October 20, 2017
CapitalPress.com
3
Washington hemp pioneer
has crop, but needs market
State issues
few licenses
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Courtesy CAFF
A crew member for Oak Hill Farm in Glen Ellen, Calif., assesses damage from one of the fires in
California’s wine country. As firefighters have gained an upper hand on the blazes, efforts have begun
to shift to recovery.
Farms, vineyards assessing
damage from wine country fires
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SAN FRANCISCO —
Farms in California’s iconic
wine country are either picking
up the pieces or counting their
blessings as crews gain an up-
per hand on wildfires that dev-
astated the area.
Wine grape harvests quickly
resumed in areas not affected
by evacuations as fewer than
10 of the roughly 1,200 win-
eries in Napa, Sonoma and
Mendocino counties were dam-
aged or destroyed by the fires
that began late Oct. 8, the San
Francisco-based Wine Institute
reported.
But some farms were
hit hard, including about a
half-dozen of the Community
Alliance with Family Farmers’
members whose diversified
produce operations were “com-
pletely burned,” said Evan
Wiig, the organization’s com-
munications and membership
director.
“It’s been pretty devastat-
ing,” said Wiig, adding that
some other growers that didn’t
sustain fire damage haven’t
been able to access their prop-
erties to run irrigation.
“A lot of irrigated land did
survive the fires,” he said. “But
if you can’t get into your prop-
erty to irrigate ... it’s going to go
to waste anyway.”
Among those operations
is Oak Hill Farm in Glen El-
len, Calif., whose 700 acres
of produce and flowers nes-
tled against the western slope
of the Mayacamas Mountains
sustained damage. Wiig has
been trying to get the Sonoma
County Sheriff’s Department
to allow farmer David Cooper
and others access to the ranch
to water the crops that weren’t
burned, he said. Cooper lost his
home and a barn to the blaze.
Within the wine industry,
Photo CAFF
A barn and home at Oak Hill Farm in Glen Ellen, Calif., were
destroyed by one of the wildfires that have devastated California’s
wine country. As people begin to return to properties and neighbor-
hoods, efforts have begun to focus on recovery.
several vintners — including
Signorello Estates and White
Rock Vineyards in Napa and
Paradise Ridge in Santa Rosa
— reported on social media
that their wineries had been de-
stroyed.
And five vineyard properties
totaling about 200 acres in the
Potter Valley area of Mendoci-
no County are known to have
been damaged, according to the
Wine Institute. But because of
evacuations, some winery own-
ers don’t have access to their
properties to learn their status,
the organization notes.
“Right now we still have
damage assessment teams
gathering information,” said
Scott Ross, a spokesman for
the state Office of Emergency
Services. “We know there has
been some loss (of wineries and
vineyards), but we don’t have
specifics.”
Napa County Agricultural
Commissioner Greg Clark es-
timates there were 4,300 acres
of vineyards in the fire zone,
but that isn’t a loss estimate, he
said. He’s heard anecdotally of
vineyards losing drip tubing or
end posts and sustaining some
injury to vines from heat expo-
sure, he said.
“Before long we’ll be start-
ing to reach out to the industry
to determine damage,” Clark
said. “For some, they won’t
know (the extent of damage)
until bud break ... at the end of
March or beginning of April.”
Restricted access to prop-
erties and power outages have
been obstacles, as some winer-
ies were using backup genera-
tors and available workers to
finish fermentations and other
tasks, the Wine Institute report-
ed.
While it’s too soon to know
if smoke has tainted grapes
remaining on vines, smoke is
not an issue for wine that is
fermenting of has already been
bottled, the institute explained.
The effort to tabulate dam-
age comes as fire crews are
tightening containment of
blazes in the wine country that
destroyed nearly 6,000 homes
and killed at least 41 people —
including a firefighter — as
of Oct. 17, according to The
Associated Press.
An entrepreneur at the
forefront of establishing hemp
in Washington says that he
has harvested his first crop but
doesn’t know what he’ll do
with it, underlining the unpre-
dictable future for sober can-
nabis in the state.
Cory Sharp said that he fig-
ures he can store for a couple
of years an estimated 70,000
to 80,000 pounds of hemp
grain. He said he’s trying to
line up financing for a plant to
make hemp-seed oil, sold as a
nutritional supplement.
“It’ll take millions to do
it right,” he said. “It’s a lot of
capital, and there are a lot of
hurdles.”
