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CapitalPress.com
Friday, March 27, 2020
COVID-19
H-2A labor concerns continue
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Capital Press File
Shoppers buy produce at the Portland Farmers’ Mar-
ket. Oregon farmers’ markets are largely staying open
but stripping their operations down to the essentials
during the coronavirus pandemic.
Oregon farmers’ markets focus
on core functions in pandemic
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Farmers’ markets are
known to cultivate a fes-
tive atmosphere that attracts
crowds, which is exactly
what people are supposed to
avoid during the coronavi-
rus outbreak.
At their core, however,
such markets are about food
distribution, which is why
they’re exempt from Ore-
gon’s prohibition on gather-
ings of more than 25 people.
Now that they must
emphasize only food — not
fun — Oregon farmers’ mar-
kets are preparing to strip
their operations down to the
essentials during the spring
season.
“The social fabric we’ve
been weaving for years,
we’re rapidly unraveling,”
said Kelly Crane, executive
director of the Oregon Farm-
ers Market Association.
At least for the time
being, live music is out,
as are chairs, tables, kids’
activities and anything else
that would encourage peo-
ple to congregate, she said.
Vendors will space their
booths farther apart, lots of
hand-washing stations will
be provided and signs will
advise visitors to maintain
social distance, Crane said.
A couple of Oregon
farmers’ markets have even
decided against opening as
planned this spring, since
they didn’t have enough
physical space available to
spread out their vendors, she
said.
Apart from providing an
opportunity to buy food in
the open air, the state’s farm-
ers’ markets are critical for
the 6,700 small businesses
that sell about $63 million
worth of goods at them each
year, Crane said.
Markets that maintain
operations year-round have
already seen a decline in
attendance, but their sales
haven’t dropped as sharply,
she said. That’s because
shoppers are still show-
ing up individually, without
their friends and families.
“People are really sup-
portive,” Crane said. “They
want these institutions to be
around after the pandemic.”
Many local farmers and
ranchers will be especially
dependent on farmers’ mar-
kets this year, as their whole-
sale restaurant customers
have largely been shut down
indefinitely, said Trudy Toli-
ver, executive director of the
Portland Farmers Market,
which is among the largest
in the state.
“Direct-to-consumer
sales is what will keep them
going in this crisis,” Toliver
said.
Community support will
be especially important for
such companies as artisan
cheese producers, which
can’t easily scale down or
suspend their operations,
she said. “They still have to
feed their animals and milk
their animals.”
Grocery stores in Brook-
ings, Ore., have restric-
tions on the number of cer-
tain items people can buy,
so residents see the impor-
tance of maintaining local
sources of food, said Linda
Stimson, market manager of
the Brookings Harbor Farm-
ers Market.
“If you stop local farms
from producing, it’s hard
to get them started again,”
she said. “You can’t stop
egg production or stop stuff
from growing, but you can
let it go to waste, which is
crazy.”
Farm products sold at
the market go directly from
the grower to the consumer,
which contributes to safety,
Stimson said. “It’s not like
it’s gone through multi-lev-
els of hands.”
The coastal farmers’ mar-
ket operates year-round and
doesn’t attract as many peo-
ple as big city markets, but
visitors are still self-regu-
lating despite the lack of
known coronavirus cases in
Curry County, Stimson said.
“People come and get
their food and leave,” she
said. “As far as festivities, I
think that’s the last thing on
people’s minds.”
U.S. farmers who rely on work-
ers from Mexico are growing anxious
over the coronavirus’ impact on bor-
der crossings after the U.S. Embassy
in Mexico last week suspended pro-
cessing of routine visas.
The U.S. State Department and
USDA quickly announced they would
prioritize the processing of visas for
returning H-2A workers from Mex-
ico. But farmers worry if that will
be enough or if there will be further
obstacles to incoming workers at a
critical time for pruning, planting and
harvesting of winter crops.
South Carolina peach farmer
Chalmers Carr has been relying on
foreign workers for 22 years. Last
year, the number of those workers
peaked at 817, he said during a con-
ference call hosted by American Farm
Bureau Federation.
The H-2A worker is very important
to his farm, he said. “And it is to our
industry in the Southeast … as every
commercial peach operator is an H-2A
user.”
He currently has 390 H-2A work-
ers on his farm with 68 en route from
the Mexico border. Those workers
account for only 55% of his needs.
“This is a critical time of year where
crops are going into the ground,” he
said.
In addition to peaches, he also
grows bell peppers and broccoli, he
said.
“So if these crops are not planted
in a timely manner, then it’s going to
have a ripple effect all the way through
the supply chain,” he said.
