Friday, August 21, 2020
CapitalPress.com 9
Credit: 2020 expected to ‘come out OK for farmers’
Continued from Page 1
lenders have nonetheless
benefited as their own inter-
est expenses have declined
more steeply, he said.
For that reason, the net-
work’s net income has
increased even as lenders
have set aside more than
twice as much money for
potential loan losses —
$158 million during the first
half of 2020, compared to
$66 million during the same
point last year, according to
FFCB.
Meanwhile, the Farm
Credit System’s non-per-
forming assets, such as
loans that are past due on
principal or interest pay-
ments, have grown from
roughly $2.35 billion to
$2.5 billion during 2020.
Though
that’s
an
increase of about 6%, loan
volume has also grown, so
the proportion of non-per-
forming loans to total assets
rose only slightly, accord-
ing to FFCB.
“It’s difficult to say
whether that’s an indicator
related to the issues with
COVID-19,” Johnson said.
Northwest Farm Credit
Services — which serves
farmers in Oregon, Wash-
ington, Idaho, Montana and
Alaska — has actually seen
its non-performing assets
drop from $79 million to
$77.7 million while loan
volume has remained basi-
cally unchanged in 2020.
This decline was “some-
what surprising” given the
dire effects that coronavirus
has had on the broader econ-
omy, said Tom Nakano, the
institutions executive vice
president and chief adminis-
trative and financial officer.
“We were expecting
things to be rougher than
they were,” Nakano said.
Farmers, ranchers and
foresters in the region “were
in pretty good shape heading
into the crisis” and seem to
have weathered it better than
many other businesses, he
said.
However, consumer debt
is typically faster to show
adverse effects from an eco-
nomic downturn than agri-
cultural companies, Nakano
said.
“It really doesn’t show
up in those non-performing
numbers that quickly,” he
said. “It may take a couple
of quarters to show up.”
Due to the strong finan-
cial support from the fed-
eral government, 2020
is expected to “come out
OK for farmers” but it’s
unknown whether such
assistance will continue,
said Van Hoose of the Farm
Credit Council.
“Our folks are proba-
bly more worried about
2021,” he said. “The ability
to project a profit is tough
and it’s weighing on a lot of
farmers.”
Light: ‘We’ve seen a large difference in production’
Continued from Page 1
that farmers manipulate light in
many ways: giving plants more
light, managing day length, chang-
ing plants’ structure and using col-
ored lights to improve coloration
and flavor.
Matthew Jones, photobiolo-
gist at the University of Glasgow
in Scotland, told the Capital Press
that in general, blue light makes
plants shorter, while red light
makes them taller.
“I think it’s all very exciting,”
said Jones, whose accent betrayed
his British origins. He was sitting
in his Glasgow office, jammed all
around with books, papers and a
scribbly white board. “The chal-
lenge is figuring out how it works
in the real world.”
Global innovators
In the Netherlands, farm-
ers have rapidly adopted con-
trolled-environment agriculture, or
CEA. They grow high-value spe-
cialty crops year-round in illumi-
nated greenhouses.
In Scotland a few years ago, a
company called Intelligent Growth
Solutions announced the world’s
most technically advanced indoor
vertical farm.
And in South Korea, farm-
ers have grown strawberry plants
indoors using colored lights. With
the right color ratios, they were
able to alter the flavor and make
the berries grow faster or slower.
Lloyd Nackley, an assistant
professor at Oregon State Uni-
versity’s Nursery Crops Research
Facility, told the Capital Press he
sees “enormous potential for urban
food production” in greenhouses
with artificial lighting.
Even those who prefer tra-
ditional agriculture say there
is untapped potential in light
research.
Material meets light
Enveloped by hills in Grants
Pass, Ore., Greenleaf Industries, a
nonprofit nursery that hires devel-
opmentally disabled adults and
donates produce to charities, is
known for its colored lights and
materials.
Nick Smith, Greenleaf’s direc-
tor, said the nursery uses not only
colored lights, but also colored
plastic poly mulch sheeting that
interacts with light.
“We’ve seen a large difference
in production,” said Smith.
He said his nursery uses black,
green, silver and red poly mulch
cloths for different purposes.
Black and green cloths are stan-
dard, he said; they retain heat in the
soil.
Red mulch cloth lets in more
light. The downside is more
weeds grow, but Smith said red
cloth increases pepper and tomato
production.
Silver poly mulch cloth, Smith
said, reflects light upward, keep-
ing away aphids and thrips. But
because of its reflective properties,
silver cloth can stunt plants if it’s
used in intense sunlight.
