BEEF: MARKET DISTRIBUTIONS CHANGING TRADE LANDSCAPE Page A5
FRIDAY, JULY 7, 2017
VOLUME 90, NUMBER 27
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
$2.00
Washington Wildfi re
SAVING
THE
RANCH
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
American Farm Bureau Federation
President Zippy Duvall, right, speaks
with Big D Ranch owner Richard
Durrant June 28 near Meridian, Idaho.
Duvall told about 200 producers to
stay engaged in the political process.
Farm Bureau
president tells
farmers to
stay engaged
in politics
Duvall: Trump aff ords
opportunity to achieve
changes in agriculture
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Molly Linville, a Palisades, Wash., rancher and her Border Collie, Stinker, on June 29 near the spot where they started herding 60 mother cows and their calves
two miles to safety from a wildfi re.
By SEAN ELLIS
MERIDIAN, Idaho — Farm-
ers and other rural Americans were
responsible for electing President
Donald Trump, and that presents an
opportunity to achieve signifi cant
changes on issues such as immigra-
tion, trade and regulatory and tax
reform, American Farm Bureau Fed-
eration President Skippy Duvall told
Idaho producers.
But farmers need to stay engaged
in the political process for that to
happen, he said.
“You made a difference ... in
electing a president that is going to
take us in a different direction,” Du-
vall said. But “if we disengage from
this process and don’t stay on the
phone with our congressmen ... we
will miss the greatest opportunity of
my adult lifetime.”
Members of Congress and the
administration are receiving a lot of
phone calls and emails from mem-
bers of groups that don’t agree with
agriculture’s stance on important is-
sues, Duvall said.
Farmers and ranchers and other
rural Americans need to fl ood their
elected offi cials with at least a sim-
ilar amount of emails and calls, the
Georgia farmer said June 28 during a
tour of Idaho.
“They need a stack of emails,” he
said. “All you have to do is commu-
nicate. You need to do it regularly,
consistently and you need to do it
loud.”
Turn to DUVALL, Page 12
Tour of Idaho
American Farm Bureau Federation
President Zippy Duvall meets with
hundreds of Idaho producers.
Ranchers rescue cattle,
but lose rangeland
Estimated 46,621 acres burned
from June 26 through June 28
from lightning-strike fi res
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
P
ALISADES, Wash. — Molly Linville
saw the lightning bolt strike just be-
hind the hilltop about a mile west of her
house. The plume of smoke was instant.
Then came fl ames.
Linville spotted the strike from the front win-
dows of the adobe-brick-stucco house her hus-
band’s grandfather built in 1921. She was eating
a late lunch at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, June 26. She
called authorities. Other lightning strikes in the
area had been reported.
“The response was awesome,” she later said.
Fire burned through grass and sage brush down
the hillside. U.S. Bureau of Land Management and
Grant County fi refi ghters and private crews arrived
and bulldozed a fi reline at the base of the hillside
about a quarter mile from her house at the mouth
of Sutherland Canyon.
“They saved our house. They worked like I
would expect fi refi ghters who are 25 (years of age)
to work,” Linville said.
She remained uneasy that night, getting up ev-
ery couple of hours to check on things. The wind
shifted, blowing down the Moses Coulee (valley)
and away from her house.
By Tuesday morning the fi re was out. Linville
was relieved.
But two other lightning strikes caused fi res that
burned two miles down coulee, merging at Connet
Grade and Francis Canyon, also known as Frank’s
Canyon. Linville’s herd of 60 mother cows, plus
calves and four bulls were grazing across the val-
ley fl oor from the canyon.
“All day fi re was coming down the grade very
slowly. Planes and helicopters were dumping on
it. Four brush trucks were watching. Nothing was
being done from the ground. It was all air attack,”
Linville said.
Neighbors were nervous about the lack of a
ground effort.
WASH.
WENATCHEE
NAT’L FOR.
Lake
Chelan
Chelan
C
97
172
Straight
Hollow fire
2
DOUGLAS
Sutherland
Canyon fire
2
Narrow escape
One of them, rancher Justin Sachs, offered to
cut a fi reline with his backhoe at the mouth of
Francis Canyon but was turned away by U.S. For-
est Service personnel who told him he had no fi re
training.
“I have a pretty ‘spidy sense.’ I could kind of
tell something was going to happen,” Linville said.
“I said to a neighbor, ‘They aren’t going to do any-
thing, are they?’ and he said, ‘I don’t think so.’ So I
drove back to my house (in her pickup) and got my
ATV and my dog.”
Fire reached the valley fl oor about 8:45 p.m.
Linville, 40, on her ATV and her Border Collie,
Stinker, started moving their cows 15 minutes be-
fore the fi re jumped Palisades Road, burned where
the cows had been and fanned north and south on
the east side of the valley and climbed hills east-
ward, claiming thousands of acres of rangeland in
Douglas and Grant counties.
Area in
detail
o lu
Capital Press
E. Wenatchee
GRANT
Wenatchee
CHELAN
28
N
KITTITAS
Qunicy
281
5 miles
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
“We got the cows
to safe pasture at
the house. Without
moving them they’d
probably all be dead.”
MOLLY LINVILLE,
Palisades, Wash., rancher
Turn to WILDFIRES, Page 12
Page 3
Organic food sales jump 8.4 percent in 2016
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The U.S. organic industry main-
tained steady growth in 2016, with
food sales increasing 8.4 percent to
$43 billion — breaking the $40 billion
mark for the fi rst time.
The sizable growth is even more
impressive considering total food
sales increased only 0.6 percent.
Organic food now accounts
for 5.3 percent of all food
sales in the U.S., another sig-
nifi cant fi rst for the organic
sector, according to the Or-
ganic Trade Association in
its 2016 Organic Industry Sur-
vey, conducted by the Nutrition
Business Journal this spring.
Organic non-food sales also posted
robust growth, increasing 8.8 percent
to $3.9 billion, far sur-
passing the 0.8 percent
growth in all non-food
sales of comparable
items, such as textiles,
supplements and per-
sonal care items.
“The organic industry
continues to be a real bright
spot in the food and agriculture econ-
omy, both at the farm gate and the
check-out counter, said Laura Batcha,
OTA chief executive offi cer, in the as-
sociation’s executive summary of the
survey.
The robust industry continues to
gain ground, gaining market share and
making its way into new channels —
such as convenience and drug stores,
foodservice and the internet.
Turn to ORGANICS, Page 12
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