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Friday, June 26, 2020 CapitalPress.com 11 Plunging Oregon lottery funds hinder fight against pests and weeds By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Video lottery revenues evapo- rated as Oregon’s bars and restau- rants closed during the coronavirus outbreak, which means there’s now less money available for fighting weeds and pests. The Oregon Department of Agri- culture expects the $10.6 million of its 2019-2021 biennial budget that was expected to come from lottery funds will have to be reduced by 30%, said Lisa Hanson, the agen- cy’s deputy director. “For us, it’s a cash flow prob- lem initially as well as not know- ing how much we’re going to get,” Hanson said during a remote June 18 meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture, which advises ODA. Though the ODA received its full quarterly distribution of lot- tery funds in May, it’s bracing for a decrease in August. Among the Japanese beetles are among the pests affected by reduced erad- ication funds at the Oregon De- partment of Agriculture. programs most likely affected by a drop in lottery funds are nox- ious weed control and the preven- tion and management of insects and pests. In practical terms, that means certain weed eradication projects won’t go forward or won’t receive state money, while ODA won’t be hiring seasonal workers to set insect traps that help the agency decide how best to control pests next year, she said. Instead, ODA employees and volunteers will be setting the insect traps, Hanson later said. The agency has scaled back trapping due to past budget shortfalls “but not as drastically as we’d have to do this time.” An ounce of pest prevention is worth a pound of cure, as infesta- tions tend to grow more expensive when they go undiscovered, Han- son said. “The key to the eradica- tion programs is early detection and rapid response. Finding things early when they’re small is the best approach.” Aside from anticipating a plunge in lottery revenue, ODA is also recommending 8.5% reduc- tions to several program allotments expected to draw from the agency’s $26 million general fund during the current biennium, as requested by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown. In reality, these reductions would amount to 17% since there’s only one year left in the current biennium, Hanson said. The gov- ernor can act on those recom- mendations in forming her own budget reductions or the Leg- islature can make more precise cutbacks. “We’re still unclear how big the shortfall is going to be,” she said. “There are still a lot of balls up in the air.” Among general fund reductions, ODA recommends eliminating: • $600,000 for laboratory equip- ment upgrades. • $200,000 in predator control payments. • $280,000 slated for the Oregon Invasive Species Council, which conducts education, outreach and coordination. $10M USDA grant helps UI study turning manure into money By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press A $10 million grant from the USDA will help Uni- versity of Idaho research- ers develop a way to turn cow manure into revenue. About 90% of a dairy farm- er’s income Mark typically McGuire comes from milk, said Mark McGuire, associate dean of the uni- versity’s College of Agricul- tural and Life Sciences and director of the Idaho Agri- cultural Experiment Station. But cow manure has many nutrients that could be used in fertilizers and soil amendments, he said. The funding comes from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agri- culture and Food Initiative’s Sustainable Agricultural Sys- tems program. It is one of nine projects from eight uni- versities receiving total of $90 million. The researchers will test and develop technology and processes to help dairies, Capital Press File University of Idaho researchers hope to convert the “raw material” produced by dairy cattle as manure and turn it into valuable fertilizer and soil amendments. dairy processors and other food processing companies make an alternative fertil- izer. They will extract nutri- ents from dairy waste and estimate their value as crop nutrients or soil amendments. The researchers will also look for possible problems in adopting the new products, McGuire said. Dairies might adopt the technology, team up with other dairies or new busi- nesses might partner with the dairies to generate the products, similar to methane digester businesses, he said. “It would hopefully be very low input as far as labor, technology,” he said. In 25 years, Idaho grew from the 11th or 12th larg- est milk-producing state to third, with most cows in the Magic Valley, said Michael Parrella, CALS dean. “They produce a product, you could either consider it waste or you consider it nutrients,” he said. “From an environmental impact per- spective, the focus seems to be more on waste manage- ment, how you deal with this product, when in fact there’s value there — it’s actually fertilizer.” The research project turns a product that many dairy farmers worry about man- aging into a potentially valu- able product, Parrella said. The five-year project will be undertaken by UI’s Cen- ter for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, slated to open in 2023. Research will be conducted at the research dairy site in Rupert, Idaho, currently in the design phase, and other locations, McGuire said. Researchers already ran soil samples to get a baseline reading of soil health. UI’s study could “trans- form” the entire U.S. dairy industry, Parrella said. It also drives home the links between dairy and other commodities. Forage crops, alfalfa and hay feed the cows, and the resulting nutri- ents benefit crops such as sugar beets, potatoes, beans and malt barley, he said. “It actually reinforces the sustainability of the whole system,” Parrella said. “This almost brings it to full circle.” Farmers today use fertil- izer guides from the 1970s. McGuire said the study will result in updated infor- mation about crop nutrient requirements. Dairy is the top agricul- tural industry in Idaho, pro- ducing more than 13 billion pounds of milk valued at more than $2.2 billion each year. “To give (dairy) an alternative income stream would be very important,” McGuire said, pointing to low milk prices in recent years. The project includes 21 faculty researchers, four post-doctoral students, 23 graduate students and 37 undergraduate students. One researcher will emphasize water quality and cleanup as part of the study, Parrella said. The study will include work from the university’s soil and water systems, plant sciences, agricultural eco- nomics and rural sociology, engineering, animal and vet- erinary science and exten- sion departments. Parrella said the grant establishes that UI is com- petitive nationally. “We do expect it to be one of many large grants to come through once CAFE gets up and running,” he said. Oregon DEQ hands out $63,750 in fines for manure digester overflow By GEORGE PLAVEN Capital Press TILLAMOOK, Ore. — Oregon environmental reg- ulators have issued $63,750 in fines after an anaerobic digester at the Port of Til- lamook Bay malfunctioned last year, causing 163,301 gallons of partially treated cow manure to overflow into a nearby creek. The port, which owns the facility, was fined $19,800 by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Tillamook BioGas LLC, based in Raleigh, N.C., leases the digester and was fined $26,700. DEQ also fined Rege- nis, of Ferndale, Wash., $17,250. Tillamook Bio- Gas hired Regenis — a company that specializes in building and maintaining Port of Tillamook Bay The stormwater outfall at Anderson Creek, which is more than 2 miles from the Tillamook River. The river then goes several miles before reaching the bay. farm digesters — to oper- ate the plant. All three fines are now under appeal. Clay Hart- man, project manager for Tillamook BioGas, said the company has spent months raising money to retrofit the digester and comply with DEQ requirements. “We remedied the underlying conditions that caused the spill,” Hartman said. “We did even more than what they asked for, actually.” The digester was orig- inally built in 2012 and operated by the Port of Til- lamook Bay on the north- ern Oregon coast until 2017. It takes manure from dairy farms in the area and captures methane and car- bon dioxide emissions from the waste, used to cre- ate electricity. The process, known as anaerobic digestion, works by heating the manure slurry in large tanks with- out oxygen, allowing bacteria and microor- ganisms to break down the material and release gases. After sitting idle for two years, DEQ issued a new permit for the digester in late 2018 and the port leased the facility to Tilla- mook BioGas. Tillamook BioGas, in turn, hired Regenis in February 2019 for day-to-day operations. On July 22, 2019, a faulty sensor caused one of the digester’s tanks to overflow, spilling 378,572 gallons of liquid manure overnight. An estimated 163,301 gallons reached a storm water pipe that emp- ties into Anderson Creek, south of the Tillamook River. The Tillamook River flows into the Pacific Ocean at Tillamook Bay, where the Oregon Depart- ment of Agriculture says there are 10 licensed shell- fish firms. USDA Oregon has received money from the feder- al government that will be used to expand the availability of broad- band internet in some rural areas of the state. Coronavirus relief funds to finance broadband projects in rural Oregon By MARGO CRAIG Capital Press Oregon’s Legisla- tive Emergency Board has allocated $20 mil- lion in federal coro- navirus relief funding to expand broadband internet availability in rural areas of the state. Half of the $20 mil- lion will go to projects in regions that have no broadband inter- net access. It will be distributed through the Rural Broadband Capacity Program, which is managed by Business Oregon, the state’s economic devel- opment agency. The other half will go to Link Oregon, a nonprofit consor- tium that includes the State of Oregon and the state’s four research universities working to expand broadband coverage in the pub- lic sector, including school districts, health care providers and businesses. The funding will be used for Phase 2, which focuses on southern and eastern Oregon, includ- ing Roseburg, Med- ford, Ashland, Klam- ath Falls, The Dalles, Pendleton, La Grande, Ontario and Burns, among other locations. The program will begin accepting pro- posals once details are clarified, accord- ing to Nathan Bue- hler, communications and research manager for the Oregon Busi- ness Development Department. The $20 million for rural internet expansion was part of $247 mil- lion the state received through the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, which Congress passed last spring. U.S.-Israeli research grants fuel agricultural advancements By SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN Capital Press When it comes to research funding, univer- sity professors say agricul- ture often gets overlooked. But a successful interna- tional fund is showing that agricultural research is worth the investment. A joint U.S.-Israeli research fund has approved $7.3 million this June for 22 agricultural research projects done jointly by Israeli and U.S. scientists. Three 2020 awardees are based in California. The program, which funds three-year proj- ects and pays researchers about $310,000, is called the U.S.-Israeli Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, or BARD for short. This year, BARD also granted 10 postdoctoral fel- lowships, including one to a researcher in Washing- ton state, one in Oregon and four in California. Several researchers told the Capital Press that even with grants from the USDA, Food and Drug Adminis- tration and other organiza- tions, agricultural research still has limited funding. They say BARD is signifi- cant not only because it has transformed agriculture and contributed to the global economy, but also because it demonstrates the payoff from investing in agricul- tural research. The American and Israeli governments created and funded the program in 1978 because the nations had BARD BARD-funded agricultural research projects since 1978 by state. shared interests in agricul- ture and science. “I get to work with incred- ible scientists from around the world. It’s really, really fascinating,” said David Zilberman, 2020 BARD recipient and professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California-Berkley. This year, Zilberman and his fellow researchers plan to study how microalgae can be managed for agricultural purposes. Among the other grant proposals approved this year are projects on salmonella sensing-based antibacterials for use in poultry, Beta-glu- cans as growth promot- ers and antibiotic alterna- tives and the use of in-vitro embryo production and gene editing in sheep. For decades, BARD has been a global pioneer in drip irrigation, solar sterilization, increasing milk yield, bio- logical control of pests and more. An independent, external review of BARD recently measured the program’s impact. According to the review, the grants have led to 200 new agricultural practices, 40 commercial deals and 100 patent-series and breed- ing licenses. For every U.S. dol- lar spent in BARD’s agri- cultural research, $20 has been gained, economists estimate. Since 1978, BARD has awarded 299 grants to Cal- ifornia researchers, a higher number than any other state. Scientists say this is partly because Israel’s arid envi- ronment makes it a natural research partner for Califor- nia, which produces similar crops. Yoram Kapulnik, BARD’s executive direc- tor, told the Capital Press that Israel’s struggle to sup- ply water to a growing pop- ulation forced the nation to become a world leader in water and agricultural technologies.