January 12, 2018
CapitalPress.com
3
Apple prices stable despite drop in sales to China
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
The size and prices of Wash-
ington’s apple crop appear
to have stabilized while ex-
ports to China are down 40
percent but some say could
recover.
The industry’s Jan. 1
storage report shows the
2016 crop at 142.3 million,
40-pound boxes, the same
as a month ago. It’s an esti-
mate of what was picked and
placed in storage, what’s been
shipped so far and packout
versus cullage of fruit still in
storage. It is second only to
the 143.6-million-box crop of
2014.
Crop size should remain
stable for the next several
months unless there’s some
unforeseen increase in cul-
lage, said Desmond O’Ro-
urke, retired Washington State
University agricultural econo-
mist and world apple market
analyst.
“How rapidly the indus-
try moves the crop is the big
question and so far things
look positive. The dollar is
relatively weak and exports,
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Ana Delgado loads a tray with Ambrosia apples at the McDougall & Sons Baker Flats packing plant on
Jan. 5. A managed variety, Ambrosia wholesales for about $40 per box.
except China, are holding up
very well,” O’Rourke said.
So far this season, 579,000
boxes of Washington apples
have been shipped to China
compared with 957,000 at the
same time last year.
“I’ve been warning people
to be cautious about China,”
O’Rourke said. “There are a
lot of thumbs on the scale in
China.”
Todd Fryhover, president
of the Washington Apple
Commission in Wenatchee,
said China has a huge crop,
exported 10 million boxes of
apples to India last year and
has been banned from India
this year. Chinese import-
ers pulled back early in the
season when a shipment of
Washington Gala was in poor
shape and Chilean cherries
were stiff Christmas compe-
tition.
China has improved pack-
aging of its high-end apples to
its own markets. The nation
is a crowded market among
international
competitors,
making this a “challenging”
season, Rebecca Lyons, the
commission’s export market-
ing director, reported to the
commission on Dec. 14.
Chuck Zeutenhorst, gen-
eral manager of First Fruits
Marketing of Washington in
Yakima, said he’s not worried
and that exports had a slow
start this season due to a later
harvest but are only 2 percent
behind a year ago.
“We are just getting going.
Exports are picking up. I think
we will turn the corner and
numbers will change dramat-
ically,” he said.
O’Rourke said exports to
Asia and the Middle East will
pick up because of lighter Eu-
ropean apple crops.
Washington apple exports
are 12.3 million boxes com-
pared with 12.6 million a year
ago.
Export and domestic ship-
ments total 41 million boxes
versus 46 million a year ago
and 40 million two years ago.
“We are behind where we
would expect to be with this
size of crop because of the
late harvest,” O’Rourke said.
Washington’s largest ap-
ple export market, Mexico, is
down 5 percent and Canada,
second largest, is down 17
percent, he said. India is up
27 percent at 898,000 boxes
so far, he said.
Wholesale
Washington
apple asking prices on main
varieties are unchanged in the
last month or two, according
to USDA, with the excep-
tion of a $2 per box increase
in size 88 Granny Smith and
size 80 Honeycrisp in the last
month and a $2 drop in size
88 Fuji.
Red Delicious remain at
$14 to $17 for 80s and 88s
and Gala remains at $18 to
$24 on 80s and $16 to $22 on
88s.
O’Rourke said it’s too
early to know if prices have
bottomed. Zeutenhorst agreed
while noting a shift to greater
volume of smaller fruit is cre-
ating price stability in larger
sizes. Size 113 (113 apples
per box) now appears to be
peak size, he said.
Interest groups respond to
Oregon ‘cap-and-invest’ bill
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
ODFW
A young female wolf, designated OR-54, recovers after being caught and fi tted with a tracking collar. The wolf belongs to the Rogue
wolfpack and was detected near a dead calf found on a Jackson County, Ore., ranch.
Wolves kill calf in southwest Oregon
Depredation
attributed to
Rogue pack
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Oregon wolves have
notched their fi rst confi rmed
depredation of livestock in
2018.
A 250-pound calf was
found dead and partially eat-
en Jan. 4 at Mill-Mar Ranch
in Jackson County, which
wildlife offi cials attributed
Monday to wolves from the
Rogue pack in southwest Or-
egon.
Another dead calf was re-
ported in the same area Jan.
10, but an investigation into
the cause had not been com-
pleted by press time.
The Rogue pack was
established by Oregon’s
famous wandering wolf,
OR-7, which traveled more
than 1,000 miles from north-
east Oregon to California and
into southern Oregon before
fi nding a mate in 2014. The
pack now has between seven
and 12 individuals, according
to John Stephenson, Oregon
wolf coordinator for the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wolves remain listed as a
federally endangered species
in western Oregon.
GPS collar data shows
OR-54, a female member of
the Rogue pack that biolo-
gists believe is directly relat-
ed to OR-7, was less than a
mile from the dead calf the
morning it was found. Inves-
tigators also documented nu-
merous wolf tracks and bite
marks consistent with a wolf
attack.
Ted Birdseye, who pur-
chased Mill-Mar Ranch near
Boundary Butte about two
years ago, said wolf activi-
ty is not unusual around the
area, but until recently the
predators had kept to hunting
deer and elk.
ODFW sets April meeting for Wolf Plan adoption
Proposal has drawn
criticism from ranchers,
environmentalists
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commis-
sion will consider adopting a long-awaited
update to the state’s Wolf Conservation and
Management Plan at its April 19-20 meet-
ing in Astoria.
A decision was scheduled for Jan. 19 in
Salem, but the commission decided more
time was needed to work on the proposal
Birdseye said he is fasci-
nated by wolf behavior — he
even hand-raised a pup years
ago. At the same time, the an-
imals are capable of causing
serious damage, he added.
