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.