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May 19, 2017 CapitalPress.com 3 Second round of Oregon wolf plan review happens in Portland By ERIC MORTENSON Capital Press By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press Convinced U.S. agricul- ture is in the midst of a cri- sis, the National Farmers Union is planning a recruit- ing drive to establish new farm advocates trained to help struggling farmers cope with stress and keep their businesses afloat. The concept dates back to the farming crisis of the early 1980s, when farmers throughout the country start- ed a grassroots movement to aid their overwhelmed peers. Advocates educated other farmers about their le- gal rights, helped them keep their land in the face of fore- closure and sought to ad- dress such issues as suicide in rural America. “We’re getting a lot of calls from our members tell- ing us that they are going through a tough time, or that folks they know are going through a tough time,” said NFU spokesman Andrew Jerome, adding the crisis is most acute in the major grain-producing states. “We think the crisis is here and that things are due to get worse.” NFU has also created a Farm Crisis Center web- site — farmcrisis.nfu.org — linking to resources to help farmers, such as Farm Aid, Farmers Legal Action Group, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and debt mediation resources. NFU is accepting testimonials on the site about farmers’ strug- gles to share with lawmak- ers, and has distributed fact sheets to its roughly 200,000 farming family members to help them make the case to Congress that agriculture needs additional federal sup- port, Jerome said. According to statistics cited on the Crisis Center site, U.S. farmers and ranch- ers have lost half of their net farm income since 2013, and net farm income is forecast to decline by 8.7 percent this year, marking the fourth consecutive year of declines. A Kansas City Federal Reserve report shows a 40 Capital Press customers warned of phishing scheme The Capital Press has re- ceived reports of customers re- ceiving fraudulent emails with past-due invoices attached pur- porting to have been sent by the paper. The fraudulent emails come from Stephanie Georgary with an email address of sraften@ capitalpress.com. There is no such person working at the Cap- ital Press and the email address is not valid. The emails appear to be part of a phishing scheme designed to glean information from the computers of targeted cus- tomers, Joe Beach, editor and publisher of the Capital Press, said. Customers receiving these emails should delete them, and should not click on the attached invoice. The Capital Press does send invoices by email, but only to customers who have requested electronic delivery. If any advertiser or sub- scriber has a question about any email they receive allegedly coming from the Capital Press, Beach said, they should call the paper at 1-800-882-6789. percent decrease in farm lending from a year ago, and farm debt is forecast to increase by 5.2 percent in 2017, while the value of farm assets is expected to decrease by 1.1 percent. Jerome said some of the organizations that aided in the original farm advocate movement have been invit- ed to a meeting with NFU to discuss details on training a new crop of advocates. Northwest Farmers Union President Kent Wright, a rancher from St. John, Wash., believes pro- ducers within his region ha- ven’t struggled as much as those in the Great Plains due to the diversification of their production. But he plans to discuss the new crisis pro- grams with members — not- ing some who specialize in specific commodities, such as wheat, are hurting. Wright said his region has been pushing for the formation of new farmer cooperatives to find strength in numbers. “Our beginning farmers and ranchers, they’re weath- ering their first storms,” Wright said. NFU’s push coincides with the May 18 debut of Farm Aid’s documentary about the original farm ad- vocate movement, called “Homeplace Under Fire.” Farm Aid spokeswoman Jennifer Fahy said her orga- nization wanted to preserve the stories of aging advo- cates who have continued to help their colleagues. One advocate in the film said the support was often as simple as hearing of a struggling neighbor and going to have a cup of coffee with him. “We’ve been lamenting there are not new people coming into this field to sup- port farmers,” Fahy said. Fahy said Farm Aid no- ticed a 27 percent increase in calls to its hotline during the first three months of 2017, in- cluding a 37 percent increase in calls from farmers con- cerned about bankruptcy and a 50 percent increase in calls from farmers with concerns about Farm Service Agency loans. The most valuable and respected source of local news, advertising and information for our communities. eomediagroup.com Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf program leader, has described wolves’ population growth and geographic spread as a biolog- ical success story. Livestock producers and other rural residents question that thinking, while urban en- vironmentalists generally fa- vor the return of wolves to the state’s landscape. The management plan is where those differences get argued. Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Cattlemen’s Asso- ciation said the draft plan makes it harder for ranchers to protect their animals be- cause it increases the num- ber of confirmed attacks required before allowing Beehive privacy? 