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CapitalPress.com
Friday, November 22, 2019
Changes: ‘Development is catching up ... it could open different markets’
Continued from Page 1
them — they’ve worked to
optimize operations at their
home base and move others
farther into rural areas.
Meridian, a few miles
west of Boise, Idaho’s state
capital, is one of the coun-
try’s fastest-growing cities,
according to recent studies
by WalletHub and the U.S.
Census Bureau. The Com-
munity Planning Association
of Southwest Idaho pegs the
city’s 2019 population at an
estimated 114,680, up nearly
7.8% from 106,410 last year
and nearly double the popu-
lation 10 years ago.
Richard said owning the
5-acre warehouse site and
leasing out all but about 200
of the family’s 1,500 acres
of farmland positions Big D
for long-term viability.
Neil, who is active in
Farm Bureau young-pro-
ducer leadership develop-
ment at the state and national
levels, said Big D is adapt-
ing to the population growth
by leasing farmland farther
away as needed, and selling
more of its feed at retail —
which in turn enables them
to tell new audiences about
production agriculture.
“Development is catch-
ing up,” he said. “On the
other side, it could open dif-
ferent markets.”
Housing
and
other
non-ag uses can be seen in
all directions from Big D’s
warehouse complex and
office. Continued growth
and suburban encroach-
ment mean big farm equip-
ment and trucks must con-
tend with more traffic and
tighter access. The potential
for neighbor complaints and
trespassing also rises.
“But it is the growth
that brings people into your
place,” Neil said.
Big D retail sales of prod-
ucts such as poultry and
livestock feeds and sweet
corn have been on the rise.
Many retail customers are
new, having recently moved
to nearby small acreages and
acquired animals. But some
are just curious passersby.
“Three years ago we had
4 acres of sweet corn and did
not sell it at all,” Neil said.
“In 2019 we had 18 acres,
sold it all and could have
sold more if we had it.”
“Most of that growth has
been from people just com-
ing by and buying it,” he
said.
Revenue from retail and
warehouse segments helped
Big D this year, as crop
prices stayed flat and many
yields dropped from a year
Brad Carlson/Capital Press
Richard Durrant, left, with Martin Camacho of A&J Trucking at the Big D Ranch crop warehouse.
Ada County, Idaho farms, land in farms
231,188
Land in farms (acres)
Number of farms
223,388
191,477
Brody
Miller
Benjamin
Kelly
earlier because of tougher
field conditions, Neil said.
Cool, wet conditions delayed
planting, offered fewer ideal
growing-degree days, and
produced an early cold snap
during some crops’ harvest.
While diversification can
be a big benefit, growing
the entire business remains
an annual goal, he said. Big
D farms about 25% more
ground than it did five years
ago even as suitable land has
been harder to find.
“Our
biggest
land-
lords
are
developers,”
Neil said. “That’s why
we have expanded out
distance-wise.”
Similarly,
Big
D’s
crop-purchasing and ware-
housing business, which
competes with corporate
and locally owned facilities,
has been drawing custom-
ers from farther away, Rich-
ard said.
The Durrants’ farming
operation grows sugar beets,
corn — feed corn and sweet
corn for the roadside stand
— wheat, dry beans and
alfalfa. They added pepper-
mint to the lineup again two
years ago.
Amid lackluster crop
prices in the past few
years, the farm tapped new
seed genetics and sought
Matt
Dorsey
Sarah
Gonzalez
best-performing wheat vari-
eties, Neil said. It switched
to sprinkler pivots and tur-
bine pumps and fine-tuned
irrigation practices.
“I had to look at how to
manage crops to maximize
yields and make it profit-
able,” he said. “You can slip
a bit on management when
prices are good.”
Neil said he continuously
works on “making our farm-
ing operation a more prof-
itable operation that will
continue throughout the
generations.” Changes to
marketing approaches, and
the farm’s crop selection and
site lineup, remain possible
as agriculture shifts and the
community grows.
On Big D’s crop purchas-
ing and warehousing side,
where capacity is about 2
million bushels, volume is
about 60% wheat, 30% dry-
feed corn, and 10% beans
and miscellaneous small
grains.
“We buy and store it, and
then we sell it to our mar-
kets, which we’ve estab-
lished,” Neil said.
For example, 80 to 90%
of the wheat they buy goes
to Portland to be shipped
overseas.
“We are a profitable busi-
ness, but we do look out for
1,420
1,323
144,049
1,233
1,221
’02
our growers and try to offer
the highest price possible
for their commodities,” Neil
said.
