June 9, 2017
CapitalPress.com
9
Idaho
Subscribe to our weekly Idaho email
newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters
Farm tour set for Idaho elected officials, media
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
NAMPA, Idaho — State
lawmakers, local elected offi-
cials and leaders and members
of the media will take a day-
long tour of farm country in
southwestern Idaho Sept. 6.
The event is designed to
provide decision-makers and
the media a greater under-
standing of agriculture and its
importance to the state’s econ-
omy, said agriculture consul-
tant Roger Batt, who is helping
organize the event.
“We have a good legisla-
ture that understands agricul-
ture but there are a lot of new
folks, too, and we’re hoping to
get them and some of the other
new folks in the community ...
to learn more about what we
do,” he said.
The Nampa-Caldwell Agri-
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
A hay field near Kuna, Idaho, is cut on May 26. Members of the
media and state elected officials will take a day-long tour of farm
country in southwestern Idaho on Sept. 6.
business Committee, a sub-
committee of the Nampa and
Caldwell chambers of com-
merce, is organizing the tour.
The committee has held
farm tours in the past but this
will be the first event where
elected officials and media
members are together.
Sen. Jim Rice, R-Caldwell,
chairman of the Senate Agri-
cultural Affairs Committee,
joined one of the committee’s
farm tours several years ago.
“I personally found the last
tour very valuable,” he said.
“It gave us a lot better picture
of some of the things agricul-
ture does and how it operates.”
Rice said the tour is a
great way to provide people a
ground-level view of agricul-
ture. He said lawmakers get a
lot of raw numbers regarding
the farming industry’s impor-
tance to the state during com-
mittee meetings.
“Raw numbers don’t
mean a lot to people,” he
said. “There’s a reality to the
amount of work that needs
to be done to (produce those
crops) that you can’t get in a
hearing room. You need to see
it.”
Many elected officials and
media members didn’t grow
up around agriculture and sim-
ply don’t understand it, Rice
said.
“They don’t know what
they don’t know,” he said.
“This kind of tour helps give
them some of the knowledge
they need to make sound pol-
icy or report accurately on ag-
riculture.”
The bus tour will take par-
ticipants to hop production and
distribution facilities, a vine-
yard and winery, fruit ranch
and seed company.
A stop will also be made
at J.R. Simplot Co.’s potato
processing facility in Cald-
well, as well as Lake Lowell,
a man-made reservoir, where
participants will learn about
irrigation delivery and some
of the major water issues fac-
ing the valley.
Between stops, partici-
pants will watch short vid-
eo presentations about the
mint, seed and dairy sectors,
and farm experts will be on
hand to point out some of the
more than 100 different crops
grown in the region.
It will be a chance to edu-
cate them about Idaho’s farm-
ing industry for some partic-
ipants, while for others who
have a decent understanding
of agriculture, “it will be more
of a refresher,” said Brett Tol-
mie, the agribusiness commit-
tee chairman.
Former legislator Darrell
Bolz, a committee member,
said the tours are informative
even for people who under-
stand and work in agriculture.
“You always learn some-
thing,” said Bolz, who
worked as a University of
Idaho county extension agent
for 30 years.
Cattle industry OK with proposed Craters grazing plan
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Courtesy of Intrinsic Organics
SunSpuds, a sunflower and Jerusalem artichoke hybrid, will be used
to make inulin at a new $60 million facility in Weiser, Idaho. The uses
for inulin include texture maintenance, mouth feel, bulking, low-cal-
orie sweetening, fat replacement and dietary fiber enhancement,
according to Intrinsic Organics, which is building the plant.
Weiser facility will bring a
new organic crop to Idaho
WEISER, Idaho — A new
processing facility near Weis-
er will introduce a hybrid or-
ganic crop to Idaho.
Intrinsic Organics an-
nounced its $60 million fa-
cility will use a hybrid tuber
called a SunSpud to produce
inulin, which is used as a
healthy food ingredient, in-
cluding as a fat or sugar re-
placement.
“This is a great opportuni-
ty for our organic farmers to
have another crop they can
fit into their rotations,” said
Kit Kamo, executive director
of the Snake River Econom-
ic Development Alliance,
which recruited the company
to Washington County.
Field trials show that Sun-
Spuds, a Jerusalem artichoke
and sun flower hybrid, will
fit well into organic rotations
common in this region, said
Devin Limb, Intrinsic Organ-
ics’ vice president of market-
ing.
“The (crop) is very well
suited to be grown organical-
ly in Idaho,” he said. “It fits
fantastically with the crops
grown organically in the re-
gion.”
Intrinsic officials expect
to have the facility built this
fall and it will initially pro-
duce 1.2 million pounds of
inulin. If that demonstration
plant is successful, the facil-
ity will expand and ramp up
to 5 million pounds in a few
years, Limb said.
The number of farmers
who grow SunSpuds will
increase significantly as the
facility increases production,
he said.
According to the com-
pany’s website — www.in-
trinsicorganics.com — total
acres grown for the facility
are expected to reach 433 by
2020 and 867 by 2021.
