12 CapitalPress.com
December 29, 2017
WDFW pens $425,000 contract
extension with wolf consultant
Contract with
Madden totals $1.6
million
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Washington State University
An apple shows apple maggot dimpling. Infected fruit becomes
uglier as the worm works.
WSDA to expand its
apple maggot rule
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — The Wash-
ington State Department of
Agriculture is working to
expand its apple maggot
quarantine rule to include
the potted soil of host plants.
The department posted a
notice Nov. 14 that it started
a rule amendment process.
No draft is ready yet nor
public comment period set.
Jim Marra, pest program
manager of the department’s
plant protection division,
said he doesn’t anticipate
any amendment going into
effect until late 2018 or ear-
ly 2019. A Small Business
Economic Impact Statement
has to be completed first and
that can take time, he said.
Apple maggot, also
known as a railroad worm,
is a pest of several fruits,
mainly apples. It has long
been active on the East
Coast but was discovered in
Portland in 1979. It’s been
active in western Oregon
and Washington and slowly
spread east of the Cascades
as a low-level problem in
backyard fruit trees and has
never been detected in com-
mercially packed fruit.
The department and
Washington State Tree Fruit
Association want to keep it
that way.
“Our big concern is big
box stores. If plants are
coming in there that have
produced fruit or are fruit-
ing,” said Ranie Haas, direc-
tor of regulatory and indus-
try affairs for the association
in Yakima.
In a July 17 letter to
Marra, Haas said failure to
control apple maggot would
require growers to increase
costly pesticide applications
to prevent crop loss. Lack of
adequate control also jeop-
ardizes access to foreign
markets for the fruit, she
said. Potted nursery trees
and their soil are potential
pathways for spread of apple
maggot, she said.
The current rule requires
inspection and certification
of apples, crab apples, haw-
thorn, apricots, cherries,
plums, prunes and quince,
but not commercial pears,
as pest-free before being
sold if an apple maggot fly
is found within half a mile
of an orchard. If fruit is in-
fested it must undergo cold
storage and treatment before
exporting.
Homegrown or foraged
fruit cannot be moved from
a quarantine area into or
through a pest-free area.
Quarantined areas include
all of Western Washington,
the western half of Chelan
County, Kittitas County, the
western and northern two-
thirds of Yakima County,
Klickitat County, the south-
eastern portion of Lincoln
County and Spokane Coun-
ty.
In 2016, the rule was
amended to require com-
posting companies to treat
municipal yard wast to
kill apple maggots before
trucking material into ap-
ple-growing regions for pro-
cessing.
WAWG president follows
family legacy of leadership
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Fairfield, Wash., wheat farmer Marci Green at her home on
Dec. 13.
Green wants to
preserve crop
insurance, tax
incentives, trade
for farmers
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
FAIRFIELD, Wash. —
Leadership runs in Marci
Green’s family.
Her father, Karl Felgen-
hauer, was a longtime board
member of the Washington
Wheat Commission, now
the Washington Grain Com-
mission. Her great uncle,
Jack Felgenhauer, was a
president of the National As-
sociation of Wheat Growers.
Green has also served on
local boards and other orga-
nizations.
“I just feel like it’s im-
portant to take part in the
things you are involved
with,” she said.
In November, Green
took over as president of the
Washington Association of
Wheat Growers. She will
serve a year-long term.
Green believes the or-
ganization has established
itself well with lawmakers
in Olympia and Washington,
D.C.
“When we walk into of-
fices ... we don’t have to
do as much educating,” she
said. “They’ve seen us be-
fore, they know why we’re
there. So we can get right
down to what it is that we
need, and the specifics.”
Green and her husband,
Lonnie, started working on
the farm for her father in
1987, and began buying into
the farm in 1990. Green is
a sixth-generation farmer;
sons Jordan and Derek, 25
and 22, are seventh-gen-
eration farmers. Jordan is
back on the farm; Derek is
finishing his senior year at
the University of Idaho and
plans to be back on the farm
in May.
State priorities are pro-
tecting agricultural tax in-
centives, addressing the
state Supreme Court’s 2016
Hirst ruling that is “hamper-
ing rural development” and
passing a capital budget, in-
cluding funding for several
Washington State University
buildings.
By mid-2019, the Wash-
ington Department of Fish
and Wildlife will have paid a
consultant up to $1.6 million
over four years to help it rec-
oncile conflicting views on
wolves, according to the con-
sultant’s contract.
Francine Madden, who
has led meetings of the de-
partment’s Wolf Advisory
Group since 2015, has signed
a two-year $425,000 exten-
sion, adding to the nearly
$1.2 million in her previous
contract.