“They are major apex
predators, and eat a lot of
meat,” Birdseye said. “They
still fascinate me, but I have
to make a living and the way
I do that is by selling these
calves.”
Birdseye, a sixth-genera-
tion rancher, sold the historic
Birdseye Ranch in Jackson
County to Del Rio Vineyards.
He looked to continue in the
cattle business, mulling land
in British Columbia, Canada
before returning to southern
Oregon and buying the Mill-
Mar Ranch.
“We knew wolves were
out here,” Birdseye said.
Birdseye used a com-
bination of fl adry fencing
and fl ashing lights to haze
wolves. Stephenson, with the
USFWS, said wolves have
been visiting the Mill-Mar
Ranch for years, but until
recently had not preyed on
livestock.
Stephenson said the agen-
cy will be ramping up use of
nonlethal deterrents to pre-
vent wolf attacks from be-
after drawing criticism from ranchers and
environmentalists alike.
At the last commission meeting in
December, environmental groups argued
the plan would move to lethal control of
wolves too quickly in cases of livestock
predation. Cattlemen, on the other hand,
said they would like to see management
zones for wolves across the state, with pop-
ulation caps.
The Oregon wolf plan was last updated
in 2010, and a scheduled fi ve-year update
is now three years overdue.
Public testimony about the plan will be
taken at the Astoria meeting, or can be sub-
mitted via email at odfw.commission.state.
or.us.
coming a chronic problem at
the ranch.
The Rogue pack was also
involved in a confi rmed dep-
redation in the fall of 2016
on private land in adjacent
Klamath County. Stephenson
said the pack tends to travel
back and forth between the
two counties.
The Oregon Department
of Fish & Wildlife is updat-
ing its Wolf Conservation
and Management Plan.
SALEM — State lawmak-
ers have released the fi rst draft
of a bill to charge Oregon in-
dustries for emitting carbon di-
oxide into the atmosphere and
to use the revenue to invest in
projects meant to slow climate
change.
The state’s “cap-and-invest”
bill emerges after several years
of work and coincides with an
announcement from Washing-
ton lawmakers for a similar
program in their state. The bill
will be considered during the
Legislature’s
policymaking
session in February . Democrats
have identifi ed the legislation
as a top priority for the session.
Modeled after a program in
California, Oregon’s so-called
“Clean Energy Jobs” bill would
set a cap of less than 25,000
tons of carbon dioxide per year
for each company, beginning in
2021.
“In other words, your fa-
vorite brewery or grocery store
down the street will not fall
under the cap, only the larg-
est polluters in the state,” said
Brad Reed of Renew Oregon,
a leading proponent of the bill.
“The cap will decline over time
through 2050 to ensure we
reach our reduction targets and
provide certainty for business.”
The estimated 100 Oregon
companies that emit more than
that amount would be required
to buy market-priced allowanc-
es for the excess. The “price”
on emissions is designed to
encourage businesses to adopt
technologies and practices that
reduce their carbon footprint.
The allowances would be
sold at a North American auc-
tion and generate revenue that
would be invested in green-en-
ergy and environmentally
friendly agriculture projects.
Climate change
The program would eventu-
ally generate hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars in revenue that
would be invested in projects
that slow climate change . The
exact cost of the program has
yet to be calculated, he said. But
previous estimates pegged rev-
enue at about $700 million per
year. Investments could include
rebates for electric vehicles, so-
lar panels on homes or safety
improvements on bicycle lanes,
among other things, he has said.
Carbon trading markets are
gaining momentum around the
globe. China has plans to launch
a carbon market later this year
that would account for about a
quarter of that country’s indus-
trial emissions, according to E
& E News, a Washington, D.C.,
environment and energy publi-
cation.
A cap-and-invest bill in 2016
drew strong opposition from
certain Oregon business groups,
including Associated Oregon In-
dustries, since merged into Ore-
gon Business & Industry.
Mark Johnson, the group’s
president and CEO, said the
program would drive up prices
on consumers and drive away
businesses from the state.
“Unfortunately, the legis-
lation introduced (Monday) is
an example of misplaced pri-
orities,” Johnson said. “Green-
house gas emissions are de-
creasing, while Oregon’s fi scal
crisis is worsening. Rather than
pushing a complex, costly pro-
gram to address an issue that
businesses already are making
progress on, legislators need to
focus on a problem only they
can fi x — Oregon’s fi scal insta-
bility.”
Tom Koehler, co-founder of
Pacifi c Ethanol and secretary of
the Oregon Business Alliance
on Climate, said he supports
moving forward on the legisla-
tion this year.
“There is a fundamental
decision that needs to be made
now and not danced around:
Do we believe the climate cri-
sis is real and are we ready to
do our part to make a differ-
ence?” Koehler said.
Weekly fieldwork report
Calif.
Ore.
Wash.
Idaho
• Snow water equivalent*
38%
80.8%
75.3%
41.5%
• Percent area in drought
0
0
Less than 1%
44.3%
• Avg. temperature, 6-10 day outlook
60-90%
above
50-70%
above
50-70%
above
90% or more
above
• Precipitation, 6-10 day outlook
40-50%
above
40-50%
above
33-40%
above
Above (north)/
below (south)
Normal/below
normal
Normal/above
normal
Normal/above
normal
Below
normal
Item/description
(Percent chance deviation from normal)
(Percent chance deviation from normal)
• Soil moisture anomaly
(Monthly deviation from normal)
*Aggregate average percent of median as of Jan. 9. Medians calculated for the period from 1981-2010.
Sources: USDA, NRCS; NOAA, www.ca.gov/; www.drought.gov/