On the peach side, he has enough
Capital Press File
An H-2A guestworker clips stems while harvesting Fuji apples in Washing-
ton state. More than a quarter-million guestworkers are used for a wide
variety of farm tasks across the nation, including planting and pruning in
the spring.
workers to prune the trees now and
thin the crop ahead.
“But with the current numbers we
have, there is no way that we’d be able
to harvest and pack our crop, not even
at 50% of our crop level,” he said.
His peach harvest starts about May
10 and continues through the first of
September, and it’s the same for every
peach grower in Georgia and South
Carolina.
If anything were to happen with the
border closing between now and May
19, he would have to make decisions
on walking away from crops in the
field that are either planted or perma-
nent, he said.
Farmers in the southwest corner of
Arizona supply the vast majority of
the U.S. and Canada with winter veg-
etables such as lettuce, broccoli and
cauliflower, John Boelts, a produce
farmer in the area, said.
Many vegetable crops grown across
the country have a very short window
for harvest. Crops such as iceberg or
romaine lettuce only have a four to
five day window, he said.
Farmers in his area rely on 3,000
to 8,000 H-2A workers a year. Across
the country, that number is in the hun-
dreds of thousands, and farmers are
concerned with the ongoing ability to
have adequate H-2A workers.
“We’ve been increasingly depen-
dent on using H-2A program to fill
the gaps that we lack due to Congress
not taking action over the last three
decades to improve our labor laws
and our immigration laws so that agri-
culture would have an adequate work
force,” he said.
Oregon FFA proceeds with virtual
convention amid coronavirus outbreak
Officers to be elected in May
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
REDMOND, Ore. — Under nor-
mal circumstances, Josiah Cruikshank
would have seen the excited faces and
heard the cheers of thousands of Ore-
gon FFA members as he rushed onto
the stage with his fellow officers to
call the 2020 state convention to order.
But these are far from normal cir-
cumstances, and this was far from a
normal convention.
The COVID-19 coronavirus pan-
demic has hit the pause button on
social life in Oregon and across the
U.S., including sports, parties and
just about any activity where peo-
ple cannot stay at least 6 feet from
one another, per social distancing.
That means the Oregon FFA State
Convention — originally scheduled
for March 19-22 at the Deschutes
County Fair and Expo Center in Red-
mond — was forced to call an audible.
Rather than cancel the event, organiz-
ers decided to hold a “virtual conven-
tion,” with sessions streamed online.
Cruikshank, Oregon FFA state
president for 2019-20, said it felt a bit
strange delivering his retiring address
in front of three silent video cameras
and a bare bones audiovisual crew, as
opposed to an eager live audience.
“It was a tricky thing, but we were
Macy Gibbs
Oregon FFA staff and state officers hosted a “virtual convention” March
19-20 from the Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center in Redmond. From
left are Joenelle Futrell, state staff; Olivia Palacios, state reporter; Riley
Davis, state vice president; Keegan Gibbs, state treasurer; Deidre Sch-
reiber, state secretary; Josiah Cruikshank, state president; Ellie Hanson,
state sentinel; and Lee Letsch, state staff.
so grateful we could have our state
convention, even if it was virtual,”
Cruikshank said.
Preparations for state conven-
tion began in November, Cruikshank
said, as officers began memorizing
their speeches, designing T-shirts and
building packets for career develop-
ment events. Everything changed the
evening of March 11, when Gov. Kate
Brown banned all public gatherings of
more than 250 people.
COVID-19 has since infected 209
Oregonians to date, and new cases
continue to increase. All schools are
closed through at least April 28, and
Brown has ordered the public to stay
home except to go to the grocery
store, pharmacy or other essential
services.
It quickly became apparent the
convention would not go forward as
planned, Cruikshank said. Instead,
FFA leaders devised the virtual con-
vention as a first-of-its-kind substi-
tute, streamed over Facebook Live on
March 19 and 20.
The first session has been viewed
8,800 times and the final session has
been viewed 1,800 times. Several
comments on the live chat even came
from other FFA associations that have
also had their state conventions can-
celed or postponed.
Washington governor orders ‘stay home’ to fight virus
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Agriculture, food pro-
cessing and transportation
services are exempt from
an order issued Mon-
day evening by Washing-
ton Gov. Jay Inslee that
will close a broad swath
of the economy and ban
social gatherings, includ-
ing weddings and funer-
als, for at least two weeks
to slow the spread of
COVID-19.
Businesses,
includ-
ing some manufacturers
and builders, that are not
deemed “essential work
duty” will have to be shut-
tered within two days,
unless all their employees
can work from home. In
deciding which industries
to allow to keep operat-
ing, the state followed
guidance from the Depart-
ment of Homeland Secu-
rity, state Department of
Commerce Director Lisa
Brown said.
