November 17, 2017
House ag
chairman
outlines farm
bill priorities
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
House Agriculture Com-
mittee Chairman Michael
Conaway says he plans to
have a farm bill ready in
January or February but to
expect individual pieces of
farm legislation in stand-
alone bills before that.
Those stand-alone piec-
es will test lawmaker sen-
timent, and the plan is to
roll them into
the farm bill,
he said in a
media phone
conference.
Top prior-
ities are cre-
ating a safety
Conaway
net for cotton
growers, fix-
ing the Margin Protection
Program for dairy farmers
and the Agricultural Risk
Coverage program for grain
growers and finding money
for a vaccine bank for foot
and mouth disease.
Most of the farm bill de-
liberations will be more of
a fine-tuning than a shift in
focus, but it will be in an
environment of limited re-
sources, the Texas Republi-
can said.
The 2014 Farm Bill was
supposed to spend $23 bil-
lion less than the 2008 Farm
bill, but it’s looking more
like it’s going to be $100
billion less, he said.
“I’m not necessarily go-
ing to be able to reclaim all
those (dollars), so we’ve got
some hard decisions to make.
And it’s going to require
the Wisdom of Solomon to
make some of them,” he
said.
Everyone is arguing,
justifying and making the
case for why their pro-
gram should have more
money than what was in
the 2014 Farm Bill, he
said.
“If there is a shift in fo-
cus, it is to focus like a laser
on SNAP,” he said.
Reform — not food-
stamp cuts — to the Sup-
plemental Nutrition As-
sistance
Program
has
been the focus of more
than 30 listening sessions,
he said.
The aim is to get the pol-
icy correct, reset the suc-
cess metric and address the
“moral hazards baked into”
the program.
The focus is not on
what is spent but giving
people the help they need
and getting them back on
their feet to where they no
longer need the program,
he said.
“I
have
religiously
stayed away from any ref-
erences to food-stamp cuts
because that is a pejorative
to most folks on the Dem-
ocratic side, and I’m trying
not to let that happen,” he
said.
“We’re going to propose
reforms to the policy we
believe are in the beneficia-
ries’ best interest as well as
respectful of the taxpayer,”
he said.
He said he and Rep. Col-
in Peterson, D-Minn. and
ranking member on the Ag
Committee, are “shoulder to
shoulder” on almost every-
thing they’ll be doing on the
farm bill, and he anticipates
Peterson’s active involve-
ment.
“I’m going to be work-
ing with my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle to
get as good a farm bill as
we can get so that we can
get a big vote in the House
and then try to prevail
against whatever the Sen-
ate might come up with,” he
said.
Conaway said he is com-
mitted to continuing to push
the process to get a farm bill
done on time.
Senate Ag Commit-
tee Chairman Pat Roberts,
R-Kan., wants to move
quickly as well to give
lawmakers ample time to
work out the differences
between the House and Sen-
ate bills before the drop-
dead date of Sept. 30, he
said.
CapitalPress.com
7
Could blueberries grow in Idaho?
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
PARMA, Idaho — A Uni-
versity of Idaho researcher
and a major hop grower in
southwestern Idaho are co-
ordinating their efforts to try
to figure out how to success-
fully grow blueberries in the
region.
If their field trials pan out,
Brock & Phillip Obendorf
Farms could become the
first producer to successfully
grow blueberries on a large
scale in Idaho.
“The jury’s still out on
how it’s going to turn out,”
said Phil Obendorf, co-own-
er of Obendorf Farms, one of
the state’s largest hop grow-
ers.
He has been growing 18
acres of blueberries on the
farm for two years now, with
mixed results. The plants
A southwestern Idaho hop
farm is trying to become
the first producer in
Idaho to grow blueberries
successfully on a large
scale. The farm has grown
them for two years now
and is trying to overcome
low yields and high soil pH
issues.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
produce berries but yields
are nowhere near what it
will take to make it a profit-
able crop for the farm, which
also grows onions, wheat
and corn.
Obendorf said high soil pH
is proving to be a major chal-
lenge. A measure of soil acid-
ity, high pH levels can affect
a plant’s roots and prevent it
from up-taking some micro-
nutrients, Obendord said.
UI researcher Essie Fal-
lahi, who heads the univer-
sity’s pomology program at
the nearby Parma experiment
station, has been trying to
grow blueberries for several
years, and he is also having
a problem with high soil pH
content.
“We are trying to grow
blueberries but we are fight-
ing with high pH problems,”
he said. “It’s a major prob-
lem and causes damage to
production.”
