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CapitalPress.com
June 16, 2017
Chelan Fresh to market for Columbia Valley
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Don Jenkins/Capital Press File
Ramon Torres, president of the
union Familias Unidas por la
Justicia, speaks at a workers’
forum Feb. 27 in Olympia. The
union has reached a tenta-
tive contract agreement with
Sakuma Brothers Farms in
northwest Washington.
Washington
berry farm
reaches deal
with union
By DON JENKINS
CHELAN, Wash. — Chel-
an Fresh Marketing has added
another company to the list of
companies for which it markets
fruit.
Columbia Valley Fruit, of
Union Gap, will start selling
its organic and conventional
apples through Chelan Fresh
on Sept. 1, the companies an-
nounced June 13.
It comes a month after Chel-
an Fresh, of Chelan, and Borton
Fruit, of Yakima, announced a
similar agreement, also starting
Sept. 1.
“This deal completes what
we’re after with organic and
completes our varietal mix with
conventional and organic,”
Tom Riggan, president of Chel-
an Fresh, said of the Columbia
Courtesy Columbia Valley Fruit
From left are Columbia Valley Fruit’s partners Orlin Knutson, Tom
Tudor, Bill Monson, Mark Tudor and Chris Vizena.
Valley Fruit deal.
“Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith
and Honeycrisp are their main
organics, which are high-de-
mand varieties. We need more
of those,” Riggan said.
Chelan Fresh has retail cus-
tomers wanting more of those
varieties than it can supply, he
said.
No other agreements are im-
minent, but Chelan Fresh is not
ruling out more in the future,
Riggan said. “We will continue
to grow according to our cus-
tomer needs,” he said.
“Our growers are our top
priority, whether it be providing
support and guidance to pro-
duce great quality fruit or mak-
ing strategic moves to assure
top returns for their efforts,”
said Orlin Knutson, partner and
spokesman for Columbia Val-
ley Fruit.
He said he’s confident
the market access achieved
through the deal will provide
Columbia’s growers with “ex-
citing economic opportunities
well into the future.”
Columbia has been market-
ing with Oneonta Starr Ranch
Growers, in Wenatchee, and
will continue to sell its organic
cherries and stone fruit through
Oneonta this season before
switching that to Chelan Fresh
next season, Riggan said.
Knutson has been growing
tree fruit in the Mattawa area
for more than 30 years. He first
received organic certification in
1988.
He will continue operating
Columbia Valley Fruit as an
independent grower and pack-
er with partners Mark and Tom
Tudor, Chris Vizena and Bill
Monson.
Established in 2004, Chelan
Fresh is the marketing compa-
ny for Chelan Fruit Coopera-
tive; Gebbers Farms, Brewster;
Crane & Crane, Brewster; Ap-
ple House, Pateros; and now
Borton Fruit and Columbia
Valley Fruit.
Columbia does not want to
disclose its fruit volumes, Rig-
gan said.
Chelan Fresh was market-
ing about 18 million boxes
of fruit annually and with the
Borton deal will market about
25 million boxes, making it
one of the largest marketers
in the state. With the Borton
deal, it’s one of the largest
providers of Honeycrisp.
Capital Press
John O’Connell/Capital Press File
Wheat is harvested in Eastern Idaho in late July in this file photo.
The Idaho Wheat Commission has warned the University of Idaho
it could pull its research funding if royalties from wheat varieties
developed by the university aren’t put back into the breeding
program.
Idaho Wheat Commission takes
firm stance on royalty split issue
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Sean Ellis/Capital Press File
Hops are strung for processing last September in southwestern Idaho. Idaho remains the No. 3 hop
producer in the U.S., behind Washington state and Oregon, according to a new National Agricultural
Statistics Service report.
Northwest hop acreage
increases by 6 percent
MOXEE, Wash. — Wash-
ington, Oregon and Idaho are
forecast to set another record
in hop acreage, but it might
be the last in a while because
hop inventory reports have
indicated supply is catching
demand.
Hop area strung for harvest
in the three states this year is
estimated at 54,135 acres, 6
percent more than the 2016
crop of 50,857 acres, accord-
ing to USDA’s National Agri-
cultural Statistics Service.
With 38,921 acres, Wash-
ington accounts for 72 percent
of the U.S. acreage. Oregon,
with 8,045 acres, is 15 percent
of the acreage, and Idaho,
with 7,169, is 13 percent of
the estimate, NASS said.
Idaho had the largest in-
crease, at 27 percent, and
growers there had been think-
ing they might overtake Ore-
gon this year.
Cascade, Centennial, Ci-
tra, Simcoe and Zeus are the
top five hop varieties strung.
In March, U.S. hop
stocks were up over the pre-
vious March for the second
straight year. Growers, deal-
ers and brewers had 140 mil-
lion pounds on hand March
1 compared to 128 million
pounds a year earlier.
That showed the line had
been crossed from undersup-
ply to oversupply, industry
sources said.
Ann George, executive
director of Hop Growers of
America and the Washington
Hop Commission in Moxee,
said some varieties will have
substantial carryover while a
few specialty varieties may
remain undersupplied.