Richard said the ware-
housing business does not
give a discount to the Big D
farm. “I am treated the same
as I treat other producers.”
A manager of a local
competitor said that while
Big D’s warehouse now gets
more pressure from residen-
tial development, it’s still
close to plenty of farmland.
All players in the industry
aim to offer local farmers a
cost-effective way to access
larger markets.
Grain-handling facilities
also face other challenges.
“It just seems that as an
industry right now, times are
a little lean,” said National
Grain and Feed Association
Communications Director
Sarah Gonzalez, “probably a
combination of trade uncer-
tainty and a late harvest.”
112,370
Down
51.4%
from
1997
Source: USDA NASS
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
1997
1,304
’07
’12
2017
Matt Dorsey, owner of
Sunnyslope Land and Live-
stock west of Caldwell,
is a client of the Big D
warehouse.
“They’re a good Idaho
farm family with integrity
and high values,” he said.
“They are good at what they
do. They provide a good
service. They are a Trea-
sure Valley family provid-
ing service to Treasure Val-
ley families.”
Warehouse beginnings
Richard Durrant said the
warehouse business was
bean-focused and small at its
early 1970s inception. They
then broadened its scope of
business to the current form
over the next decade or so. In
a recent letter to Idaho Farm
Bureau Federation members
introducing himself as a can-
didate for vice president, he
provided Big D background.
“As a young man, being
part of my family’s farm
was extremely important to
me,” he wrote. “At the time,
we were raising 80,000 lay-
ing hens, milking 300 dairy
cows and farming 500 acres.
… As time passed and my
children desired to be part
of our farming legacy, I rec-
ognized the need to evalu-
ate and evolve our farming
operation to provide addi-
tional opportunities for my
children to return.”
Seven family mem-
bers and six other full-time
employees now work at Big
D.
Big D “continues to be
diversified to help support
their
multi-generational
operation,” Food Producers
of Idaho lobbyist Benjamin
Kelly said.
And the Durrant fam-
ily “has done a great job of
being good neighbors,” he
said. “They always seem to
be cognizant of how their
farming operation will affect
the general public. They par-
ticipate in a number of dif-
ferent local organizations
to be sure they have a good
pulse on the community.”
The future also holds
opportunities.
“I’m optimistic that all of
the ground is not going to be
developed,” Richard said.
“As we continue forward,
we are able to go with the
mindset of renting property
for the farming operation
and ownership of the grain
warehouse.”
“I still think it’s a very
good business,” Neil said.
“It teaches you a lot of
things.”
He and his wife, Melissa,
whom he met while earning
a degree in business at Boise
State University, serve on
the American Farm Bureau
Federation Young Farmers
& Ranchers Committee and
are ex-officio members of
Idaho Farm Bureau’s similar
panel. They have four chil-
dren. Neil serves on the Ada
County Farm Bureau board.
Brody Miller, Idaho Farm
Bureau regional manager
and southwest Idaho YF&R
Committee coordinator, said
Neil exemplifies a next-gen-
eration farmer who has
become a respected leader in
agriculture. He is effective
in helping other young pro-
ducers get involved in lead-
ership development.
“A lot of times you think
you are the small guy and
no one will listen just to
one voice,” Neil said. “But
working together as one
group with a common voice
and one goal, the ears start
listening.”
NORPAC: Company is in negotiations
with at least three potential buyers
Continued from Page 1
custodian who controls a
company’s finances.
Farms and other credi-
tors of the farm cooperative
had been nervous that poten-
tial purchases of NORPAC’s
assets would have been jeop-
ardized by the bank’s recent
legal maneuvers.
The processing com-
pany recently agreed to sell
its bulk inventory, intellec-
tual property, certain machin-
ery and its facility in Quincy,
Wash., to agribusiness entre-
preneur Frank Tiegs for $93.5
million.
NORPAC’s in negoti-
ations with at least three
potential buyers who want to
purchase one or more of its
Oregon processing plants in
Stayton, Brooks and Salem,
though the proposals aren’t
far enough along to require
sale permission from a bank-
ruptcy judge, said Albert
Kennedy, the company’s
attorney, during an earlier
court hearing.
“There is active interest in
each of those facilities,” Ken-
nedy said.
However, CoBank wanted
to eliminate the “automatic
stay” that prevents the bank
from trying to seize assets
or take other enforcement
actions while the process-
ing company is reorganizing
under Chapter 11 bankruptcy
laws.
Farms and other credi-
tors of NORPAC’s want to
be notified of any pending
enforcement action against
the cooperative so they can
also seek to cancel the com-
pany’s bankruptcy protec-
tions and go after its assets.
