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4 CapitalPress.com February 23, 2018 Idaho computer programmer creates future of small farming Farmer works on affordable tech for small producers By MATTHEW WEAVER Matthew Weaver/Capital Press File Capital Press Cattle Producers of Washington president Scott Nielsen be- lieves his organization’s rejected grant application represents a “missed opportunity.” ATHOL, Idaho — Luke Black has big plans for his small farm. He and his wife, Emily, even use the process of “min- ing” cryptocurrency — digi- tal currencies such as Bitcoin — to heat their chicken coop. They have installed the com- puter “miner” on a wall and use fans to blow the heat into the coop to keep their chickens warm. Market garden beds on their 10-acre farm will soon have sensors that send data about the crops to a server in his house. A full-time comput- er programmer, Black wrote the server software and de- signed and built their irrigation controller. He also wants to devel- op artificial intelligence that would take information about the soil, crops, marketplace and weather and automatically make decisions about the farm, alerting employees about work that needs to be done. “Sorry, farm managers of the world, but if I can replace that job with a computer, then I don’t have to pay that and that’s more money for the workers and for us,” he said. Luke, 36, spent most of his Washington cattlemen’s group howls over missing wolf grant Capital Press Four ranches and a new nonprofit have been awarded a total of $276,000 in state funds to protect cattle in Washington’s wolf country with range riders and fences. Meanwhile, a proposal by the Cattle Producers of Washington, whose mem- bers include ranchers most affected by wolves, has been denied funding. The cattlemen proposed collaborating with state and local officials to collar more wolves, more closely mon- itor packs and more effi- ciently haze predators. Two sheriffs and county commis- sioners in all four northeast Washington counties en- dorsed the plan. The application, however, was opposed by the Depart- ment of Fish and Wildlife. “I think we put together a real good (proposal),” Cattle Producers President Scott Nielsen said. “Ours had the support of the local com- munity. I think it was a real missed opportunity.” The state Department of Agriculture will distribute the grants based on the recom- mendations of a four-mem- ber panel representing con- servation districts in Ferry, Okanogan, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties. Fish and Wildlife already spends about $400,000 year to help ranchers pay for non-lethal measures to guard livestock from wolves. The Legislature last year creat- ed a separate program under the agriculture department for a “community-based approach” to protecting livestock. Lawmakers ap- propriated $300,000. The agriculture department will keep $24,000 to administer the grants. The largest grant, $185,493, was awarded to the new Northeast Wash- ington Wolf-Cattle Collab- orative. The nonprofit plans to employ four or five range riders to help ranchers head off depredations. “We’re taking no pay whatsoever,” one of the nonprofit’s direc- tors, Ferry County rancher Arron Scotten, said. “We want every dime to go back into the community.” The other four grants LEGAL Request for Proposals Fiscal Year July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019 The Oregon Beef Council is soliciting proposals for projects in the following areas: 1) Positive Producer Image 2) Studying Legislation 3) Education related to beef 4) Generic promotion of beef Any individual or organization may propose projects in any of the categories listed above. Projects must meet the Beef Council’s mission of enhancing the beef industry’s image of profitability of Oregon’s beef industry. Approved projects must comply with the Beef Promotion and Research Act and O.R.S. 577 To present a proposal you must complete and submit an Authorization Request Form by March 16, 2018 at 4:00 p.m. Download an Authorization Request Form from orbeef.org or by contacting the Oregon Beef Council office (503) 274- 2333 or via e-mail at julie@orbeef.org. Legal-7-2-3/999 childhood on his grandpar- ents’ farm outside Rathdrum in northern Idaho. Emily, 32, comes from a cattle ranch in Montana. Luke raises hops and heritage grains. Emily likes the market garden and raising chickens for eggs. “Anything to make our lives easier with technology, I’m completely on board with that,” Emily said, calling her- self the “supporter” in Luke’s plans for the farm. “I help with anything, but that’s not my passion. Mine’s digging in the dirt and being on the ground with (the chickens).” Luke eventually hopes to reach tech-level salaries while farming. He says many other computer programmers are also interested in farming. “All of us younger, mil- lennial tech guys are realizing we can’t be in the tech world much longer,” he said. “It’s hard on your body, sitting all day, working those hours and stress. The problem is you can’t make a living farming.” Large agriculture uses some IoT — the initials for the Internet of Things — con- necting physical devices to the internet, but it’s difficult to get cost-effective informa- tion about crops in small-scale farming, he said. “Small farms are not ex- tremely profitable, but what Luke is developing can be af- fordable for the small farm,” said Colette DePhelps, a Uni- versity of Idaho Extension area educator for community food systems in Moscow. “Luke is a farmer doing the development side of it, so he gets agriculture,” she said. “That’s going to create a re- sponsiveness in the system that might not happen if it came from the technological sector (and) folks who did not have experience in agriculture.” Luke sees a “revolution in the making.” The farmers of the future will be program- mers, he said. