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18 CapitalPress.com December 8, 2017 USDA boosts ag export forecast to $140 billion for year By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press USDA has added $1 billion to its forecast for agricultural exports in FY 2018, project- ing $140 billion in sales and the fourth-largest export year on the books. The new forecast puts expected sales closer to the $140.5 in FY 2017 and is an increase from the $139 billion projected in August. The increase is largely due to higher corn volumes and values and strong demand for dried distillers grains with solubles, known by the initials DDGS, the USDA Economic Research Service and Foreign Agricultural Service reported in the latest Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade. With imports projected to decrease by $2.1 billion, the U.S. agricultural trade 180 (Billions of dollars, for fiscal years) Exports Imports $140 billion: Up 3% from 2012 160 135.9 140 120 103.4 $117 billion: Up 13.2% from 2012 100 Source: USDA; U.S. Census Bureau Alan Kenaga/Capital Press *Forecast 80 2012 ’14 U.S. agricultural trade surplus is expected to grow 8 percent to $23 billion. “Much of this expected success can be attributed to robust sales to our East Asian and North American trading partners,” USDA Secretary ’16 2018* Sonny Perdue said in a press release. China is again shaping up to be the top export market for the U.S., led by continued strong soybean sales, while Canada and Mexico remain the second- and third-largest Online To view the entire report, visit: http://bit.ly/1mT8tP6 markets, respectively, he said. “We’re expecting exports to grow in the coming year to all our top three markets,” he said. Exports to China are ex- pected to grow $600 million year over year to $22.6 bil- lion, exports to Canada are expected to grow $800 mil- lion to $21.2 billion, and ex- ports to Mexico are projected at $19.2 billion, up $600 mil- lion. While the export picture is brighter for grains and feed than in August, total sales are expected to drop $1 billion from FY 2017 to $29.4 billion. Strong, early-season sales and shipments of corn, pri- Oregon ag wary of ‘cap-and-invest’ energy plan Climate change legislation to be introduced in 2018 Capital Press Capital Press U.S. farmers will spend an estimated $14.9 million a year reporting to federal emergen- cy managers that livestock are releasing gas, the Envi- ronmental Protection Agency disclosed Monday. The EPA also projected that the mandate, set to take effect Jan. 22, will apply to approximately 44,900 farms, though producer groups say they’re still sorting out which operations will have to re- port. “It’s going to be a chal- lenge, to put it lightly,” said Jack Field, executive direc- tor of the Washington Cattle Feeders Association. The EPA included the fig- ures in a notice due to be pub- lished Tuesday in the Federal Register. The new rule comes after a decade-long battle be- tween the EPA and environ- mental groups over the scope of the Comprehensive Envi- ronmental Response, Com- pensation and Liability Act, commonly known as the Su- perfund law. The law, passed in 1980, gives federal emergency man- agers authority to respond to releases of hazardous sub- stances. The EPA exempted animal feeding operations, Washington to spray 1,300 acres for gypsy moths By DON JENKINS Capital Press EO Media Group File A methane digester collects gas from decomposing cow manure at a dairy and uses it as fuel to gener- ate electricity. Such generators could also produce carbon credits for Oregon farmers under “cap-and- invest” proposals considered by Gov. Kate Brown and the state legislature. 30 meeting of the Oregon Board of Agri- culture in Port- land. Some of the funds generat- Kristen ed by the sys- Sheeran tem would also fund projects that decrease or offset carbon emissions, which would bene- fit agriculture, she said. “If people don’t want to do it, they don’t have to partici- pate,” Sheeran said of the role that would be played by farm- ers and ranchers, who wouldn’t be regulated as emitters under the current proposals. However, related indus- tries, such as large food proces- sors and pulp mills, would fall under the regulatory scheme. For farmers, the proposal is concerning because it would raise the cost of doing business for manufacturers of fertilizer, fuel and energy — major in- puts in agricultural production. About 80 percent of Ore- gon’s farm goods are shipped out of state, so growers here can’t afford to have higher production costs than farmers elsewhere, said Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau. “It will make Oregon agri- culture less competitive,” said Cooper. Growers could potentially sell carbon credits they earned by turning dairy emissions into energy with anaerobic digesters, for example, or by growing crops that sequester carbon. In California, though, farm- ers have often found the paper- work and verification process for generating carbon credits too cumbersome to be worth- while, she said. Also, growers who have already invested in reducing carbon emissions with energy efficient equipment and no-till cropping systems would like- ly not be compensated for past investments. In effect, the policy would penalize early adopters of technology, Cooper said. “We’re looking at it as a net loss for agriculture,” she said. California and British Columbia have already im- plemented such carbon reg- ulation systems, but there still isn’t enough