10 CapitalPress.com
October 20, 2017
Washington
Farm Bureau video highlights labor shortage
Zucchinis outgrow
supply of pickers
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A new American Farm
Bureau Federation video fea-
tures a Western Washington
farm to highlight a national
labor shortage and the orga-
nization’s push for a more
flexible guestworker pro-
gram.
In the 1-minute, 43-sec-
ond video, a tractor plows
under zucchinis in King
County grown by Burr and
Rosella Mosby. They said
they abandoned the 20-acre
field, easily losing $100,000,
because they didn’t have
enough workers.
“We’ve never had a year
Farm Bureau TV
Farmer Burr Mosby says in the Farm Bureau video that he and
his wife, Rosella, were forced to plow under 20 acres of zucchini
because they couldn’t find enough labor.
like this year,” Rosella Mos-
by said Thursday in an inter-
view with the Capital Press.
The Farm Bureau has
been warning that growers
will have to let produce rot
in the fields because they
won’t have enough workers.
The shortage this year hit
the Mosbys, who grow veg-
etables on 350 acres in King
and Pierce counties south of
Seattle.
The Farm Bureau favors
a guestworker program ad-
ministered by the USDA that
allows workers to enter the
U.S. on short-term visas and
hire out to the farm of their
choice. The H-2A program
administered by the U.S. De-
partment of Labor is rigid,
burdensome and nearly im-
possible to use, according to
the Farm Bureau.
The Mosbys rely on do-
mestic workers, many of
whom work elsewhere in the
winter. Rosella Mosby said
that the farm has been short
of workers for many years,
but this was the first time in
40 years that the shortage
was severe enough to force
abandoning a field.
USDA
temporarily
suspends
new CRP
applications
She said the farm was
about 25 workers short. The
zucchinis in the 20-acre field
grew too large for commer-
cial use before they could be
harvested.
Mosby said the farm has
about 25 year-round employ-
ees and needs approximately
75 seasonal employees.
The farm needed adults
who aren’t limited in the
jobs they can do, and stay on
in the fall. Mosby attribut-
ed the shortage to a strong
Puget Sound economy. “I
think they’re all doing oth-
er jobs,” she said. “I think
there are just better opportu-
nities.”
Mosby said that she’s not
heard from her employees
that fear of the Trump admin-
istration is keeping workers
away.
4 million acres
in conservation
program set to
expire in 2018
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
State agriculture department seeks study on dairy manure use, regulations
Capital Press
The Washington State
Department of Agriculture
proposes to study whether it
should regulate cow manure
hauled from dairies and spread
at other commercial farms.
WSDA monitors how
dairies use manure, but the
oversight ends when manure
goes elsewhere. The depart-
ment hopes to get a grasp on
whether those manure appli-
cations threaten groundwater
and waterways.
“We really don’t have a
good understanding of where
it goes when it leaves the
dairies,” WSDA spokeswom-
an Kathy Davis said.
Washington dairies are
under scrutiny, targeted by
lawsuits and facing new De-
partment of Ecology rules,
and so is the WSDA-en-
forced Dairy Nutrient Man-
agement Act. Environmental
groups criticize the law as
too weak, while industry rep-
resentatives say it has worked
well in protecting water.
The Legislature directed
WSDA to convene an adviso-
ry committee to discuss pur-
ported “gaps” in the state law.
The proposal to study ex-
tending WSDA’s oversight of
dairy manure to other farms
stems from the committee.
Washington State Dairy
Federation policy director
Jay Gordon said that singling
out dairy manure for new
rules could cause farmers to
shift to other fertilizers, such
as chicken manure or syn-
thetic fertilizers.
“Nobody ever talks about
that,” he said. “What are
dairy farms going to do with
the manure? Stigmatizing
one nutrient source is going
to create problems. It (dairy
manure) is incredibly import-
ant as a nutrient source.”
WSDA has asked for
$200,000 from the state’s
general fund to conduct the
study. The governor’s budget
office may forward the re-
quest to the 2018 Legislature.
The study would include
looking at how much manure
leaves dairies and how many
places apply it. The debate
over regulating manure has
persisted for years. Proposals
range from voluntary training
on properly applying manure
to a “more robust regulatory
certification process,” ac-
cording to the WSDA’s bud-
get request.
Fire erupts at Underwood Fruit
and Warehouse Co. in Gorge
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
A fire early Wednesday
morning damaged the Un-
derwood Fruit and Ware-
house Co. on the west end
of Bingen, Wash., across the
Columbia River from Hood
River, Ore.
