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Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
Friday, December 27, 2019
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion
Our View
Despite trade turmoil, Trump still has rural support
E
arlier this month we pub-
lished a story that tried to
gauge whether rural vot-
ers still support Donald Trump. It
appears that they do.
We don’t think potential oppo-
nents in the upcoming campaign are
doing much to understand Trump’s
appeal to those voters and address
their concerns.
Rural voters accounted for 17%
of the electorate in the 2016 elec-
tions and Trump carried 62% of the
rural vote, according to exit polls.
Electoral maps show the president
largely carried rural counties in the
Pacific Northwest.
A recent poll by Grinnell Col-
lege in Iowa shows that Trump’s
approval rating among rural voters
ranges from 56% to 63% on issues
such as his performance as presi-
dent, the economy and immigration.
Support for Trump in rural areas
is not unanimous or homogenous.
Even among supporters it’s not
uncommon to hear frank discussions
of the president’s shortcomings —
Nati Harnik/Associated Press File
Corn grows in front of a barn carrying a
large “Trump” sign in rural Ashland, Neb.
President Donald Trump continues to be
popular with many farmers.
both in policy and manners.
The president has delivered a
mixed bag for farmers and ranchers.
On the campaign trail Trump
railed against trade deals he said
were unfair to the United States.
Agriculture depends on foreign trade
and the prospect of more advanta-
geous treaties was just as appeal-
ing in rural America as it was in the
industrial Midwest.
The president’s mercurial negoti-
ating style can be as vexing for his
fellow countrymen as it is for trad-
ing partners.
His on-again, off-again trade war
with China has had a huge impact
on farmers. His imposition of puni-
tive tariffs on Mexico and Can-
ada even as he was announcing a
replacement for the North American
Free Trade Agreement led to retalia-
tory duties on farm products.
But that deal has now passed the
House. There are bilateral agree-
ments with Japan and South Korea.
Phase One of a multi-part agreement
has been announced with China.
The president has delivered on his
promise to reduce government regu-
lation, most notably in reversing the
controversial “Waters of the U.S.”
rule. Farmers and ranchers have
mostly benefitted from the 2017 tax
reforms.
Rural voters largely felt left out
of the conversation during the eight
years of the Obama administra-
tion. But our sources say the Trump
administration is listening and they
are being heard — even if they don’t
always get what they want.
Trump has twice addressed the
American Farm Bureau Federa-
tion’s national convention and has
addressed the FFA’s convention
once. No president since George
H.W. Bush has done either.
A frenetic spellbinder, Trump is
a master at keeping the attention of
both friends and foes focused on
himself and his agenda.
It would be a mistake for chal-
lengers to believe that his rural sup-
porters are being manipulated.
Trump is merely giving voice to
positions on trade, regulation, taxes
and the role of government that they
already had.
If they want the rural vote, chal-
lengers must come more in line with
those views.
In 2016 many rural voters saw
Trump as the lesser of two evils.
With just 10 months until the next
election, they aren’t seeing a viable
alternative in 2020.
Our View
Third time a charm for Blue Mountains plan?
M
aybe the third try will be
successful in cobbling
together a roadmap for
the management of three sprawling
national forests in Eastern Oregon.
The U.S. Forest Service, which
oversees the 5.5 million acres of
forestland in the Malheur, Wal-
lowa-Whitman and Umatilla national
forests, has stumbled terribly in
its previous attempts to revise its
29-year-old plan. It’s supposed to
be updated every 15 years, so the
agency hasn’t even been following
its own timeline.
Updating the Blue Mountains
plan has turned into an old-fash-
ioned goat rope. In rejecting the lat-
est 5,000-page version, Chris French,
the reviewing officer and Forest Ser-
vice deputy chief, said it was difficult
to understand and implement.
That’s not good, but the biggest
problems appeared to be that Forest
Service managers had their own pri-
orities that didn’t mesh with those of
the people who live, work and recre-
ate in the forests.
One such issue is transportation
EO Media Group File
The Strawberry Mountains in the Malheur National Forest in Grant County, Ore. They
are part of 5.5 million acres that will be included in a new management plan.
within the forests. Logging roads
and other access are critical to get-
ting around in the forests. Many of
the roads, built with public money,
have been targeted for closure not
only in the Blue Mountains but other
national forests.
Closing the forests to logging, fire-
fighters, hunters, hikers and other
users made little sense, the Forest
Service was repeatedly told in forum
after forum.
Now, the managers have appar-
ently come to understand that the
people who live and work in the Blue
Mountains deserve a place at the
table as a third iteration of the forest
plan is developed. Representatives of
the region’s counties, tribes and oth-
ers will join the discussion.
It is our hope that the words
“multiple use” will be top of mind
as those discussions proceed. The
national forests were established
under the U.S. Department of Agri-
culture in part to provide a source of
building materials and the jobs asso-
ciated with them. In addition, other
uses were to be allowed.
But most importantly, the forests
were to be managed as a resource,
not locked up.