9th Circuit debates ‘ag gag’ law By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Analysis Debates over Idaho’s so- called “ag gag” law, which criminalized secret audiovi- sual recordings of farm op- erations, often center on the livestock industry. It was an undercover vid- eo of cattle abuse at an Idaho dairy, after all, that inspired state lawmakers to pass the statute in 2014. During oral arguments on May 12 about the law’s con- stitutionality before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, Judge Mary Mar- garet McKeown approached the matter from an angle that didn’t involve dairy cows. “It could apply to beekeep- ing too, right? So does a bee- hive have a privacy interest?” McKeown asked Idaho’s deputy attorney general, Carl Withroe. Withroe acknowledged that beehives would be cov- ered by the statute but said they probably lack the right to personal privacy. However, the farmer does have the right to control who enters his property and to exclude those who want to record its operations without permission, he said. The judge seemed to think that argument was beside the point. “But that’s trespass, not privacy, that you’re talking about,” she said, later adding that “corporations don’t have a privacy interest.” McKeown’s observation that “it keeps coming down to trespass” could be prob- lematic for Idaho’s defense of the law, which was struck down nearly two years ago by a federal judge who found it violated free speech rights. Trespass is already prohib- ited by Idaho law in the legit- imate interest of protecting private property, while other statutes aim to protect people from defamation, theft and fraud, according to the Ani- Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press File Dairy cows rest at Si-Ellen Family Dairy in Jerome, Idaho. Judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are weighing the constitutionality of an Idaho law criminalizing secret record- ings of farms. mal Legal Defense Fund. ALDF claims the real goal of the “ag gag” law, on the other hand, is the illegit- imate purpose of suppressing speech that casts a negative light on the farm industry. As for privacy rights, the law’s opponents argue that farms are effectively “indus- trial facilities” that don’t have the same expectations of pri- vacy as people. Idaho’s lawyers counter that the law simply requires people to obtain a farmer’s permission to enter his prop- erty and film operations with- out misrepresenting who they are. The statute regulates the ability to use a tool, such as a camera, on private property, rather than restricting “ex- pressive conduct,” according to Idaho. “There is no First Amend- ment right to make those re- cordings in the first place,” said Withroe. Since the law simply re- stricts the ability to record on private property, without dis- tinguishing between favorable and unfavorable coverage, the regulation is impartial regard- law that prohibit using misrep- resentation to gain access to records, obtain employment or economically harm the farm. At one point, Judge Richard Tallman wondered whether ALDF could live with a narrower injunction against the Idaho law than the current order entirely blocking its enforcement. “The misrepresentation is basically for the purpose of surreptitiously obtain- ing the record. It doesn’t have anything to do with speech about the produc- tion facility’s operation, does it?” Marceau responded that such misrepresentation is within the scope of free speech protections provid- ed by the First Amendment, similar to misleading politi- cal statements. ing content and thus doesn’t violate free speech rights, he said. Judge Carlos Bea seemed skeptical of this argument, noting that people who vio- late the statute must pay the farmer double the amount of losses caused by the crime in restitution — a requirement that’s unlikely to be triggered by a positive portrayal. “It isn’t viewpoint-neutral. It’s directed to the operations only, and only to pejorative reports of the operations,” Bea said. Though Idaho’s legal theo- ry was subject to much of the tough questioning by the three 9th Circuit judges, they also pushed back against some ar- guments by ALDF’s attorney, Justin Marceau. Specifically, the judges in- quired about provisions of the NEW ITEMS! 1 1 ⁄ 2 QT. 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Department biologists say the draft management plan builds on what they’ve learned over the years. Oregon had no documented wolves when the first plan was adopted in 2005; the state now has a minimum of 112 wolves, including 11 packs and eight breeding pairs. lethal control of wolves. The draft plan requires three confirmed depredations or one confirmed and four “probable” attacks within a 12- month period. The previous standard was two confirmed depredations or one confirmed and three attempted attacks, with no time period set. The groups also believe ODFW should continue col- laring wolves, and should set a population cap for wolves in Oregon. Groups such as Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands find fault with the plan as well. They believe Oregon took wolves off the state endan- gered species list prematurely. 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