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August 11, 2017 CapitalPress.com Oregon mayors face off at watermelon giveaway Census of Ag seeks more info this year Annual promotion builds goodwill for Hermiston By SEAN ELLIS Capital Press By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN EO Media Group PORTLAND — Amid some light trash-talking and heavy pressure, Hermiston Mayor David Drotzmann faced off against Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler in a wa- termelon seed-spitting contest at Portland’s Pioneer Court- house Square Aug. 4. “I understand Mayor Wheeler has never done this before, so we’ll give him a practice round so he doesn’t get embarrassed by us profes- sional seed-spitters,” Drotz- mann said. Wheeler appreciated the handicap. “Normally, when doing something this important I’d have practiced,” he said, “But I’ve never spit a watermel- on seed. You’d better win,” Wheeler told his Hermiston counterpart, “Or you’re not going to have a job in Herm- iston!” Drotzmann can keep his job, after he launched a seed past the one Wheeler spit, but not without a twist: both men were beaten by Wheeler’s di- rector of strategic partnerships, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler spits a watermelon seed in his first seed-spitting contest. Jayati Ramakrishnan/EO Media Group Hermiston city councilors, chamber members and Mayor David Drotzmann pose with Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler before the watermelon giveaway in Portland on Aug. 4. Jennifer Arguinzoni, who stepped in at the last minute to participate. Each mayor also spoke briefly about the event, to a crowd that had gathered to col- lect the free watermelons that some Portlanders have come to anticipate each summer. “These are the best wa- termelons in the world and there’s no reason to get melons shipped from anywhere else,” Wheeler said. Wheeler also spoke about other facets of Eastern Ore- gon’s largest city. “Hermiston is a thriving city,” he said. “While we think of watermelons, there’s lots of good employment opportu- nities. They’re working very hard under this mayor on eco- nomic prosperity. It’s good to take a fun day like this and re- member that we are one state.” Drotzmann said he was glad to be showcasing Hermis- ton’s most famous crop on the west side of the state. “Normally when we’re here, we’re a hundred deep,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of good produce to give away.” Debbie Pedro, president/ CEO of the Hermiston Cham- ber of Commerce, estimated that they were giving away nine bins of melons, each of which contained between 20 and 30 melons. Drotzmann added that part- nering with Portland was im- portant for both cities. “It’s interesting because Portland is larger than us by about 650,000. So we think they have different issues — but when we sit down with them, the issues we have are very similar. We’re thinking about economic development, public safety, housing, water. How do we, as a state, contin- ue to be prosperous?” After the brief remarks, Drotzmann and Hermiston city councilors Lori Davis, Rod Hardin and Jackie Meyers started handing out melons. They were joined by Hermis- ton Energy Services superin- tendent Nate Rivera and Deb- bie Pedro, Josh Burns, Shirley Parsons, Ian Coyle and Cindy Meyers from the Hermiston Chamber of Commerce. Though the crowd wasn’t as thick as some councilors recalled in past years, there was a steady stream of peo- ple throughout the giveaway. Burns stood at the corner of Pi- oneer Courthouse Square, ad- vertising the presence of free melons to Portlanders walking past, which brought in several waves of eager customers. Feedlot profits drive large cattle placements By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press The latest USDA cattle on feed report caught most industry watchers off guard with a 16 percent year-over- year increase in the number of cattle placed into feedlots in June. “Placements were surpris- ingly big,” said Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension livestock market- ing specialist. They were 10 percent higher than analysts had ex- pected and pushed feedlot inventories more than 4 per- cent higher than June 2016, he said. At 1.77 million head, June placements into large feed- lots were up 245,000 head from a year earlier. Total on- feed numbers on July 1, at more than 10.8 million, were Cattle on feed, placements, marketing and other disappearances, June (Feedlots with 1,000-head capacity or more) Item (1,000 head) 2016 2017 Placed on feed, June Fed cattle marketed, June Other disappearance, June* 1,525 1,912 61 Item (1,000 head) 2016 2017 On feed, July 1 10,356 Percent change 1,770 1,989 56 16% 4 -8 Percent change 10,821 4 *Includes death loss, movement from feedlots to pasture, and shipments to other feedlots for further