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RECORD CROP POSSIBLE FOR PACIFIC NORTHWEST CHERRIES FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2017 VOLUME 90, NUMBER 21 LABOR Page 5 WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM $2.00 Finding enough workers worries growers, packers SHORTAGES Dan Wheat/Capital Press Benjamin Lugo ties pieces of refl ective fabric together as Fernando Licona pulls it down a row of trees using an ATV at Lyall Orchards near Mattawa, Wash. The fabric helps ripen fruit. They are year-round workers but owner Charles Lyall says he’s concerned about having enough pickers for the upcoming harvests. ‘What we have is a relatively fi xed pool of laborers, and a growing need’ By DAN WHEAT ICE deportations from the U.S. Capital Press Convicted criminal I Tim Hearden/Capital Press Workers place bagged spinach into boxes for shipping at the Ocean Mist Farms processing facility in Castroville, Calif., in February. A shortage of seasonal agricultural workers in California is reportedly more severe this year. t’s three weeks before the start of harvest and the Chelan Fruit Cooperative is short hundreds of workers needed to pack this year’s cherry crop. General Manager Reggie Collins worries about whether some of the crop will have to go unpicked in June and July. “Last year, we were scared to death and we were able to get barely enough for our packing lines with high school kids. This year it looks shorter,” Collins said from the co-op’s offi ces in Chelan, Wash. “Three weeks before cherry season last year, we had 241 new applications beyond our regular staff. This year we have 40,” he said. “We’re probably 400 short right now and we will start packing on the 10th or 12th of June.” Some 840 miles to the south, Scott Brown, production manager of Morada Produce in Linden, Calif., says the largest cherry crop in years has labor stretched so thin that companies Non-criminal immigration violator (Thousands of individuals, for fiscal years 2008-16) 369.2 31% 389.8 35% 392.9 396.9 409.8 50% 55% 55% 240,255: Up 2.1% from 2015 368.6 315.9 59% 56% 69% 59% 58% 41% 42% 65% 50% 2008 235.4 45% 45% ’10 ’12 Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Dept. of Homeland Security 41% 44% ’14 2016 Alan Kenaga/Capital Press Turn to LABOR, Page 12 Westland backs out of potentially lucrative Central Project Lawsuit fi led by patrons continues in state court By GEORGE PLAVEN EO Media Group ECHO, Ore. — The Westland Ir- rigation District is abandoning years of work to secure additional water from the Columbia River in order to defend a lawsuit fi led by patrons alleging “massive misappropriation” of senior water rights. Farmers reacted with surprise and disappointment Monday during a special district board meeting, where members voted unanimously to back out of the Central Project — one of three proposals to pump mitigated Columbia River irrigation water in Umatilla and Morrow counties. Unlike the neighboring Stanfi eld and Hermiston irrigation districts, Westland does not have the ability to switch over to Columbia River water when fl ows from the Umatilla River drop below a certain point in The Northeast Oregon Water Associ- ation is trying to develop water trans- portation infrastructure that could one day deliver water to irrigation equipment like this on a farm just outside Hermiston. EO Media Group fi le photo the summer. That means the district depends entirely on Mother Nature, as well as stored water in McKay Reservoir. Riding the momentum of a re- gional effort led by the North- east Oregon Water Association, or NOWA, Westland had sought to tap into the Columbia and guarantee a full irrigation season for producers. It even appeared the district was on the verge of a deal, holding weekly meetings with patrons to iron out legal and logistical details moving forward. Instead, the Central Project fell apart over a lawsuit accusing West- land of systematically cheating small farmers out of their senior water rights for the benefi t of a few larger Turn to WESTLAND, Page 12 Azure Farms ‘on the right track’ but faces challenges By ERIC MORTENSON Capital Press David Stelzer, CEO of Azure Standard. Azure Farms, the Sherman County, Ore., organic opera- tion, faces a diffi cult and po- tentially expensive task to con- trol the weeds that neighboring wheat farmers are complaining about. Judit Barroso, a weed scien- tist at Oregon State University’s Columbia Basin Research and Extension Station in Pendle- ton, said she and other OSU experts are willing to help solve the problem that has simmered for years and boiled over this spring into a massive social media campaign that targeted county offi cials and a confron- tational community meeting. Barroso said the perennial weeds growing at Azure Farms are diffi cult to control, and it will take more than a single application or action to do the job. Because Azure Farms is organic, it would lose certifi ca- tion for three years if it attacks its weeds with the herbicides used by conventional farms in the area. Some local farmers believe the weed problem is so bad that Azure should spray, take its lumps with decertifi ca- tion and start organic farming again with clean fi elds in three years. Dan Arp, dean of the Col- lege of Agricultural Scienc- es at OSU, said weed sci- entist Barroso will provide “evidence-based information with regard to what may or may not work” to control the weeds. The help could include infor- mation on treatment methods and weed seed transmission, he said. Turn to WEEDS, Page 12
