
were properly designated.
monument on sacred tribal
land that’s home to ancient
cliff dwellings and other ar-
chaeological sites.
In Bears Ears on Monday,
one woman wearing a T-shirt
supportive of the monument
asked Zinke why he only met
with tribal leaders for such a
short time.
Zinke, who was shaking
another supporter’s hand,
turned to face the woman and
said: “Be nice.”
He also spent time in
closed-door meetings Sun-
day and Monday with Utah’s
Republican elected officials,
including Gov. Gary Herbert,
who has called for the repeal
of the monument designation.
Some later accompanied
him on the helicopter ride and
a short hike in the monument
to look at cliff dwellings — as
media and Bears Ears support-
ers were kept at a distance.
State and federal officials
said the hike was a private
meeting.
In Blanding, with a popula-
tion of 3,400 people, banners
around town said “#Rescind-
BearsEars.” In Monticello,
20 miles north, large yellow
stickers in the shape of a bear
with the words “no monu-
ment” could be seen on the
windows of pickup trucks.
Zinke on Tuesday visited
a conservation area and ranch
in the monument. The Mon-
tana Republican later told re-
porters he hasn’t made up his
mind about whether the 1.3
million-acre area should re-
main a monument.
However, he did point out
that despite the contentious
debate in Utah, all sides agree
that at least some of the land
needs protection.
“I think there’s a solution
out there,” said Zinke, who
has until June 10 to recom-
mend that Trump rescind the
monument, shrink its borders,
enlarge it, or leave it as is.
Conservation groups wor-
ry that Zinke’s review jeop-
ardizes protections for mon-
uments around the country.
Environmental groups have
threatened lawsuits.
On Wednesday, Zinke was
to head west and visit Grand
Staircase-Escalante National
Monument. Created in 1996,
it’s the oldest monument
on the list of those to be re-
viewed.
Zinke said multiple times
that he wants to hear differ-
ent points of view. He said
Tuesday he has concluded
that Bears Ears is becoming a
bigger attraction and the gov-
ernment must have a plan to
manage visitors and protect
archaeological sites.
Heidi Redd, who has been
ranching 50 years on land
now within the monument,
said she thinks the monument
could be smaller but noted
that it doesn’t restrict her cat-
tle grazing.
Redd
showed
Zinke
around her ranch and said she
worries whether the govern-
ment will build infrastructure
such as bathrooms and install
railings around cultural sites
to make sure visitors don’t
trample the area.
“I would rather we not
have a monument if you are
not going to fund to protect it.
And now the genie is out of
the bottle,” Redd said. “There
is no way people aren’t com-
ing now.”
Wheat growers follow U.S. food aid to Africa
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Leonard Schock has gone
on a lot of overseas trips with
U.S. Wheat Associates. But
the Vida, Mont., wheat farmer
said his recent trip to Tanzania
has stayed with him.
“Every day, I’ve thought
about Africa,” he said. “That
situation creeps into my head.
Not a day has gone by where
I haven’t thought about its
problems and how can we
help them get better?”
Schock and other U.S.
wheat farmers were part of a
March study group that went
to Tanzania to study how U.S.
wheat is “monetized” to pro-
vide non-governmental orga-
nizations, or NGOs, with cash
for development projects.
U.S. Wheat has support-
ed U.S. food aid for 50 to 60
years, but members wanted
to see in person how the pro-
gram works and why it mat-
ters, said Elizabeth Westen-
dorf, a policy specialist at the
organization.
Schock said he wanted to
“follow the trail of the wheat”
used in overseas programs.
Under a monetization pro-
gram, USDA selects a coun-
try. The federal Commodity
Credit Corp. buys U.S. wheat
on the market at commercial
prices and gives the wheat to
Elizabeth Westendorf/U.S. Wheat Associates
Benjamin Mtaki, USDA agricultural specialist in Tanzania, and Mike
Schulte, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission
and chairman of U.S. Wheat’s Food Aid Working Group, hold up a
flour bag from Hill Feeds’ production line. The company is a bene-
ficiary of the Small Enterprise Assistance Fund Food for Progress
project, which provides loans to small and medium agricultural
enterprises.
the NGOs. They in turn work
with a local miller, which
buys the wheat from them.