feeding. Source: USDA NASS 465,000 above last year’s level, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Ser- vice reported. “Feedlots have been very profitable and have an in- centive to go ahead and keep placing cattle. They placed all the heavyweight cattle they normally would place Capital Press graphic and placed lightweight cattle as well,” Peel said. Feedlots have suffered a lot over much of the last few years, and they’re fi- nally profitable. The price relationship between feeder cattle and fed cattle has lined up, and grain costs are low. Month-to-month estimates on returns show May was close to as high a return as the feed- lot segment has ever seen, he said. Feedlot returns in the Southern Plains are the high- est in more than a decade, with the Livestock Marketing Information Center estimat- ing average returns at $177 a head in the first six months of the year. May was the highest month so far this year, show- ing a profit of $260 per head, and June followed at $208 a head, according to LMIC. “This is in stark contrast to the last two years of neg- ative returns, which were es- timated as deep as $500 per head in late 2015,” Katelyn McCullock, American Farm Bureau economist, said in LMIC’s July report. The high returns have en- couraged feedlots to refill inventory quickly this year in the wake of aggressive marketings, and analysts are expecting high placements to continue, she said. June was the fourth con- secutive month of large placements, with feedlots dipping into the feeder-cattle supply pool a little early, Peel said. In general, marketing of fed cattle is at a good pace — 4 percent higher in June than a year earlier. That’s why the cattle on feed number hasn’t increased more than it has. But with large placements the last four months, marketing is not quite keeping up with the number of cattle going into feedlots, he said. Feedlot returns will like- ly shrink in the second half of the year and could turn back to the red by the end of 2017. Levee repairs underway, but many more are needed By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press YUBA CITY, Calif. — Crews are racing this summer to complete several high-pri- ority levee repairs while Cal- ifornia lawmakers and others scramble to find funding for many more that are needed. Local, state and federal dignitaries gathered Aug. 3 to highlight a $28.5 million effort to put in 2.9 miles of slurry wall to shore up a levee along the Feather River. The project aims to protect about 75,000 residents from flood- ing. A few miles downriver, work is proceeding on a $12 million project to refurbish a one-mile stretch of levee pro- tecting agricultural land that needed emergency repairs last winter, said Mike Inamine, executive director of the Sut- ter Butte Flood Control Agen- cy. “In February, there was a flood fight mounted because there was so much seepage that we had to hire a contrac- tor to place an emergency berm that covered the toe of the levee,” Inamine said. These projects are only “a start,” said state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, who was unsuccessful in getting $100 million more for levee repair included in the state budget this summer. “There are many parts of the levee system along the Feather and Sacramento riv- ers that are going to need help before the rains hit,” he said. As it was, the two levee projects in the Yuba City area were mostly funded by the state, including money from Proposition 1E, a $4.9 billion flood protection bond passed in 2006. The projects are part of a flood control program in the Central Valley that could cost up to $20 billion over the next 20 to 30 years, said Clyde MacDonald, a member of the state’s Central Valley Flood Protection Board. A sense of urgency pre- vails this summer after high river levels during a histor- ically wet winter exposed weak spots in nearly 1,600 miles of levees in rural parts of the Central Valley. Among the most troubled areas is the Feather River be- low the Oroville Dam, whose spillways nearly failed in February. In the corridor be- tween Oroville and Yuba City, orchards on the Feather Riv- er’s floodplain were inundat- ed several times this year, as Monsanto sells high-speed planter division By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press After its previous deal with Deere & Company was thwarted by the federal gov- ernment, Monsanto is instead selling its high-speed planter division to AGCO. Antitrust regulators from the U.S. Department of Jus- tice sued Deere last year to block its purchase of Monsan- to’s Precision Planting com- pany, arguing the sale under- mined competition. 