WDFW wolf policy co-
ordinator Donny Martorel-
lo said the department will
continue to lean on Madden
to forge agreements among
interest groups and to train
department employees to re-
solve conflicts.
Under Madden’s guid-
ance, the advisory group for
two straight grazing seasons
has agreed on a policy relat-
ed to protecting livestock and
culling wolfpacks. “We’ve
seen cohesion on one of the
most challenging aspects of
wolf management,” Martorel-
lo said.
WDFW hired Madden,
founder of Human-Wildlife
Conflict Collaboration, three
years ago to assess the social
conflict over Washington’s
growing wolf population.
She subsequently was hired
to lead the Wolf Advisory
Group. The department said
it needed the expertise of a
neutral facilitator to have any
hopes of having the group
agree on policies.
Her job, according to
the new contract, is to bring
Don Jenkins/Capital Press File
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife consultant Francine Madden points to ideas from the
department’s Wolf Advisory Group at a meeting. The department has extended her contract for two
more years.
about a “social system align-
ment to support and improve
the likelihood of long-term
capacity, empowerment and
effective
decision-making
around wolf conservation and
management.”
She is paid $400 a hour to
consult by phone and $8,000
a day to lead meetings in
person. The contract also in-
cludes travel expenses.
The Cattle Producers of
Washington, whose members
include ranchers directly af-
fected by the return of wolves,
withdrew from the Wolf Ad-
visory Group in 2015. The
organization has no interest
in rejoining, Cattle Producers
President Scott Nielsen said
Tuesday.
WDFW has used the ad-
visory group to avoid taking
responsibility for managing
wolves, he said.
“Our position has been
and still is that wolves should
be managed scientifically, not
socially. I view the (advisory
group) as social management,
and I don’t think anybody
disagrees with that,” Nielsen
said. “The best thing for us is
to not be there.”
Efforts to reach Madden
for this story were not suc-
cessful.
Madden has won support
from state Rep. Joel Kretz,
R-Wauconda. Kretz, whose
district includes most of the
state’s wolves, said that be-
fore Madden the Wolf Advi-
sory Group’s policies were
strongly tilted toward urban
viewpoints.
“And we got out of it a re-
ally bad wolf plan,” he said.
“The only progress I’ve seen
with the (advisory group) has
been since she’s been on it.
“I think she’s been real ef-
fective,” Kretz said. “When
you look at Francine and the
cost (of her services), what’s
the cost of what we’ve been
doing? What’s the cost for the
ranchers?”
Before Madden, Wolf Ad-
visory Group meetings were
contentious, said group mem-
ber Diane Gallegos, execu-
tive director Wolf Haven In-
ternational, a wolf sanctuary
in Tenino.
“We didn’t have the ex-
pertise that Francine brings to
communicate with each oth-
er,” Gallegos said. “ We need-
ed the neutral person to break
down the walls and make us
human beings again.
“I am so grateful that the
department
acknowledged
that it needed help with this,”
Gallegos said.
Several
environmental
groups are represented on the
advisory group. Two that are
not, the Center for Biological
Diversity and Cascadia Wild-
lands, are suing WDFW. The
lawsuit claims the advisory
group has provided “politi-
cal cover” for killing wolves
without proper scientific re-
view or public comment. The
suit is pending in Thurston
County Superior Court.
Researchers focus on listeria contamination
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — The
recall of Michigan apples in
Midwest and Southeastern
states due to listeria contami-
nation fears is unfortunate, and
the Washington apple industry
is working hard to avoid sim-
ilar problems, a leading re-
searcher says.
Grocery chains Kroger and
Aldi have recalled several va-
rieties of apples sold in several
states since Dec. 12 after rou-
tine sampling by Jack Brown
Produce, Sparta, Mich., found
listeria in a shipment from
one of its suppliers, Nyblad
Orchards. No illnesses were
reported, but both retailers ad-
vised people to throw apples
away or return them for full
refunds.
Listeria monocytogenes is a
species of pathogenic bacteria
that can cause serious or fatal
infections in young children,
the elderly and people with
weakened immune systems as
well as miscarriages and still-
births in pregnant women, ac-
cording to the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration. In oth-
erwise healthy people, it can
cause high fever, severe head-
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Ines Hanrahan, post-harvest
physiologist, Washington Tree
Fruit Research Commission.
ache, stiffness, nausea, abdom-
inal pain and diarrhea.