Fallahi said a solution,
one that Obendorf is also us-
ing, is to add acid when wa-
tering the plants.
“The acid brings the pH
down and makes the mi-
cronutrients available,” he
said. “When we inject a lot
of acid, we have had some
success but it is expensive to
do that.”
Fallahi began growing a
blueberry variety provided
by Obendorf Farms this year
at the experiment station.
“I’m trying to help Essie
so he can help me,” Oben-
dorf said.
Obendorf said that if the
farm’s blueberry experiment
is successful, it will help the
operation diversify.
“We’re just looking for
another crop that could be
the next emerging market in
this area,” he said. “There are
no blueberries grown locally
here (but) there’s demand for
them.”
This year was the first
Obendorf Farms sold its
blueberries
commercially,
to three supermarkets, three
farmers’ markets and four
fruit stands.
Obendord said his plants
are yielding about 10 percent
of what they need to in order
to be profitable but it takes
four or five years for them to
reach full production.
He’s hopeful that despite
the current low yields and
high pH issue, blueberries
will turn out to be a profitable
crop for the farm.
“I think it’s very prom-
ising,” he said. “We’re
definitely hoping for a
bigger crop next year.
We’re planning to keep
expanding.”
Agency rolls out rules for winery wastewater
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Wineries wash bottles,
barrels and tanks, and the wa-
ter picks up cleansers, stems
and dregs and the potential
to pollute, according to the
Washington Department of
Ecology, which will make
some winemakers get a permit
to irrigate with wastewater.
Ecology will take com-
ments on the proposal until
Feb. 14. The permit will also
regulate sending wastewater
into sewer and septic systems.
The rules will apply to win-
eries that produce more than
17,835 gallons a year, about
one-fifth of the state’s more
than 900 winemakers.
Washington Wine Institute
Executive Director Josh Mc-
Donald said Monday that the
trade group hopes Ecology
will raise the threshold. “Our
position in trying to work with
If you go
Ecology will hold two public hearings on the proposal:
• 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30, at Benton County PUD, 250 Gap
Road, Prosser.
• 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2, South Bellevue Community College,
14509 S.E. Newport Way, Bellevue.
Written comments may be mailed to: Stacey Callaway, Water
Quality Program, Department of Ecology, P.O. Box 47696, Olym-
pia, WA 98504-7696.
Online
ecology.wa.gov/winerypermit
Ecology has been to come as
close to doing no harm as pos-
sible,” he said.
The rules have been sever-
al years in the making. Ecol-
ogy expects to finalize them
and start issuing permits next
summer. Some large winer-
ies already have wastewater
permits, but for the first time
the entire industry will be put
under uniform requirements.
Ecology uses the same reg-
ulatory approach to control
wastewaster from several oth-
er industries, including fruit
packers.
“What we hope for is that
under the permit, wineries
will be able to comply with
it without extraordinary ac-
tions,” Washington Associa-
tion of Wine Grape Growers
lobbyist Mike Schwisow said.
Wineries have not been
a “major source” of ground-
water pollution, according to
an Ecology fact sheet. The
agency cites a Michigan food
processor that contaminated
groundwater by irrigating as a
reason for the new rules.
Ecology says winery
wastewater picks up organic
material and is typically acid-
ic. Groundwater could be pol-
luted if wineries over-irrigate
with untreated wastewater,
septic tanks fail or the volume
discharged overwhelms treat-
ment plants.
Wineries that come under
the regulations will have to
submit a pollution-prevention
plan.
Wineries generate waste-
water primarily by cleaning
and rinsing equipment to pre-
vent wine from being contam-
inated. A typical winery uses
6 gallons of water for every
gallon of wine produced, ac-
cording to Ecology.
McDonald said the wine
institute has been asking from
the beginning whether winer-
ies are polluting groundwater.
He said wineries made some
progress in negotiating the
terms of the permit, but the
cost and complexity remain
concerns. “It’s still 80 pages
long and still fairly complicat-
ed to understand,” he said.
An Ecology spokeswoman
said Tuesday there have been
cases of wineries discharging
wastewater high in pH and
discharging enough wastewa-
ter to overwhelm treatment
plants.
In a financial analy-
sis, Ecology estimates that
building a small lagoon
to hold wastewater would
cost $102,000, while a
large lagoon would cost
$315,000.
As a nod to the financial
burden of following the rules,
Ecology exempted hundreds
of small winemakers.
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