9 The government’s com- plaint alleged that Deere would effectively control 86 percent of the U.S. market for high-speed planters, but the defendants countered there is no distinct market for such equipment. The defendants also claimed the complaint was largely filed at the behest of CNH Industrial and Kinze Manufacturing, which op- posed the deal with Deere. In May, Deere and Mon- santo dropped their defense of the lawsuit. Monsanto has now an- nounced that rival machin- ery manufacturer AGCO has agreed to buy the high-speed planter division for an undis- closed sum. Deere had agreed to pay $190 million for the company. Monsanto, which is pre- dominantly a biotech, seed and pesticide company, ac- quired the Precision Planting technology when it took over the Climate Corp., an agricul- tural data firm, in 2013. were some orchards beyond the levees that accumulated water because of seepage. Numerous instances of erosion occurred along the Feather River amid wild fluc- tuations of water levels as officials closed and reopened the Oroville Dam’s spillway. Some growers lost trees be- cause of the erosion. In Yuba City, a segment of levee next to the urban cen- ter showed signs of seepage and erosion, prompting 250 people to gather at a rally last month to demand action. One section of the levee has al- ready failed and been repaired several times, the last of which was by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2000. Efforts to find more money for repairs are ongoing. Niel- sen said he’s been in confer- ence calls with local districts to learn their most critical le- vee needs and is working with Gov. Jerry Brown’s adminis- tration to identify funding. “I think they’re fully aware of the needs,” Nielsen said. “This is the State Water Project. Fixing the (Oroville) spillway is critical, but ... if you don’t have a conveyance system that works, then you don’t need a dam.” The state board is work- ing through the Army Corps of Engineers to get $5 mil- lion for levee repairs south of Yuba City, but that likely won’t come this year, Inamine said. “We’re targeting to try to get that into our 2018 work plan,” he said. “The federal process is quite a bit slower than what we can do local- ly. It’s typically two or three years down the road.” SUN VALLEY, Idaho — During the 2017 Census of Agriculture, USDA hopes to capture more data about pro- ducers who are military vet- erans as well as female and young farmers and ranchers. “We’ve added questions to this year’s census to get more information in those three areas in particular,” Kevin Barnes, director of western field operations for USDA’s National Agricultural Statis- tics Service, said during the Western Association of State Departments of Agriculture’s annual meeting last week. Barnes also told Capital Press that farmers can help the farming industry and them- selves by ensuring they com- plete the census of ag survey, which producers can respond to by mail or online. “The Census of Agricul- ture benefits farmers greatly ... by providing information that will be important in decision making at the state, national and local levels,” he said. A lot of federal and state funds are allocated to the in- dustry based on the data pro- vided by the census, and it’s also used to shape farm pro- grams and policies, he said. “It’s not only county, state and federal officials that use that information, but also agribusinesses use this in- formation almost explicitly when making decisions on where to build businesses,” Barnes said. “Agriculture is global now with a global mar- ket. The more information we have on what we produce in this country, the better we are able to market ourselves inter- nationally.” The census, taken every five years, is a complete count of every farm and ranch in the nation that produces or would normally produce at least $1,000 worth of farm prod- ucts during the census year. It includes information on land use and ownership, pro- duction practices, income, ex- penditures and operator char- acteristics for every county in the nation. USDA will collect data for the new census during 2017 and 2018, analyze and com- pile it in 2018 and release it in February 2019. Expanded questions in the 2017 census will seek more information about farmers who are military veterans. “There are several pro- grams in place trying to move veterans into agriculture, so we’re trying to get more in- formation about veterans in- volved in agriculture,” Barnes said. Questions have also been expanded to try to better cap- ture the number of women in- volved in farming. Barnes said some people believe there are a lot more women involved in agricul- ture than what has been re- flected in previous census efforts. An effort is also being made to gain more informa- tion about young and begin- ning farmers. There is a lot of interest in succession planning and what’s going to happen with the future of agriculture “so we are trying to collect more information about and identi- fy those young farmers who are participating in agricul- ture,” Barnes said.