Locking up the forests, specifi-
cally, is what the new round of nego-
tiations needs to avoid. As a public
resource, the national forests of the
Blue Mountains need to be open for
many types of uses, and accessible to
all.
Otherwise, they will fail to fulfill
their purpose and stifle the economy
of Eastern Oregon and southeastern
Washington state.
READERS’ VIEW
The ‘new rule’ for dairy
The Old Rule: Profitable milk
demand exceeds the milk supply made
by U.S. dairy farmers — make more
milk.
The New Rule: The ability of the
remaining U.S. dairy farmers to make
milk exceeds anyone’s ability to cre-
ate profitable milk demand — make a
disciplined milk supply balanced with
profitable milk demand.
The cooperative principle is to allow
co-op dairy farmer owner members to
work together for their common good
and to benefit and preserve as many
individual dairy farmer members as
possible.
Dairy farmer co-op owner members,
who handle 85% of U.S. made milk,
need to change their existing co-op
management personnel and/or poli-
cies and adopt the National Dairy Pro-
ducers Organization’s co-op manage-
ment policies which precludes the use
of plant-based ingredients, non-mem-
ber milk and imported dairy ingredients
in the products they handle and requires
all co-op members to work together
and share in a pro-rata, across-the-
board, proportional milk reduction, as
required, to continuously balance co-op
milk intake with profitable demand
for member milk, yielding a profitable
milk price from the marketplace for
most co-op dairy farmer members and
thereby preserve as many individual
dairy farmer members as possible.
To learn more about NDPO’s co-op
management policies which will pro-
tect co-op members’ economic interests
in the form of a profitable milk price
for as many members as possible, con-
tact Mike Eby, NDPO chairman, (717)
799-0057, mikee@ndpo.us, or like us
on Facebook-National Dairy Producers
Organization, or www.nationaldairypro-
ducersorganization.com
Bob Krucker
Idaho dairy farmer
Jerome, Idaho
How will Dean Foods
bankruptcy impact
farmers?
As has been well-reported, Dean
Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
on Nov. 12.
Should we be surprised? No. The
writing on the wall has been there for a
while. Should we be worried? Yes. The
most worrying part is who the biggest
player is looking to buy them out (or
partially buy them out) — Dairy Farm-
ers of America (DFA).
DFA is a member-owned cooperative
that buys and processes their own milk.
This means that DFA should be repre-
senting the best interests of their mem-
bers. However, being a processor also
means that they need to make sure they
show profits in that division of DFA.
DFA has long been accused of keeping
prices low to the producer and maximiz-
ing profits in processing.
Recent reports have said DFA con-
trols somewhere around 30% of the milk
in the U.S.
DFA and Deans are in advanced talks
about Deans being sold to DFA. This is
an absolute worst-case scenario for milk
producers all over the country. If DFA
is allowed to acquire Dean Foods, they
will be securing the largest processor of
dairy products in the U.S. What percent
of the milk will they control then?
Over the years, DFA has slowly been
building their control of producers and
processing plants by nothing less than
“hostile takeovers.” They started with
small cooperatives that were in financial
trouble, then moved on to larger cooper-
atives that marketed their milk through
Dairy Marketing Services (a subsidi-
ary of DFA), and now have moved on to
larger processors.
DFA gets their “foot” in the door
by giving these larger processors loans
to keep running their day-to-day oper-
ations. Then, when they develop any
issues, including bankruptcy, DFA
moves in for the kill. This is exactly
what happened with Dean Foods. It is
reported that Deans owes DFA close to
$173 million.
So, what does this mean for the dairy
farmer? That question is still up in the
air. The bankruptcy court has approved
that Deans can pay essential customers
(dairy farmers). Dairy farmers are get-
ting paid, but their payments were about
4 days late. If DFA were to survive all
the inquiries and lawsuits to buy Deans,
those farmers would now be forced
to sell their milk to DFA, or look for
another means of selling their milk, if
any other marketing option would even
be available, or leave the industry.
It will be an interesting few months
while this plays out. However, please
continue to support your local farmer.
These men and women are the backbone
of America and deserve your respect and
appreciation, especially in this time of
uncertainty.
Abbey Campbell
Former cooperative president and cur-
rent general manager and member of
Farm Women United
Stevensville, Pa.
Where does the most
gas come from?
Now I admit I haven’t googled up
gas so I’m far from a expert on cow
gas, or people gas for that matter. But I
never hear about human gas, and it may
be more than you need to know about
me but I think I pass a respectable
amount of gas daily.
I know I’m no match for a cow but
there are also 7.5 billion people in
the world, some on worse diets than
me. There is nowhere near that many
cows. The human population is steadily
increasing, whereas the cattle popula-
tion is slowly decreasing over the years.
Now I think you are starting to see
the problem with Washington’s Depart-
ment of Ecology and their love of writ-
ing reports. They are not looking at the
real issue again.
David R. Smith DVM
Ravensdale, Wash.