For years the expan-
sion of small, craft brewer-
ies has fueled the need for
more aroma hop varieties.
Not only has acreage caught
up with their needs but big
brewers are losing market
share worldwide because
of increased competition
from other beverages, she
said.
Prices will remain strong
in 2017 but will start to drop
in 2018 and probably more
dramatically in 2019, Pete
Mahony, director of supply
chain management and pur-
chasing for John I. Haas, a
major processor and grower
in Yakima, has said.
Acreage increased 17 per-
cent last year, he said.
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Nelson told IWC mem-
bers he was speaking to them
as a representative of UI’s
administration and he said,
“That is a process the univer-
sity is already engaged in and
committed to. We are serious
about this.”
IWC Commissioner Ned
Moon told Capital Press that
royalties from UI’s public
wheat varieties haven’t been
an issue until recently be-
cause there traditionally have
been no royalties involved
with them.
But royalties are now
in play because of a pub-
lic-private partnership be-
tween the IWC, university
and Limagrain Cereal Seeds
reached in 2012.
IWC Executive Director
Blaine Jacobson pointed out
that the IWC provides more
money — about $1.25 million
annually — to UI for agricul-
tural research than any farm
commission in Idaho.
Jacobson said the commis-
sion is starting to get push-
back from growers who feel
they are being double-taxed.
“The growers already paid
for variety development,”
he said. “Then when those
varieties generate royalties,
the expectation is that those
royalties go back into the pro-
gram. There really is no justi-
fication for that money to go
anywhere else.”
Under UI’s current royalty
distribution formula, 20 per-
cent goes to the college to dis-
tribute as it wants, 40 percent
goes to the university’s office
of technology and 40 percent
goes to the inventors to do as
they wish with it.
IWC officials want at least
60 percent to go back into the
wheat breeding program.
Commissioners said their
hard stance on the issue
wasn’t a reflection of how
they feel about UI leadership
— they made it clear they
support it — but they also
were clear they expected the
issue to be addressed imme-
diately.
“We feel we have an excel-
lent team there but we need
to get something done,” said
IWC Commissioner “Gene-
see” Joe Anderson.
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Capital Press
BOISE — Idaho Wheat
Commission members told
University of Idaho officials
in no uncertain terms June
7 that they expect most of
the royalties generated from
public wheat varieties to be
put back into the university’s
wheat breeding program.
Three of UI’s publicly re-
leased wheat varieties — UI
Magic, UI Palouse and UI
Castle — have generated
$400,000 in royalties the past
two years.
But the university’s formu-
la for how those royalties are
distributed does not include
putting money back into the
wheat breeding program.
Wheat commission mem-
bers have been in discussions
with UI officials about chang-
ing that formula to ensure at
least 60 percent of the royal-
ties go back into the program.
But commissioners, who
are also growers, told the uni-
versity general counsel Kent
Nelson during a conference
call that they expect the issue
to be resolved quickly.
IWC Commissioner Bill
Flory said he was close to
making a motion to withhold
all of the commission’s wheat
research funding to the uni-
versity until that happens.
“I’ll just cut to the chase,”
he said. “We expect senior
management to grab a hold of
this and get it fixed because
soon isn’t quick enough.”
Flory said UI administra-
tion should “understand the
seriousness and magnitude of
this. I expect them to negoti-
legal-24-2-1/#4
By DAN WHEAT
24-1/#4N
A new farmworker union
reached a tentative two-year
contract agreement Saturday
with Sakuma Brothers Farms,
a northwest Washington ber-
ry grower that has been em-
broiled in labor unrest for
several years.
The company said in a
statement that the agreement
will create a partnership ben-
eficial to both parties and end
the long labor dispute. Nei-
ther party disclosed terms of
the contract, which the union
said will be voted on by its
members in the coming week.
Sakuma, based in Burling-
ton in Skagit County, has been
the target of lawsuits, pick-
ets and boycotts since 2013.
The strife has affected farms
throughout Washington. The
state Supreme Court ruled in
2015 that Sakuma must pay
piece-rate workers separately
for 10-minute rest breaks, an
interpretation of state law that
upended standard industry
practices.
The case spawned a broad-
er lawsuit against another fruit
company that will determine
whether piece-rate workers
also must be paid separately
for such non-picking tasks
as moving equipment and
attending meetings. The Su-
preme Court has accepted the
case.
Sakuma agreed last year to
let its workers decide whether
to be represented by a union.
Workers voted in a supervised
election in September to be
represented by the newly
formed Familias Unidas por
la Justicia.
“This is a great victory for
all our members that harvest
berries at Sakuma Farms,
and we are ready to start the
berry season later this month
with full collective bargain-
ing rights in place,” the union
posted Monday on Facebook.
“We look forward to a long
and mutually beneficial part-
nership with Skagit County’s
largest berry producer.”
The union said it has
more than 500 members.
The agreement, if ratified,
will cover the 2017 harvest,
which Sakuma estimated
will begin by the end of
June.