Details were scarce
Wednesday, but video shot
from a news helicopter and
shown on Portland televi-
sion station KOIN showed
towering flames and col-
umns of heavy smoke.
In a TV interview, Un-
derwood CEO Don Gibson
said the fire primarily dam-
aged the pear packing part of
the facility. He said the com-
pany will rebuild. Company
officials were not available
for additional comment.
Klickitat County Emer-
gency Management said the
fire was reported at 5:45 a.m.
Eleven Klickitat County fire
departments
responded,
along with personnel from
the BNSF Railway fire train,
Hood River Fire Depart-
ment, Skamania Fire De-
partment and Mid-Columbia
Fire & Rescue, according to
a statement on the emergen-
cy department’s website.
Underwood Fruit and
Warehouse is a 100-year-
old packing and shipping
facility for 55 apple, pear
and cherry growers in the
Columbia River Gorge, ac-
cording to the company’s
website. The packing house
is under the same ownership
as Mount Adams Orchards,
of Yakima, Wash. A Mount
Adams spokesperson was
not available as of Wednes-
day mid-day.
The fire apparently
knocked out electrical pow-
er in parts of Bingen and
neighboring White Salmon.
As of mid-day Wednesday,
the fire was isolated to the
building in which it start-
ed. No hazardous material
was released and no evac-
uation orders were issued,
the emergency department
said on its website. The de-
partment did not provide
information about a possible
cause of the fire.
The White Salmon Val-
ley School District placed
its buses on what it termed
“road restriction routes”
Wednesday morning. It
closed one bus stop and di-
rected children who usually
catch the bus there to go to
another stop “due to fire at
Underwood Fruit,” the dis-
trict said on its website.
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ROP-40-4-1/HOU
By DON JENKINS
The USDA is putting a
temporary hold on new ap-
plications for the Conserva-
tion Reserve Program.
The agency accepted
applications last year, but
is holding them, said Rod
Hamilton, farm programs
chief for the USDA Farm
Service Agency office in
Spokane.
All current eligible CRP
continuous enrollment of-
fers made through Sept, 30,
except those made under the
Pollinator Habitat Initiative,
will be approved, according
to the national office.
CRP pays farmers and
ranchers who remove sen-
sitive land from production
and plant certain grasses,
shrubs and trees that im-
prove water quality, prevent
soil erosion and increase
wildlife habitat.
Contracts last between
10 and 15 years. Payments
for 2017 totaled more than
$1.6 billion.
The agency will wait on
offers received after Sept.
30, Hamilton said, and see
how the applications corre-
spond to the national 24 mil-
lion-acre statutory cap.
“For those folks that want
to make new offers now,
it does put them on hold,”
Hamilton said.
The temporary halt will
likely be revised at some
point in the fiscal year,
which began Oct. 1, Hamil-
ton said.
Farmers with CRP con-
tracts set to expire Sept.
30, 2018, are in “a little un-
certain” position, Hamilton
said. About 4 million acres
are due to expire across the
country.
“They’re kind of left
treading water, for at least
a while, until a decision is
made how to proceed,” he
said.
The agency has histori-
cally held a signup allow-
ing farmers the opportunity
to make a new offer if they
choose.
Hamilton said “a fair
amount of interest” remains
in CRP, although growers
are aware the agency is close
to the acreage cap.
It’s caused farmers who
would otherwise routinely
renew their CRP contract
to consider other options,
he said, including putting
the land back into produc-
tion, converting it to graz-
ing lands or trying another
version of CRP, such as
SAFE, which targets wild-
life habitat, or other options
under the USDA Natural
Resources
Conservation
Service.
The previous cap was 32
million acres. It’s reached as
high as 39 million acres, al-
though Hamilton said enroll-
ment numbers never reached
that total.
Last year, only 20 per-
cent of offers were accepted,
Hamilton said.
He believes U.S. Agricul-
ture Secretary Sonny Perdue
is analyzing the CRP pro-
gram and future directions,
including whether he will
focus on general or targeted
CRP programs.
Discussions are ongoing
at the national office, Ham-
ilton said.
It’s not clear when the
suspension will be lifted.
“We’ve just been told,
‘These are the rules until
further notice, but there will
be a change later on in the
fiscal year,’” Hamilton said.
Hamilton recommends
farmers keep in touch with
their county FSA office for
updates.