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to be a successful farmer without knowing how to code,” he said. “Whether people like it or not, what’s going to end up happening is people like me are going to get robots on the fields that can run 24 hours a day, that don’t take a break, and can produce things far cheaper than most people will be able to do.” Elk herds horn in on cattle pastures By CRAIG REED For the Capital Press ROSEBURG, Ore. — The mild winter in Western Or- egon has produced plenty of green pasture forage for live- stock, but some elk herds are also loving it. The elk rest and relax during the day in nearby for- ested area and then dine on the green grass during the night. Many of the ranchers who own those pastures and the livestock are not too pleased with the wildlife intrusion. “They’re robbing feed that is intended for livestock,” said Veril Nelson of the elk. Nelson is the owner of a red Angus op- eration east of Sutherlin, Ore. His pastures have had many nightly visits from a herd of 50 to 60 elk over the past couple of months. “One of those mature elk weighs as much as a yearling cow, 600 to 700 pounds,” the rancher said. “They certainly eat as much as a yearling beef animal. They hide in the tim- ber during the day to rest and ruminate, then they’re back out at night, eating enough for a 24-hour meal.” Tim Miller of Siletz, Ore., runs cattle on five properties. He said he has elk issues at four of those locations. “If I can’t keep the elk out, I’m a month later getting the cattle onto those pastures,” he said. Miller is working to keep Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Ten state-managed feeding sites along the Elkhorn Range in north- eastern Oregon are intended to keep elk and deer from venturing onto private lands where they can damage fields, fences and hay barns. the elk out. He has built 6-foot electric New Zealand fence around two of the pas- tures and is in the process of fencing a third property. He has also obtained a hazing permit. Those permits al- low ranchers to run or scare off wildlife with vehicles or shotgun blasts. Craig Herman, a rancher in the Bandon, Ore., area, is chairman of the Oregon Cat- tlemen’s Association’s Private Lands Committee. He said there has been “a lot of frustra- tion” with elk herds on private property. He explained in ad- dition to losing pasture forage, fence damage caused by elk is also a major issue and expense for ranchers. “One woman in the New- port (Oregon) area is getting out of the cattle business be- cause she can’t keep her fenc- es up due to the elk,” Herman said. “When elk are spooked, they’ll go right through a fence, and then you have the problem of your own cattle getting out.” Tod Lum, a big game wild- life biologist in the Oregon Department of Fish and Wild- life office in Roseburg, said complaints about elk this win- ter have been about the same as in the past. He understands the situation ranchers who are trying to turn a profit with their cattle face. “It’s very attractive for an elk to look at a neon green field and be attracted to it, es- pecially if they’re living in the timber. When they graze on a field all night, the rancher has a valid damage complaint.” Lum said property owners with at least 40 acres can ob- tain landowner preference tags to take an antlerless elk and to hopefully discourage the rest of the herd from returning. Ad- ditional antlerless elk tags can be obtained by hunters who are approved by the landowner and the biologist. “That’s a win-win for the hunter and the landowner,” Lum said. The biologist added a haz- ing permit is also an option. It allows a landowner to lawfully harass the wildlife, but he said that process has to start early before visiting a field becomes too much of a habit for elk. The ranchers and the biolo- gists admit filling the LOP and hunter tags are not easy pas- ture shoots because after being harassed once or twice, the elk sense daylight and have a ten- dency to leave the pastures as darkness is fading. Herman would like to see ranchers compensated for forage and fence damage by the state, but knows that re- imbursement is probably not available. “We have meetings with ODFW and they’re polite and listen,” Herman said. “I appre- ciate what ODFW is dealing with, but I don’t think those folks appreciate what land- owners are dealing with. For- age loss and fence damage are major issues. ODFW needs to manage the wildlife popula- tions better, maybe have lon- ger hunting seasons.” Idaho bill clarifies who owns stock watering rights on federal land By SEAN ELLIS Capital Press LEGAL PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87 Notice is hereby given that the following vehicle will be sold, for cash to the highest bidder, on 3/2/2018. The sale will be held at 10:00am by COPART OF WASHINGTON 2885 NATIONAL WAY, WOODBURN, OR 1994 WINNABAGO BRAVE MH VIN = 1GBJP37N5P3316543 Amount due on lien $1,515.00 Reputed owner(s) MEREDITH W CHABINO WORLD OMNI FINANCIAL COR 1 BOISE — A House com- mittee has approved a bill that would further codify in state law a landmark Idaho Su- preme Court decision on who owns stock watering rights on federally administered land. Siding with two Owyhee County ranchers in a case known as the Joyce Livestock decision, the court ruled in 2007 that the federal govern- ment can’t own those rights because it doesn’t own cattle and therefore can’t put the wa- Since 1994 committed to agriculture & farmers worldwide Cattlemen’s Study Tour to Hawaii October 28 - November 4, 2018 Share your knowledge with Hawaiian cattlemen & enjoy the islands and people . 