The final sales are not al-
ways at U.S. market prices,
because the wheat is compet-
ing with cheaper grain from
the Black Sea region and Rus-
sia, Westendorf said.
Proceeds from the sales go
to the NGOs to fund agricul-
tural development projects for
farmers and agribusinesses
through micro-banks.
“We’re not talking about
a lot of money, but the banks
in Tanzania will not loan to
agriculture because it’s con-
sidered too risky,” said Scott
Yates, director of communica-
tions and producer relations at
the Washington Grain Com-
mission.
The average micro-loan
270” is @30.33
to a farmer
about $200 thru
but
can be as much as $900 — a
year’s earnings for a typical
Tanzanian.
Food aid is the fifth-most
important market destina-
tion for the soft white wheat
grown in the Pacific North-
west. The top markets are the
Philippines, South Korea, Ja-
pan and Indonesia, Yates said.
In the current marketing
year, which ends May 31,
160,000 metric tons of soft
white wheat went to Yemen
and 86,000 metric tons went
to Bangladesh. The Bangla-
desh wheat was monetized
and is funding NGO projects,
Yates said.
Westendorf said countries
receiving food aid aren’t like-
ly to develop into competitors
for U.S. wheat. Most grow
some wheat, but it doesn’t do
well in tropical climates.
Purchasing
monetized
wheat also allowed the Tanza-
nian mill to reduce its prices
for flour.
Schock, the Montana
farmer, believes a food aid
country today could eventual-
ly become a significant mar-
ket for U.S. wheat.
The Philippines, Japan and
South Korea all started out as
food aid recipients, Yates said.
Capital Press File
Researchers say they have made a discovery that will allow wheat
and barley breeders to develop new varieties more quickly.
Researchers report
potentially significant
wheat breeding advance
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
MOSCOW, Idaho — A
new crop breeding advance
could significantly speed up
the process for developing
better wheat and barley vari-
eties.
University of Idaho wheat
geneticist Daolin Fu, who
joined UI’s College of Agri-
cultural and Life Sciences last
year, led a team of Chinese
researchers that made the dis-
covery. It was first reported
in the April 28 edition of the
journal Nature Communica-
tions.
The Idaho Wheat Com-
mission uses grower checkoff
dollars to help fund Fu’s posi-
tion, and board members were
excited both by the discovery
and the fact that Fu is on their
team.
“I think it could be monu-
mental,” North Idaho grower
and IWC member Bill Flory
said of the discovery. “We are
watching this with great an-
ticipation.”
According to a UI news
release, Fu led the team while
a researcher at China’s State
Key Laboratory of Crop Biol-
ogy at Shandong Agricultural
University in Taian.
The report by the team
described how the so-called
“Ms2” wheat gene yields a
protein that produces male
sterility in grass species and
the team identified the lo-
cation of the gene. Creating
sterile male breeding lines
can simplify the development
of hybrid wheat varieties, ac-
cording to the report.
“Male sterility is a valu-
able trait for plant breeding
and hybrid seed production,”
the report states. “The cloned
Ms2 could be used to improve
global food security by facili-
tating breakthroughs in plant
breeding and hybrid seed pro-
duction.”
According to the UI news
release, the discovery could
speed up a plant breeding
method known as recurrent
selection by several years.
Cathy Wilson, the IWC’s
director of research collab-
oration, said one of the most
significant aspects of the dis-
covery is the team found out
exactly how the Ms2 gene
makes a male plant sterile,
and they cloned it.
“Once you’ve cloned the
gene ... you can put that in any
line that you want,” which
could provide a 15-20 percent
yield increase, she said.
“It’s still at the very be-
ginning of the process but it’s
potentially a big discovery,”
Wilson said.
Idaho Grain Producers
Association President Joe An-
derson said one of the most
promising aspects of the dis-
covery is it could provide a
tool to help breeders speed
up the process of developing
new and better varieties.
“It’s a significant piece
of science that isn’t going to
go directly to the farm, but it
provides a tool that is likely
going to be very beneficial
in helping develop traits that
lead to better varieties in the
future,” he said.
Besides helping fund Fu’s
position, grower checkoff
dollars also help fund some
of the equipment he uses,
said IWC Executive Director
Blaine Jacobson.
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