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