503-534-3654 Contact us: Anglatin@anglatin.com • anglatin.com 8-3/102 By DON JENKINS will go to individual opera- tions for fences or addition- al human presence around wolves. The recipients are: Okanogan County rancher Craig Boesel, $40,265; Ste- vens County rancher John Dawson, $20,000; Ferry County ranchers Bryan and Deb Gotham, $19,000; and Okanogan County rancher Vic Stokes, $11,242. “There’s going to be a lot of accountability,” said Dave Hedrick, a Ferry County Conservation District com- missioner. “We’re going to keep close track of how they spend the money, whether there’s success or failure.” With its application, the Cattle Producers submitted endorsement letters from county commissioners and Stevens County Sheriff Ken- dle Allen and Ferry County Sheriff Ray McCumber. The officials said counties would contribute money to the ef- fort and vouched that the goal would be to increase non-lethal control of wolves. “On behalf of Stevens County, we pledge to you that the commissioners will stay involved and create a success story,” wrote Steve Parker, county board chair- man. In written comments sub- mitted to the department of agriculture, WDFW ques- tioned whether the grants could be spent on a program that involved the sheriff’s offices. WDFW also said the cattlemen’s proposal wasn’t in line with lawmakers’ di- rection to use the money for community-based non-lethal measures. WDFW did not have objections to funding the nonprofit group or indi- vidual ranches. WDFW also recom- mended against funding a proposal by Western Wild- life Outreach, a conservation group, that emphasized dis- tributing fladry and lights. Efforts to obtain further comment from WDFW were unsuccessful. Hedrick said WDFW’s comments and the legislation that set up the grant program influenced the panel. “All the stuff in (the Cat- tle Producers’) proposal are good ideas, but to try to fit them in (the legislation) — we couldn’t get there,” he said. “The things we funded all involved getting stuff on the ground. “There’s some blow-back on the decision, but that’s OK,” Hedrick said. “I knew it was going to be tough.” Nielsen said the Cattle Producers’ proposal was tru- ly community-based. “To me, our proposal fit that to a ‘T,’” he said. legal-7-2-1/999 State to send money to ranches, nonprofit group Matthew Weaver/Capital Press Emily and Luke Black on their farm near Athol, Idaho. Luke aspires to use computerized artificial intelligence to run their 10-acre farm. ter to beneficial use. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the ranch- ers filed overlapping claims to those rights during the Snake River Basin Adjudication. Because those rights were deferrable, which means there is no time limit on filing for them, most ranchers chose not to file for them during the SRBA. But the federal government did and during the SRBA, the adjudication court decreed up to 20,000 stock watering rights to the BLM. The Idaho Legislature last year passed a bill that codified the Supreme Court decision in state law and set up a process by which ranchers can file for those claims. House Bill 603, authored by Rep. Judy Boyle, a Repub- lican rancher from Midvale, would require the director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources to send a letter to the federal agency requiring it to “show cause” to the depart- ment why the rights should not be lost. If the BLM can’t do that, the rights would be forfeited. Boyle said the fact that those rights haven’t been for- feited by BLM has created a gray area for cattlemen who are unsure of what will happen if they file for them. Boyle said the court was clear that the federal govern- ment doesn’t own those rights. “The facts are, the federal government doesn’t own live- stock and can’t put (the water) to beneficial use,” she said. “They haven’t used it, so le- gally they forfeited it. But we still have to go through the” forfeiture process. The House Resources and Environment Committee vot- ed unanimously Feb. 19 to send the bill to the House floor with a “do-pass” recommenda- tion. Rep. Mike Moyle, a Re- publican rancher from Star, said those “show cause” let- ters should have been sent to the federal government a long time ago. If the tables were turned and ranchers had lost the court case, “I believe every one of those ranchers would have re- ceived a letter,” he said. “Those letters should have gone to the federal government a long time ago,” Moyle said. Boyle’s bill also says that if the federal government ever acquires a stock water right, it shall never be used for any purpose other than watering livestock unless otherwise ap- proved by the state. Idaho Farm Bureau Federa- tion Director of Governmental Affairs Russ Hendricks told Capital Press the Joyce Live- stock decision was a huge vic- tory for livestock owners and he applauded efforts to further codify the Supreme Court de- cision in state law. “It’s precedent-setting across the West,” he said. “The federal government is obligated to follow state wa- ter law.”