The facility is a scaled-
down version of a previous
project announced last year
that would have used barley
as well as SunSpuds to pro-
duce a variety of food ingre-
dients, organic fertilizer and
alcohol.
Limb said the U.S. im-
ports about 50 million
pounds of inulin annually,
mostly from Europe and Chi-
na. Intrinsic Organics will be
the first company to domes-
tically produce organic inu-
lin from crops grown in the
U.S., he said.
According to the compa-
ny’s website, the food indus-
try currently purchases inulin
made from chicory root that
is not grown organically.
“Intrinsic Organics now
strives to become the best
supplier of custom, high-qual-
ity organic inulin to satisfy
the demands of the U.S. and
world market for healthier
food ingredients,” the website
states.
A groundbreaking ceremo-
ny for the facility will be held
June 6. Intrinsic CEO Sot
Chimonas said the company
anticipates hiring 20 people
during the facility’s first year
of operation.
The facility was approved
to receive an Idaho Tax Re-
imbursement Incentive Credit
on May 25. The tax credit of
18 percent for six years will
benefit Intrinsic to the tune of
$1.25 million if the company
meets all the incentive mea-
surements it agreed to.
According to an Idaho De-
partment of Commerce sum-
mary of the incentive agree-
ment, the company will make
a $60 million capital invest-
ment in the facility.
Limb said any farmers in-
terested in growing SunSpuds
can contact the company by
email at info@intrinsicorgan-
ics.com
monument. AUMs refer to
the amount of forage needed
to support a cow-calf pair for
a month. The plan would also
require “monument values” be
met when allotments are re-
newed — addressing cultural
and geological resources, sage
grouse habitat and the preser-
vation of islands of vegetation
within lava flows called kapu-
kas. For example, salt licks,
troughs and other range devel-
opments wouldn’t be allowed
near edges of lava flows, for the
protection of cultural resourc-
es, explained Holly Crawford,
BLM monument manager.
BLM also analyzed alter-
natives that would eliminate
grazing, reduce grazing densi-
ty by three-quarters and cut it
in half.
Crawford said grazing isn’t
allowed within the original
53,000 acres of the monument
proclaimed in 1924. The mon-
ument was expanded under
President Bill Clinton in 2000,
adding the BLM portion and a
400,000-acre preserve, where
grazing is also restricted.
Crawford said BLM initial-
ly sought to make no changes
to grazing in the management
plan, signed in 2006, governing
the new monument additions,
but Winmill agreed with West-
ern Watersheds in 2011 that
the failure to conduct a grazing
analysis violated federal poli-
cy. In addition to ordering the
grazing amendment, Winmill
also required BLM to update its
management plans to address
threats to sage grouse. A sage
grouse plan has already been
completed at Craters, imposing
limitations on off-road travel,
direction on habitat rehabilita-
tion and other requirements.
NEW ITEMS!
1 1 ⁄ 2 QT. BASKETS
and (3) PINT TRAYS
503-588-8313
2561 Pringle Rd. SE
Salem, OR
Call for Pricing.
Subject to stock on hand.
Delivery Available
23-1/#7
Capital Press
Tetona Dunlap/The Times-News via AP, File
In this 2012 photo, people hike the North Crater Flow Trail at Craters of the Moon National Monument
near Arco, Idaho. Federal officials have released a cattle grazing plan for central Idaho’s Craters of the
Moon National Monument and Preserve.
ROP-40-42-4/#17
By SEAN ELLIS
Idaho Cattle Association
President Jerald Raymond
believes the Bureau of Land
Management did a reasonable
job in drafting its preferred plan
to govern grazing of roughly
275,000 acres within Craters of
the Moon National Monument
and Preserve.
Grazing opponents such as
the Hailey, Idaho-based con-
servation group Western Water-
sheds Project, however, vow to
formally challenge the plan, ar-
guing it doesn’t adequately pro-
tect the environment and native
sage grouse within the federal-
ly protected ancient lava flows.
As directed by Chief U.S.
District Judge Lynn Winmill
in response to a Western Wa-
tersheds lawsuit, BLM recent-
ly issued proposals to amend
its management plan to cover
grazing, slightly reducing the
overall grazing density and
adding new restrictions on al-
lotment permits in its preferred
alternative. The BLM hopes to
address Western Watersheds’
concerns and issue a final deci-
sion by the end of July.
“We actually think it’s a
pretty good plan they put forth
as far as the preferred alterna-
tive,” Raymond said, adding
that his organization hasn’t
formally discussed the plan in
a meeting.
Raymond said his associa-
tion would have preferred an
expansion of grazing, believ-
ing preventing wildfires by
turning cattle loose on over-
growth is the best way to pro-
tect sage grouse.
“We feel like there needs to
be some flexibility and mea-
suring of the resource to see
what it will handle,” Raymond
said.
The agency’s preferred al-
ternative would cut 350 of the
37,000 animal unit months
permitted for grazing in the
BLM-managed portion of the
23-4/#18