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October 12, 2018 CapitalPress.com 3 Tom Wimmer, Oregon Dairy Women honored by Oregon Aglink By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Oregon Aglink, a state- wide organization dedicated to promoting a better public understanding of agriculture, will honor Tom Wimmer, chief operating officer of Marion Ag Service, and the Oregon Dairy Women for their decades of service to the industry at the Denim and Diamonds dinner auction next month in Salem. Wimmer will receive Ore- gon Aglink’s 2018 Agriculturist of the Year award, and the Ore- gon Dairy Women will receive its 2018 Ag Connection award at the annual Denim and Dia- monds dinner and fundraiser on Nov. 16 at the Salem Conven- tion Center. The evening will start with a reception and silent auction at 5 p.m. It will be followed by din- ner, the awards presentation and a live auction at 7 p.m. Tom Wimmer When he was hired as Mar- ion Ag Service’s bookkeeper nearly four decades ago, Tom Wimmer was only the seventh employee at the three-year-old company. Today, Wimmer serves as the chief operating officer at the company, which has 120 em- ployees at four locations. “I learned from the ground up every facet of the business,” said Wimmer. In its announcement, Ore- gon Aglink said it is recognizing Wimmer for his “knowledge, work ethic and generosity.” Wimmer moved to Oregon from Iowa as a young boy when Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press Oregon Aglink is honoring Tom Wimmer, chief operating officer of Marion Ag Service, as its 2018 Agriculturist of the Year. Online www.aglink.org/event/denim-diamonds/ Oregon Dairy Women Oregon Aglink is honoring the Oregon Dairy Women with its 2018 Ag Connection award. From left are Dairy Women officers Becky Heimerl, first vice president; Ida Ruby, treasurer; Jessica Kliewer, state director of the Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador Program; Amy Franck, president; and Kristin Killgo- re, secretary. In front is Stephanie Breazile, the 2018 Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador. his parents bought a 30-acre beef cattle farm near Wood- burn. The ninth of 11 children, he remembers devoting his free time to farm chores to help his mother after their father passed away. “We worked pretty hard,” he said. “I loved it. I was deeply embedded in it.” After graduating from Or- egon State University with a degree in agricultural engineer- ing and business management, Wimmer accepted a job with Marion Ag Service in 1979 and has worked there ever since. His position grew beyond bookkeeping to include dis- patching employees and per- forming other management functions. Over the years, Wim- mer has witnessed first-hand the company’s major transfor- mations. Marion Ag Service con- verted from the grain business to the fertilizer business be- cause many farmers in the area stopped producing wheat due to low prices. In 1994, the company took a “big step” in buying St. Paul Feed Supply, which added many new functions to the op- eration, such as selling liquid and dry fertilizers, returning to the grain business and broaden- ing its base of chemistry sales. Wimmer has also become familiar with many of the farm- ers in the region due to the com- pany’s custom work of applying lime to their soil to correct the acidity. “I know their fields and operations because we’ve had to work on getting people and product to those locations,” he said. Last year, Marion Ag Ser- vice began operating a large new fertilizer facility near Au- rora, including formulating and packaging product for nation- al distributors that wanted to get away from manufacturing themselves. “They don’t have to do a thing, they just have to go out and sell it,” Wimmer said. “Each challenge is an op- portunity if you have the ability to work through the situation,” Wimmer said. “It’s just adapt- ing ourselves to where there’s a need.” Oregon Dairy Women The Ag Connection award is in recognition of the Oregon Dairy Women’s “decades of far-reaching efforts to connect consumers with Oregon dairy production,” according to Ore- gon Aglink. “They really have been the face of the Oregon dairy indus- try for many years,” said Tami Kerr, executive director of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Associ- ation, as well as a past president and current member of Oregon Dairy Women. Many Oregonians encounter the organization’s Red Barn, an “icon of the state fair” where volunteers sell ice cream and milk shakes, she said. “I always say it’s the best quality and the best value at the Oregon State Fair,” Kerr said. The all-volunteer organiza- tion provides scholarships to community college students, the children of dairy families as well as people studying in dairy-related fields. Financial assistance is also provided to 4-H, FFA, Ag in the Classroom, Ag Fest, the Sum- mer Ag Institute and the Adopt- A-Farmer program. Since 1959, the nonprofit has also been crowning Dairy Princess Ambassadors, who travel across the state to class- rooms, fairs and other events to educate children about the dairy industry. Last year, the program reached 14,000 people. Fees proposed for Washington farmers who hire foreign workers By DON JENKINS Capital Press Washington farmers would pay thousands of dollars in new fees to beef up oversight of the H-2A program under a propos- al by the state Employment Se- curity Department. The number of foreign sea- sonal farmworkers in Washing- ton has soared in recent years, while the money the state re- ceives from the federal gov- ernment to monitor working conditions has been flat. Wash- ington Growers League Exec- utive Director Mike Gempler said the employment depart- ment has a legitimate case for more money, but its proposal is too costly. “I think it’s a tremendous amount of overkill,” he