GRIZZLY
OUTLOOK
BEARS POSE DANGER
TO ALL AROUND THEM
OPINION » PAGE 6
EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER
Friday, October 25, 2019

Volume 92, Number 43
CapitalPress.com
$2.00
‘NATURAL
SCIENTIST’
Retailer Jim Zamzow also
spends time on research
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
N
AMPA, Idaho — Jim Zamzow guides the expanding company that
bears his name by digging in the dirt, working in the lab and leav-
ing the bean-counting to someone else.
“I am a thinker and primarily a problem solver,” he said.
The board chairman of the Nampa, Idaho-based Zamzows store
chain and several related enterprises succeeds by prioritizing the “customer’s
customer,” whether it’s an animal’s nutritional needs or a farmer’s soil.
“MY PHILOSOPHY IS: EVERYBODY
WINS. CREATE HEALTHY SOIL,
AND IN TURN YOU ARE CREATING
HEALTHY PLANTS THAT FEED
HUMANS AND ANIMALS.”
Jim Zamzow, board chairman of Zamzows store chain
That approach helps add and retain customers while consistently
providing feedback about product performance and emerging needs.
It’s also proving successful in the company’s recent expansion into
production agriculture.
“My philosophy is: Everybody wins,” said Zamzow, 72.
“Create healthy soil, and in turn you are creating healthy plants
that feed humans and animals,” he said.
Zamzow’s 300-employee enterprise includes 13 Idaho lawn,
garden and pet-supply stores as well as fertilizer, feed and ani-
mal supplement operations.
Zamzow expects 2019 revenues of about $22 million from
the stores and $8 million from sister businesses that include
Dynamite Marketing, Catalyst and Dr. JimZ, a venture he
formed in late 2018 to market his unique formulations of
agricultural fertilizer products nationwide.
Customers first
Zamzow’s focus on his customers is his trademark.
Eric Davis, whose Boise-based Retail West devel-
ops retail and mixed-use projects around the West, said
Zamzows stores are tailored to what customers need.
“It is very local and very adapted to the market-
place,” Davis said. “He is more nimble than any
national retailer can possibly be.”
Zamzow also donates to, and works with, non-
profits and charities effectively “because he knows
his community and because he is close to his cus-
tomers,” Davis said. And he has a knack for hir-
ing good employees.
Zamzow’s son, Joshua, and daughter, Cal-
lie, serve as co-CEOs, both drawing on expe-
rience in other industries. That frees their
father to think broadly about products that
meet customers’ needs.
Zamzows
Jim Zamzow has his own formulations of fertilizer,
including one specific to tomatoes.
See Research, Page 12
Winter outlook leans
toward the mild side
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Odds modestly favor above-av-
erage temperatures in Washington,
Oregon, Idaho and Northern Cal-
ifornia this winter, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin-
istration’s Climate Prediction Cen-
ter said Oct. 17.
Without a strong signal from
Pacific Ocean temperatures, fore-
casters relied on a trend toward
milder winters and long-term cli-
mate forces for their outlook for
November, December and January.
Sea-surface temperatures at the
equatorial Pacific Ocean are neutral
— neither unusually warm, as in an
El Nino, nor unusually cool, in a La
Nina. Even though conditions are
neutral, extreme events are possi-
ble, NOAA said.
“Without either El Nino or La
Nina conditions, short-term climate
patterns like the Arctic Oscillation
will drive winter weather and could
result in large swings in tempera-
ture and precipitation,” Climate
Prediction Center deputy director
Mike Halpert said in a statement.
Forecasters said they have even
fewer clues to how much pre-
cipitation will fall. Washington,
most of Oregon and most of Idaho
have equal chances of normal,
above-normal and below-normal
amounts of precipitation.
See Winter, Page 12
Pesticide levels drop in
key Oregon waterways
Agriculture seen as
responsive to data
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Pesticide levels in some key
Oregon waterways have dropped
to a fraction of their former con-
centrations due to changes volun-
tarily adopted by farmers, accord-
ing to environmental regulators.
Monitoring
by
Oregon’s
Department of Environmental
Quality has found that growers
are willing to alter spray regimens
to achieve successful water qual-
ity results.
“Overall, we’ve seen improve-
ments in a number of agricultural
areas, particularly in the Colum-
bia plateau. We’ve seen agricul-
ture respond to the data,” said
Kevin Masterson, DEQ’s toxics
coordinator.
About 50% of the waterway
sites tested under an interagency
“pesticide stewardship partner-
ship” program showed progress
in pesticide detections and con-
centrations during the 2015-2017
sampling period, compared to the
previous biennium.
Roughly 27% of the tested sites
showed declines in water quality
from pesticides, while 23% showed
no change during that time, accord-
ing to data compiled by DEQ.
See Pesticides, Page 12