“We don’t know a lot of
details about what happened
in Michigan but it is unfortu-
nate. We are very concerned in
Washington about listeria and
have been trying to do every-
thing possible to set up pro-
cesses to avoid problems,” said
Ines Hanrahan, post harvest
physiologist and project man-
ager with the Washington Tree
Fruit Research Commission.
Not all listeria strains or
species are deadly and where
they live and what causes them
to grow is not fully understood,
Hanrahan said.
“We have no way of con-
trolling or knowing when a
potentially deadly strain enters
our post-harvest environment,”
she said. “However, we can
set up very thorough systems
to make sure we get alerted
as soon as any listeria enters
storage and packing and then
we can eradicate them by thor-
ough cleaning and sanitation
programs for equipment.”
Furthermore,
fruit
is
sprayed with chemicals that
kill bacteria such as listeria
and E. coli, she said. Ongoing
research funded by the com-
mission in collaboration with
Washington State University
has established that cold stor-
age or controlled atmosphere
storage of more than six weeks
may reduce listeria species by
up to 99.9 percent, she said.
Adding a continuous flow
ozone generator to a controlled
atmosphere storage room may
lead to even higher levels of
bacterial die-off, she said.
“We are currently conduct-
ing research to find out the best
standard operating procedures
for all these things to get the
maximum bacterial reduction.
We know these techniques
work but we are trying to get
the maximum effect,” Hanrah-
an said.
Hanrahan and scientists at
WSU and the Center for Pro-
duce Safety in Davis, Calif.,
are working on studies, two of
which will be done next year
and others within three years.
Listeria is no more common
in apples than other produce or
processed foods. There was
a rash of listeria outbreaks in
cantaloupe several years ago
in which more than two dozen
people died. Outbreaks have
also occurred in ice cream and
cheese.
Any food that comes in
contact with soil has potential
for contamination, as does pro-
duce in which water is used in
packing lines, Hanrahan said.
In late 2014 and early 2015,
three deaths and 34 hospitaliza-
tions across the country were
traced to caramel apples sold
by three companies but orig-
inating as fresh apples from
Bakersfield, Calif. In 2013,
Crunch Pak, Cashmere, Wash.,
recalled sliced apples due to
possible listeria contamination.
Listeria infections cause
about 1,600 illnesses and 260
deaths annually in the U.S.
Input price declines can’t make up for low crop prices
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
CALDWELL, Idaho — As
farm commodity prices have
declined over the past three
years, many farm input costs
have fallen as well — but at a
slower rate.
Farmers’ profit margins are
getting tighter, University of
Idaho Agricultural Economist
Ben Eborn said during UI’s
recent ag outlook forums. To
survive, farmers need to look
for every opportunity to in-
crease efficiencies, even if it’s
in small increments.
“It’s going to take small,
1-2 percent improvements to
lots of things, like fertilizing,
irrigating, labor and feed,” he
said. “Every category has to
improve a little bit in order
to stay profitable. You’re not
going to be able to find one
silver bullet to keep you in the
black.”
Farmers, he said, must be
diligent.
“The best thing you can do
is monitor your costs and fi-
nancial records like a hawk,”
Eborn said.
Eborn estimates that in
2018 fertilizer costs will re-
main steady with 2017, chem-
icals and pesticides will be
steady to 1-2 percent lower,
custom farming will remain
steady to 1-3 percent higher
and irrigation costs will in-
crease 2-5 percent.
He said the best time to
purchase fuel is late Decem-
ber into January and producers
should shop around to make
sure they’re getting the best
possible deal on fertilizer and
chemicals.
He also said producers
should consider leasing equip-
ment right now. “They can
save a lot of money doing
that.”
According to USDA data,
average U.S. farm production
expenditures declined from
about $190,000 per farm in
2014 to about $165,000 in
2016.
But those declining costs
haven’t been enough to offset
declining crop prices for most
farmers, Eborn said.
Costs “have gone down
a little but they haven’t gone
down as much as we’d like,”
said Shelley farmer Stan Sear-
le.
Searle said fertilizer prices
were down in 2017 but he pur-
chased more fertilizer to try to
increase his yields to make up
for lower crop prices.
His advise to fellow farm-
ers is to focus on hitting the
market highs.
“The marketing of your
crops is probably going to be
the biggest profit margin mak-
er for you,” he said. “Hit the
market highs while they’re
there (because) they won’t be
there for long.”
Parma farmer Mike Good-
son said fertilizer prices “have
come down quite a bit but not
as fast as commodity prices are
falling” and “labor is up quite
a bit. Margins are pretty slim if
not just break-even right now.”
To manage, Goodson is
looking to reduce the cost of
some inputs that are providing
only marginal yield gains.