FOCUSING
ON BREAST
CANCER
AND prevention
PREVENTION
THROUGHOUT
OCTOBER
Focusing
on breast
cancer AWARENESS,
awareness, EDUCATION
education and
throughout
October
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017
VOLUME 90, NUMBER 41
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
$2.00
HARVEST
Potato harvest is a unifying
social and economic force
in Eastern Idaho
OF GOODWILL
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
A
R
MERICAN FALLS, Idaho — Lee Kress spends nearly every
morning of potato harvest inside a makeshift food truck, cater-
ing to all of the employees of his family’s farm.
Kress, 77, has made a point of “staying out of the way” since
turning the farm over to his sons, Thomas and Jason. But during
a decade of “retirement,” he’s continued working tirelessly
during harvest, and his efforts have been appreciated more than ever.
Together, Kress and his wife, Judy, prepare
daily feasts in their “cook shack” — a trailer con-
verted into a kitchen with a grill, roaster, micro-
wave, refrigerators and a turkey fryer. For each
meal, they fi ll more than 30 to-go boxes with
Potato
Area in
heaping portions of spaghetti, sausage-and-spin-
country detail
ach pasta, burgers and other house specialties,
which potato truck drivers deliver to workers in
the fi elds.
Kress has come to believe that potato harvest
15
20
is
a
time to focus on good deeds and service — a
.
rare
event that brings out the best in people and
s
28
ry
en
unites
many communities in Eastern Idaho. His
33
S n Rexburg
a ke R
service to the workers is but one of many exam-
20
ples of cooperation and good community fellow-
Idaho Falls 26
26
ship during the “harvest window” from Sept. 9
Shelley
American
through mid-October.
Falls
IDAHO
Res.
Some examples:
Pocatello
86
A grower in Idaho Falls digs 6 acres of
89
American
Falls
spuds every year so community
30
members can harvest them
N
and stock their pantries
25 miles
15
for free.
84
UTAH
Teachers at a
Pocatello charter
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
school never have
trouble fi nding a farmer to let their students
glean spuds to donate to the local food bank.
Each year, Shelley High School crowns
a young woman as Miss Russet to serve the
community and celebrate a crop that’s cen-
tral to the local economy.
Many of the area’s small-scale potato
farmers insist they’d be short harvest la-
bor if not for area schools scheduling a
Turn to HARVEST, Page 12
H
WYO.
.
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Judy and Lee Kress, of American Falls, Idaho, prepare meals for the farmworkers in their own food truck.
They provide hot meals for the employees every day of potato harvest.
TOP IMAGE: Floats celebrating potatoes are featured during the Idaho Spud Day Parade in Shelley.
“It’s in our DNA to harvest.
I think that’s why it’s
enjoyed.”
— Grower, Boyd Foster
Thinkstock.com
NIFA director: Focus research
on grower profi tability
Ramaswamy praises Perdue, aims to reduce food waste
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
MOSCOW, Idaho – Son-
ny Ramaswamy says agri-
cultural research programs
are thriving under the Trump
ODFW expand a kill permit
against Harl Butte Pack
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
administration.
Ramaswamy,
director
of the National Institute of
Food and Agriculture and
former dean of the College
of Agricultural Sciences at
Oregon State University,
particularly praised U.S.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny
Perdue for his commitment
to agriculture when he spoke
at the University of Idaho.
“There is no chaos —
there’s a pretty good sense
of where this is all going,
there’s a pretty good sense
of the need for resources,”
Ramaswamy said. “My boss,
Secretary Perdue, is very
single-mindedly focused on
those producers. ... Secretary
Turn to NIFA, Page 12
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Sonny Ramaswamy, director of
the National Institute of Food
and Agriculture, talks about in-
novation in food systems during
his presentation Oct. 6 at the
University of Idaho in Moscow.
A select group of Wallowa County ranch-
ers have permission until Oct. 31 to kill four
more wolves from the Harl Butte Pack that
has repeatedly attacked livestock in the area.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
on Oct. 6 announced it had authorized “lethal
take” of wolves by either ODFW staff or by
livestock producers affi liated with a grazing
association. Ranchers are permitted to shoot
wolves on public or private land on which
their livestock are currently grazing, and
there are no restrictions on the age of animals
to be killed. They don’t have to be caught in
the act of attacking livestock.
Todd Nash, a Wallowa County rancher
who lost a calf to the Harl Butte Pack this
summer and who is wolf committee chair for
the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said no
wolves had been shot as of Monday morning.
Oregon Wild, the Portland-based group
deeply involved in wolf management and
other issues, condemned what it called
ODFW’s “wolf killing campaign.”
The group said the area used by the Harl
Butte Pack and other “wolf families” is
among the wildest landscapes remaining in
Oregon.
“If
wolves
are being killed
for eating un-
attended live-
stock put right
in front of them
in a place like
this, it’s fair
to ask if there
is anywhere
wolves will be
allowed to thrive in
our state?” the group
said in a prepared state-
ment attributed to con-
servation director Steve Pedery.
ODFW killed four pack members in Au-
gust after confi rming 10 livestock attacks
Turn to WOLVES, Page 12