said Tuesday. “It’s already expensive to use the H-2A program and Mike adding this on Gempler would make it less feasible for many growers.” Washington farmers this year will hire approximately 30,000 foreign workers to fill jobs they couldn’t find U.S. residents to do. Although the H-2A program is guided by federal rules, the state inspects farms to ensure employers are complying with workplace and housing rules. The department says it doesn’t have enough money Analyst questions whether trade deal will fix Canada’s dairy policy By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press While a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement was welcome news to U.S. dairy farmers, the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada agree- ment is unlikely to change Can- ada’s behavior when it comes to dairy trade, according to one industry analyst. The major sticking point in negotiations with Canada were granting more access to U.S. dairy products and the elimi- nation of Canada’s class 6 (On- tario) and Class 7 (nationwide) pricing policy for milk ingredi- ents implemented last year. U.S. and international dairy organizations contend the poli- cy artificially lowered the price of domestic milk ingredients to Canadian processors to make such products as milk protein concentrate, milk powder and ultra-filtered milk. U.S. exports of ultra-filtered milk to Canadian cheesemakers plummeted following imple- mentation of the policy. In addition, the policy sub- sidizes production of products containing those ingredients and has helped Canadian pro- cessors dump surplus milk proteins, such as skim milk powder, onto global markets, opponents say. While the new agreement does offer a bit more access to Canadian dairy markets, it’s only an additional 1 billion pounds of milk equivalent — about 0.5 percent of U.S. pro- duction, Matt Gould, an analyst with Dairy Market Analyst, said. “These volumes aren’t huge. Canada is a self-sufficient market; there’s no big opportu- nities in Canada for U.S. dairy,” he said. Retaliatory tariffs by the Mexican government on U.S. cheese following U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico are far more im- portant, and they weren’t ad- dressed in the agreement, he said. He also sees little change in the Class 6 and 7 issue. The new trade agreement does call for the elimination of those classes within six months, but it also provides methodology for Canada to recreate those classes with only minor adjust- ments, he said. The agreement calls for Canada to price nonfat milk solids used to manufacture milk protein concentrates, skim milk powder and infant formu- la based on USDA’s Class IV price minus Canada’s processor margin. But Canada’s processor margin is nearly double the U.S. processor margin, or “make allowance.” Class 6 and 7 might be eliminated, but the agreement creates something else that shuts down Canadian imports of U.S. ultra-filtered milk, he said. Canadian processors will still be able to sell products on the international market lower than U.S. processors and still make a profit, he said. The agreement also sets thresholds for Canada’s exports of milk protein concentrates, skim milk powder and infant formula before surcharges must be applied, but the aggregate threshold is basically at the same level Canada has been exporting. And the penalty to export more isn’t so cost-pro- hibitive to deter additional ex- ports, he said. to do the job. The department is proposing to charge farms $1,000 to apply to use H-2A workers, plus $100 per worker for the first 1,000. After that, the fee would drop to $50 per employee. The department estimates that if the fees were in place next year, they would raise $3.18 million, The depart- ment anticipates revenue would rise in subsequent years. The department’s legislative director, Nick Streuli, said the number of H-2A workers has grown by more than 1,000 per- cent since 2009. The amount of money the department receives from the U.S. Department of Labor to oversee the program has remained at about $300,000 for several years, he said. “We’ve been limping along for years. This was certainly not our first response,” he said. “There are specific tasks autho- rized by Congress that we need to accomplish, and we’re not receiving adequate funds to do that.” The department would use fees collected from farmers to create the Office of the State Monitor Advocate, according to documents submitted to the state budget office. The depart- ment would continue doing what it has been doing, plus more, according to a summary of legislation the department is proposing. The money includes a hot line for Spanish-speaking workers to report concerns and to fund what the department calls an adequate number of field inspections and audits. Gempler said growers have an interest in government over- sight to assure the public that foreign workers are well treat- Weekly Fieldwork Report Presented by ® Ore. Item/description (Source: USDA, NASS; NOAA) • Days suitable for fieldwork (As of Oct. 2) 6.9 • Topsoil moisture, surplus 0 • Topsoil moisture, percent short 90% • Subsoil moisture, surplus 0 • Subsoil moisture, percent short 87% • Precipitation probability 40-50% Below (6-10 day outlook as of Oct. 9) ed. The department’s proposal, however, sets up a new bureau- cracy and calls for collecting millions of dollars a year, he said. “I really believe that could be done for far less than a mil- lion dollars,” Gempler said. The H-2A program also drawn accusations from activ- ists that the foreign workers are vulnerable to being abused. “They have some political in- fluence,” Gempler said. “It’s important we are able to show the H-2A program is being used in an ethical way.” Wash. Idaho Calif. 6.8 0 70% 0 61% 6.9 0 68% 2% 61% 7 0 70% 0 75% 40-50% Below 40-60% Below Normal 41-2/106