information available to learn from those experiments, said Jeff Stone, EPA: Farms to spend $14.9M to report manure emissions By DON JENKINS are expected to spur addition- al demand for U.S. soybeans, leading to increased sales of $100 million in the coming year to $24.1 billion. The outlook for livestock, poultry and dairy exports im- proved, largely due to higher export forecasts for prod- ucts such as lard and tallow. USDA is projecting $29.7 billion in sales, up almost $1 billion from FY 2017. That includes expected increases of about $100 million in beef and veal and about $300 mil- lion in dairy. Exports of fruits, vege- tables and tree nuts are ex- pected to increase about $500 million to $34.5 billion, with a $400 million increase in tree nuts, a $200 million increase in fresh produce and a $100 million decrease in processed fruits and vegetables. Naval base, neighborhood to get treatments By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI PORTLAND — Represen- tatives of Oregon agriculture say they are wary of a propos- al to reduce the state’s carbon emissions. While farmers could attract new revenue under the system, they could also face higher costs for fuel, electricity and other inputs, they say. Oregon lawmakers in the House and Senate are current- ly devising carbon emission “cap-and-invest” bills to be introduced during the 2018 legislative session. The goal is to mitigate climate change by reducing the amount of “greenhouse gases” such as carbon dioxide that get into the atmosphere. The basic idea of the legis- lation is to cap the amount of carbon emissions by certain companies, with the greatest impact falling on those con- suming or importing signifi- cant amounts of fossil fuels. Facilities that fall below the cap would earn credits that can be sold to offset the emissions of companies that exceed that level. “It harnesses market in- centives by putting a price on carbon,” said Kristen Sheeran, carbon policy adviser for Ore- gon Gov. Kate Brown. The State of Oregon would also sell emission allowances to regulated firms, generating money that will be used for highway improvements and to relieve the effects of higher electricity or natural gas pric- es, said Sheeran. “Governor Brown wants to decarbonize the Oregon econ- omy,” she said during the Nov. marily to Mexico, strength- ened USDA’s projection. But corn exports are expected to be down $1.2 billion year over year to $8.5 billion. Feeds and fodder are fore- cast up $300 million from FY 2017 to $7.5 billion on expec- tations of strong demand for DDGS. The outlook for wheat sales has dampened a bit since August, with values under pressure from abundant glob- al supplies. But large sales to Iraq and the expectation that U.S. wheat will be more competitive later in the year has USDA forecasting a year- over-year increase of $100 million to $6.3 billion. Record U.S. soybean pro- duction is driving record ex- ports, although values are down because of larger global supplies. Those lower prices maintaining that it was un- likely anyone would ever stage an emergency response to decomposing manure. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia this year overruled the EPA. The court sided with Waterkeeper Alliance and other environmental groups, which argued that manure was a hazard that emergen- cy responders and the public should know about. Still to be determined is whether the same farms will have to also register with lo- cal and state officials under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act, a law passed in 1986 in response to the chemical leak in Bhopal, India, that killed thousands of people. The EPA says the court’s decision on the Superfund law did not require farmers to report under the Right-To- Know Act. The suing envi- ronmental groups say it does. The court has yet to clarify its ruling. The reporting threshold for both laws is the release of 100 pounds of ammonia or hydrogen sulfide in a 24-hour period. Field said he anticipates that every major feedlot in the state will have to register. Less certain, however, is the number of ranches that will have to report. The EPA has released worksheets to help producers estimate emissions for cattle, pigs and poultry. But climate, enclosures and manure han- dling practices complicate the calculations. Sarah Ryan, executive vice president of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association, said she has heard estimates that producers with as few as 200 head of cattle will have to re- port. Other estimates put the number at about 350 head of cattle, she said. EPA recently advised ranchers that manure from cows grazing in pastures out- side enclosed areas will count toward the reporting thresh- old. “For cow-calf producers it’s a struggle to know what the threshold is,” Ryan said. The EPA says it’s working on streamlined forms, but still estimates farms will spend 496,893 hours to report live- stock emissions. Factories must immedi- ately report chemical leaks to the National Response Cen- ter, staffed by the U.S. Coast Guard. Farms will be able to register with the center annu- ally as a continuous source of hazardous substances since livestock regularly vent. executive director of the Ore- gon Association of Nurseries. “We just don’t know its impacts,” he said. There are opportunities for agriculture, such as investing money in planting trees along roads to absorb carbon, Stone said. However, these possibil- ities must be studied more thoroughly, he