However, these creditors
had worried that CoBank’s
proposal may not have pro-
vided enough of a road-
map for NORPAC’s orderly
dissolution.
The bank had previously
proposed to extend a forbear-
ance agreement until Nov.
25, and other creditors wor-
ried such a short forbearance
period will keep the company
in a state of uncertainty.
“I think it’s imperative
that we tread carefully,” said
Oren Haker, attorney for Cas-
tle Rock Farming in Board-
man, Ore., during the earlier
hearing.
It’s important not to do
anything that will chill the
interest in NORPAC’s assets
among potential buyers or
make it more difficult for
potential transactions to be
completed, Haker said. This
sentiment was echoed by
attorney for several other
agriculture companies who
are owed money by the
cooperative.
CoBank is in a power-
ful position in the bank-
ruptcy process because it’s
owed $125 million, making
it NORPAC’s largest cred-
itor, and because it loaned
the cooperative an addi-
tional $15 million to keep the
company operational during
bankruptcy.
Teresa Pearson, CoBank’s
attorney, said the bank didn’t
want its hands tied in terms
of protecting its rights to col-
lect on defaulted loans, which
is why it had proposed such a
short forbearance extension.
“The bank, to put it in a
colloquial way, wants to keep
a pretty short leash on this
process,” Pearson said during
the earlier hearing.
However, during the
recent hearing, Pearson
said the bank was willing to
wait until Dec. 10, when the
Quincy facility’s sale comes
up for the bankruptcy court’s
approval.
The bank would prefer to
recoup its money by allow-
ing NORPAC to sell its assets
than by foreclosing on its col-
lateral, Pearson said. “We
hope we won’t need to get to
that point.”
The future of NORPAC’s
assets is of interest to farmers
who supply the cooperative
as well as the 1,400 workers
who’ve been issued layoff
notices at its Oregon facili-
ties in Stayton, Brooks and
Salem.
Originally, Tiegs had
planned to buy most of NOR-
PAC’s assets for $155 mil-
lion. He then withdrew from
the deal, citing the compa-
ny’s alleged withholding of
information as well as envi-
ronmental and regulatory
problems.
“As we know, circum-
stances can change in an
instant and we need to be
able to react to that,” Pear-
son said.
Associated Press File
Klamath Falls, Ore., on the far side of Upper Klamath Lake. The federal Bureau of
Reclamation has scrapped a new biological opinion on managing the lake’s fish.
Project: Agencies hope to have
new BiOp completed by March 31
Continued from Page 1
Reclamation began consulting with the
USFWS and National Marine Fisheries Ser-
vice on Dec. 21, 2018 for the latest update,
completed earlier this year on March 29.
The BiOp was supposed to last for five
years. Instead, it lasted just seven months.
“There was a lot of consultation between
the services and us to put those (plans)
together,” Williams said. “Now, because it’s
been discovered that there was some erro-
neous material given to us, we will need to
consider the correct information.”
The agencies will hope to have a new
BiOp completed by March 31, 2020, ahead
of the summer irrigation season.
Paul Simmons, executive director of the
Klamath Water Users Association, said it
remains to be seen what changes may come
about in the revised BiOp.
“It’s more things to worry about, I
guess,” Simmons said. “We always have the
concern that the Klamath Project is the only
knob in this system that gets turned to miti-
gate conditions (for fish).”
While Simmons said no one is happy
about the latest development, it is a neces-
sary step given the circumstances.
“I don’t believe Reclamation can do any-
thing other than pick up and move ahead,
and we’ve confirmed that to them already,”
he said.
Both the KWUA and Klamath Irrigation
District sued the Bureau of Reclamation fol-
lowing the release of the 2019 BiOp over
water supplies for producers. The Yurok
Tribe of Northern California, Pacific Coast
Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and
Institute for Fisheries Resources, mean-
while, sued the bureau seeking greater pro-
tections for fish.
Joseph James, chairman of the Yurok
Tribe, said Klamath salmon stocks are “in
an extremely fragile state.” The 2019 BiOp
proved to be an “utter failure,” according to
the tribe, due to artificially low flows that
contributed to an outbreak of a fatal fish dis-
ease in the Klamath River near Iron Gate
Dam.
“The Yurok people depend on the Klam-
ath River’s salmon runs for survival and
we should not have to bear the brunt of the
agency’s poor decision-making,” James
said in a press release. “BOR’s actions are
an egregious mismanagement of critical
public resources and the fishery that we as
Yurok People hold sacred.”