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.