Sharp, owner of Hemp-
Logic, oversaw last spring the
first planting of hemp under
rules set down by the Wash-
ington State Department of
Agriculture. The rules careful-
ly followed federal limits on
cultivating hemp plants, which
remain a federally controlled
substance, even in states with
legal recreational marijuana.
The grain harvested in
Grant County by Sharp are
viable seeds, so they can’t
cross state lines. They must
be processed in Washington.
“We’re out of harvest
and trying to find homes
for things,” Sharp said. “We
have to find a market before
we do anything.”
WSDA licenses hemp
growers and processors, mon-
itors the seed supply and in-
spects farms. So far, the state
has issued six hemp licenses,
including one to a Washing-
ton State University research-
er and two to Indian tribes.
Meanwhile, other states, such
as Oregon, Colorado, Ken-
tucky and Tennessee, have
each licensed dozens of hemp
farmers or processors.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Washington hemp entrepreneur Cory Sharp takes photos at a
hemp planting June 6 in Moses Lake. Sharp said Oct. 9 that the
hemp has been harvested, but he’s still looking for a market.
WSDA says about 180
acres of hemp were planted
this year. Once launched this
year, the program was to be
sustained by fees. But the fees
have raised approximately
$8,100, while WSDA has spent
$146,000 on the program.
WSDA says it’s not feasible to
expect fees to support the pro-
gram and will ask lawmakers
to appropriate $287,000 from
the general fund to continue it.
Sharp and hemp consul-
tant Joy Beckerman said high
fees are a problem and so are
the restrictions.
Beckerman said she has
a long list of proposals for
changing WSDA’s program.
“It’s at a crossroads,” she
said. “We need to remove some
of these barriers. ... We need
more seeds in the ground.”
One of Beckerman’s pro-
posals is to make sure a mar-
ijuana grow can’t push aside
a hemp farm. Under a current
state rule, hemp can’t be grown
within 4 miles of marijuana. If
a marijuana grow moves in the
area, the hemp farm must go.
“I, unfortunately, have to
tell people, ‘Beware, don’t go
buy a farm,’ ” Beckerman said.
Although Congress autho-
rized state-supervised hemp
cultivation and marketing in
the 2014 Farm Bill, the crop
still faces regulatory uncertain-
ty. Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden
and Jeff Merkley and three oth-
er senators sent a letter to U.S.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
in June saying they were con-
cerned that people involved in
hemp programs are being de-
nied banking services.
Idaho-Oregon bulb onion crop
smaller, but prices are much higher
Capital Press
NYSSA, Ore. — The on-
ion crop in the Treasure Val-
ley of Idaho and Oregon will
be significantly smaller this
year but growers are seeing
prices that are much higher
than normal.
“Yields are definitely
down and size is off a little
bit but prices are significantly
better,” said Bruce Corn, one
of the 300 farmers in the area
who grow the Spanish bulb
onions this region is famous
for.
Most growers and ship-
pers Capital Press spoke with
said yields will be off 20-30
percent this year. Size profile
is also off and fewer colos-
sals and super-colossals, the
largest bulb onion sizes, will
come out of the region this
year.
But prices are way up.
For example, a 50-pound
bag of jumbo yellow onions
is selling for $10-11 right
now, up from $5.50 to $6 this
time last year.
“As you drive around,
there are a lot of empty bins,”
said Paul Skeen, president of
the Malheur County Onion
Growers Association. “The
bottom line is prices are up
because there is a shortage.”
Buyers from Mexico are
purchasing a lot of onions
right now and that’s also
impacting the market, said
Snake River Produce Manag-
er Kay Riley.
“The market is about as
good as we’ve seen it for this
time of year,” said Riley, the
marketing order chairman for
the Idaho-Eastern Oregon
Onion Committee.
Corn said the higher pric-
es mean grower returns will
be much better this year, de-
spite the smaller crop.
“Last year, we had incred-
ible yields but low prices.
There was no return after
you paid packing charges and
storage,” he said. “This year
is significantly better that
way.”
Although this year’s crop
is much smaller than nor-
mal, quality is excellent, said
Murakami Produce Manager
Grant Kitamura.
“They are coming in in
really good shape,” he said.
“They are beautiful.”
Kitamura said it’s likely
the higher prices will hold
throughout the year, which
typically happens during a
year with limited supply.
“You could see higher
prices later; I don’t know for
sure,” he said. “But I can’t
see them going down. Over-
all, we’re hoping for a lot
better year than we had last
year.”
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