“People will need to
eat. We need to keep on
the lights,” she said.
Essential
businesses
that will remain open
include grocery stores,
medical
offices,
pharma-
cies, vet-
erinarians
and banks.
Restaurants
will be able
Washington to continue
Gov. Jay
to
offer
Inslee
take-out
and deliv-
ery services, according to
the governor’s office. The
order expires at midnight
April 6, though could be
extended.
Inslee urged people to
not hoard food. “No one
should make a run on the
grocery stores to over-
stock,” the governor said.
“If each of us maintains
our normal shopping hab-
its, we will avoid the prob-
lem of empty shelves. We
feel good about this.”
Washington’s
“stay
home, stay healthy” order
came hours after Oregon
Gov. Kate Brown issued
similar restrictions to stop
the spread of the coronavi-
rus. The states have been
conferring, but the same-
day timing was coinciden-
tal, Inslee’s chief of staff,
David Postman, said.
LEGAL
LEGAL
NOTICE OF PUBLIC BUDGET HEARING
Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held pursu-
ant to ORS 576.416 (5), on Monday, May 4, 2020 at 12:00 noon
at Chemeketa Events at Winema, Room 210, 4001 Winema Place
NE, Salem, Oregon, upon a proposed budget for operation of
the Oregon Blueberry Commission during the fiscal year July
1, 2020 through June 30, 2021. At this hearing any producer of
Oregon Blueberries has a right to be heard with respect to the
proposed budget, a copy of which is available for public inspec-
tion, under reasonable circumstances, in the office of each Coun-
ty Extension Agent in Oregon. For further information, contact
the Oregon Blueberry Commission business office, P.O. Box 3366,
Salem, Oregon 97302, telephone 503-364-2944. The meeting lo-
cation is accessible to persons with disabilities. Please make any
requests for an interpreter for the hearing impaired or for oth-
er accommodation for persons with disabilities at least 48 hours
before the meeting by contacting the Commission office at 503-
364-2944.
S179679-1
NOTICE OF PUBLIC BUDGET HEARING
Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held pursuant to
ORS 576.416 (5), on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, at 7:00 a.m., at West
Salem Roth’s Events Center, Founder’s Room “O,” 1130 Wallace
Road, Salem, Oregon, upon a proposed budget for operation of
the Clover Commission during the fiscal year July 1, 2020 through
June 30, 2021. At this hearing any producer of Oregon grown Clover
seed has a right to be heard with respect to the proposed budget,
a copy of which is available for public inspection, under reasonable
circumstances, in the office of each County Extension Agent in
Oregon. For further information, contact the Clover Commission
business office, P.O. Box 3366, Salem, Oregon 97302, telephone
503-364-2944. The meeting location is accessible to persons
with disabilities. Please make any requests for an interpreter for
the hearing impaired or for other accommodation for persons with
disabilities at least 48 hours before the meeting by contacting the
S179677-1
Commission office at 503-364-2944.
The restrictions in both
states came after a week-
end in which coastal
towns reported a large
number of tourists flock-
ing to beaches and crowd-
ing local businesses.
In a televised address,
Inslee said keeping people
apart is the “only weapon
against this virus.”
“This order will imme-
diately ban all gatherings
of people for social, spiri-
tual and recreational pur-
poses,” he said. “If you
want to have parties on
the beach or play pick-up
basketball at the park or
have sleepovers, these
are no longer allowed
for at least a couple of
weeks.”
Inslee said people
could still go outside, but
must remain at least 6 feet
apart from everyone at all
times. “It’s still safe to go
outside using social dis-
tancing of 6 feet,” he said.
Washington
Depart-
ment of Health Secretary
John Wiesman said peo-
ple who live in the same
home can walk together,
but friends, neighbors
and colleagues shouldn’t.
“Those folks really need
to be walking separately.”
Washington
State
Patrol Chief John Batiste
said knowingly violat-
ing a governor’s execu-
tive order is a gross mis-
demeanor. He said he did
not expect law officers
to enforce the order with
arrests. “It’s about educat-
ing the community to stay
safe and healthy,” he said.
Postman said that Ins-
lee could ask for stronger
law-enforcement action if
people ignore his order,
perhaps with officers
breaking up gatherings. “I
don’t doubt for a second
he’s going to ask for some
enforcement of that,” he
said.
Added Batiste: “We do
have a law on the books
that helps us with that.”
Health officials said
they will look over the
next two weeks to see
whether the “stay home”
order and previous orders
are having an effect. Post-
man said he expected
some restrictions to be
extended past two weeks.