said. For example, it’s too early to know exactly how much carbon is “sequestered” through the production, sale and planting of Japanese ma- ples or rhododendrons, Stone said. “It needs to be part of the conversation,” he said. Another issue is ensuring the cap-and-invest system would not drive emitting in- dustries from Oregon to other states, which would hurt the economy without reducing emissions. To this end, the govern- ment would probably offer free or discounted emission allowances to companies that are prone to flee, said Sheer- an. “We will provide some sort of differential treatment under the cap,” she said. The Washington State De- partment of Agriculture said Tuesday that it plans to spray an insecticide over a total of 1,300 acres in two counties next spring to kill gypsy moth caterpillars. The department will tar- get 300 acres near Graham in Pierce County and 1,000 acres on and surrounding the U.S. Navy base in Kitsap County. “I’m confident that our proposal will prevent gypsy moths from gaining a foot- hold in our state and protect our environment from this invasive threat,” WSDA pest program manager Jim Marra said in a written statement. Washington, like other Western states, has been wag- ing a 40-year war to keep out European and Asian gypsy moths. The pests feast on a wide-range of plants and are established in 20 states in the East and Midwest. Massachusetts suffered its worse infestation in decades last year. Gypsy moths dam- aged 362,254 acres of state forests, according to offi- cials. Gypsy moth eggs travel across the country attached to outdoor belongings. WSDA this summer and fall trapped 117 gypsy moths, all of the European variety and the most since 1995. The total doesn’t count about 100 female moths and 13 male moths collected by hand in early August from a bush in a Pierce County neighborhood. It was the first time WSDA has ever found Washington State Department of Agriculture One trap holds 14 European gypsy moths July 31 in Gra- ham, Wash. female moths laying eggs. Female gypsy moths don’t fly and so aren’t lured into traps hanging from trees and fenceposts. Most moths were trapped in Pierce or Kitsap counties, triggering the plan to spray Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, or Btk, in those plac- es. The spraying will be in April or May, from the air and timed to when the caterpil- lars emerge. Btk is approved in organic farming, and it’s the chemical that WSDA has used in the past. WSDA said it developed the spraying plan in consultation with the USDA and the University of Washington. The plan will go through public comment and environmental review before being made final. WSDA also trapped gypsy moths in Clark, King, Island, Thurston and Whatcom coun- ties, but not enough for the department to spray. The 1,300-acre treatment will be one of the larger cam- paigns against gypsy moths WSDA has waged. But it will be much smaller than the last. In 2016, the department sprayed more than 10,000 acres in seven places. In the two years since, no gypsy moths have been detected in those areas, according to WSDA. Some ag employers don’t support H-2C plan By DAN WHEAT Capital Press Agricultural employers, meeting last week in Las Vegas, were happy that a House bill proposing a new agricultural foreign guest- worker program to replace the H-2A-visa program doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, says a manager of a leading foreign guest- worker supplier. Attendees at the annual conference of the National Council of Agricultural Em- ployers don’t like a cap on foreign workers in HR 4092 and they don’t like the bill’s mandatory E-verify (elec- tronic employment eligibil- ity) without legal work per- mits for thousands of illegal agricultural workers living in the U.S., said Kerry Scott, program manager of masLa- bor in Lovingston, Va. E-verify without legal authorization for illegals could remove as much as 70 percent of field workers, leaving growers with a huge labor vacuum, Scott told Capital Press following the NCAE meeting, which he attended. “There are too many vul- nerable employers and farm- ers scared of how that would play out,” he said. “So we’re happy to see it die if it dies.” Labor-intensive agricul- tural employers were OK with the way House Judi- ciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., wrote the bill but didn’t like changes made to it before it passed out of that commit- tee Oct. 25, said Scott, who lives in Goodlatte’s district and considers him to be a friend. The bill, which would re- place the H-2A-visa foreign guestworker program with a new H-2C program, is all but dead, not only because of agricultural opposition but because Goodlatte an- nounced his retirement at the end of 2018, Scott said. Dairies like the bill be- cause it allowed a 36-month initial stay for guestwork- ers instead of 10 months allowed in H-2A. Dairies need workers year-round. Tree fruit growers can live with the 10-month limit. But tree fruit growers liked Goodlatte’s provisions making employer-provided transportation and worker housing voluntary instead of mandatory and reducing a required minimum wage. Growers, however, didn’t like a 450,000-worker annu- al cap under H-2C because it most likely would be met immediately and an escala- tor provision would be slow, Scott said. H-2A has no cap and probably will continue in- creasing rapidly because agricultural labor shortages will grow rapidly because of a thriving economy and tighter borders, he said.