Capital Press
A g
The West’s
FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 2018
Weekly
VOLUME 91, NUMBER 1
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
$2.00
Label debate
continues after COOL
Some dairy and cattle producers believe voluntary
country of origin labels could still be major selling point
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
M
ike Eby was a sev-
enth-generation dairy
farmer in Lancaster
County, Pa., but in
2016 he decided to call
it quits.
His family operation went back more
than 200 years, and ending the legacy
was a difficult decision.
“It’s quite the heritage. There are
days sometimes I feel it was a failure,”
he said.
He blames the demise of his farm on
the region’s dairy cooperatives growth
based on the use of imported milk and
their unwillingness to promote U.S.
milk. The result has been unsustainably
low U.S. milk prices, he argues.
Toward the end, he worked four
other jobs — a bed and breakfast, hay
wrapping, bottling other producers’
milk and selling radio advertising — to
keep his dairy of 60 milking cows and
60 tillable acre in business.
“It’s just not supposed to be that
way,” he said.
As chairman of the National Dairy
Producers Organization, he advocates
change in the way co-ops are managed
and the promotion of “100 percent
USA” labels on dairy and beef products.
While he believes the larger issue
weighing down farmer profitability is
co-op managers building empires and
pouring profits into joint ventures, the
label would go a long way toward in-
creasing demand for domestic products
and boosting farmers’ milk prices, he
said.
For Eby — and many other produc-
ers — it’s a matter of promoting U.S.
products over foreign products. Co-ops
should label their products made with
100 percent U.S. milk because consum-
ers find value in USA-branded prod-
ucts, he said.
“We need to give the consumers the tools to
choose because consumers will make the right
choice, they will make the U.S.-made choice.”
Turn to LABELS, Page 12
Bob Krucker, owner of Long View Dairy
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Bob Krucker, owner of Long View Dairy in Jerome, Idaho, stands
beside his maternity pen on Oct. 19. He says U.S. dairy farmers
can compete successfully with imports by labeling verified 100
percent U.S. dairy products with a USA label.
Increased DEQ pesticide authority worries farm groups
Draft policy would regulate spraying over ‘wet or dry’ surface waters
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Agriculture and forestry groups
in Oregon worry the state’s Depart-
ment of Environmental Quality is
planning to significantly expand its
authority over pesticides.
Under the policy being considered
by DEQ, the agency would regulate
pesticide spraying over state surface
waters “whether wet or dry at the
time,” according to an early draft.
It’s unclear how broadly dry wa-
terways would be defined, but the
concern is that areas where water
pools in winter — such as wet fields
in the Willamette Valley — would
be subject to regulation during sum-
mer, critics argue.
“DEQ would be setting itself up
to be the most aggressive regulator
of farm and forestry practices in
the U.S.,” said Mary Anne Cooper,
public policy counsel for the Ore-
gon Farm Bureau.
Regulation of pesticides over
waterways by DEQ initially be-
came an issue in 2009, when the 6th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over-
turned a federal policy exempting
pesticides from regulation under the
Clean Water Act.
The U.S. Environmental Pro-
tection Agency delegates its Clean
Water Act authority to certain states,
including Oregon, which developed
a “general permit” for pesticide dis-
charges in 2011.
Turn to DEQ, Page 12
Dispute erupts over replacing farmland dwellings
Confusing land use law
provision at center of battle
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A legal dispute has erupted over
replacing dwellings on farmland in
Oregon due to an ambiguously written
provision of the state’s land use laws.
The specifics of the controversy are
convoluted, but it centers on whether
Oregon law allows
landowners in “exclu-
sive farm use” zones
to rebuild dwellings
that were torn down
or destroyed by a
natural disaster many
years or even decades
ago.
Landwatch Lane County, a farm-
land preservation group, believes that
rebuilding after such a long interval is
prohibited and goes against the intent
of the Oregon Legisla-
ture.
If such delayed re-
placements were per-
mitted, it would result
in “non-conforming
uses plastered all over
EFU land,” said Lauri
Segel-Vaccher, the group’s legal ana-
lyst.
“Are you really going to have a
commercial farm and forest economy,
or are you converting farm and forest
land into residential uses?” she said.
Kay King, a landowner near Flor-
ence, Ore., wants to rebuild three
dwellings on 100 acres of farmland
that were removed more than 20 years
ago.
Rebuilding the old homes will al-
low for the next generation of farmers
to live on the land, but it’s unlikely to
have widespread impacts, said Mike
Gelardi, King’s attorney.
Turn to DISPUTE, Page 12