Greenleaf Industries uses some
LED lights, but mainly relies on
plant aquarium bulbs. Smith said
as each old bulb dies, it is replaced
by a new LED, one at a time rather
than an all at once.
That’s because the specialized
LEDs are expensive. Smith recalls
spending $934 on his last four-foot
LED.
Many growers and researchers
told the Capital Press LED lights
are preferable because they can
be “tuned” to emit precise wave-
lengths, are energy-efficient, don’t
generate as much heat and are
long-lasting.
But the cost of LEDs is just one
challenge with light-controlled
agriculture.
‘Can’t beat the sun’
Some researchers criticize
indoor farming. For one, they say,
how can growers compete when
the sun is free? Even enthusiastic
CEA proponents say the sun can’t
truly be replicated.
Photos by Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Tyler Meskers of Oregon Flowers
A worker welds in a solar panel manufactur-
ing facility.
“Natural light is still best,” said
Jones, the Glasgow researcher.
“You can’t beat the sun.”
But beating the sun at its own
game isn’t the point. McAllister
of the University of Michigan said
indoor farms can be closer to urban
areas, grow reliable crops despite
unreliable climate and weather,
allow farmers to grow at a time of
year when they otherwise couldn’t
and offer a high degree of control.
CEA still has critics.
Indoor farming racks up high
energy costs. Critics say this hurts
growers’ profits and emits carbon.
Jones, the photobiologist, said
researchers are still finding ways
to make CEA more efficient.
One remarkable innovation, he
said, involves tricking plants into
“thinking” they’ve received more
hours of daylight than they actu-
ally have.
Jones said that, like animals and
humans, plants have an internal
biochemical circadian clock regu-
lating sleep-awake cycles.
Many plants need a long period
of daylight — which can be expen-
sive to emulate inside a green-
house. A recent experiment, Jones
said, found growers can turn off
lights earlier in the evening, then
give plants a one-hour pulse of
light in the middle of the night,
which makes plants behave as
though they’d received a full day
of light, saving energy costs.
With knowledge and technol-
ogies like LEDs, Jones said he
expects the field will grow.
Glass dreams
But not every innovator uses
LEDs.
At Oregon Flowers, the Meskers
family grows some 8 million flow-
ers a year in elephantine glass
greenhouses decked with roll-up
shades, sunroofs that tilt open and
high-pressure sodium lights.
The Meskers’ business model is
built on providing fresh-cut, Amer-
ican-grown flowers when most
people aren’t growing them and
demand is high, such as around
Valentine’s Day.
According to a 2019 report from
USDA’s National Agricultural Sta-
tistics Service, the wholesale value
of domestically produced cut flow-
ers was $374 million, 77% of
which is from California.
“We live and breathe our flow-
ers,” said Tyler Meskers.
Tyler Meskers and two of his kids head into a green-
house.
He was walking down the aisle
of a greenhouse, one son perched
on his shoulders and the other tag-
ging alongside. This was the same
aisle where Meskers had learned
to ride his bike as a boy, the same
aisle his father had built as a young
immigrant.
Meskers’ father, Martin, the
company’s CEO and president,
is a third-generation Dutch bulb
farmer. In his early 20s, he moved
to the U.S. for a job and later
started a business.
Martin always loved flowers.
“I don’t know anything else. As
kids we worked on the farm,” he
said.
He still carries his Dutch accent.
When he started his business,
he asked his then-sweetheart and
now-wife Helene to join him. She
was also from Dutch flower stock;
her family was in the bulb busi-
ness, too.
“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to
come. But I love it here,” said
Helene, now the CFO of Oregon
Flowers.
When the Meskers family
started the business, they dreamed
of building greenhouses with glass,
which allows more sunlight to fil-
ter through than plastic.
But glass is expensive, and
securing a loan wasn’t easy.
Martin Meskers said banks
turned him away.
“I told them, ‘I want to grow
flowers.’ Nobody got it,” he said.
At age 26, the day after his baby
girl was born, he went to a bank
again asking for a loan. The bank
staff was so amazed he’d left his
newborn to seek their backing that
they finally took him seriously.
The Meskers say the cut flower
industry has faced ups and downs,
but because of the company’s
innovations, their markets have
remained strong.
Common ground
Outdoor producers are also
innovating with light.
One such experimental field is
called “agrivoltaics,” also known
as “solarculture.”
At the intersection of farm-
ing and solar energy, historically a
place of conflict, renewable energy
leaders and farmers are developing
partnerships and finding, quite lit-
erally, common ground.
Dual-purpose solar sites — for
agriculture and energy production
— are gaining popularity in Italy,
Germany and Japan, but are still a
rarity in the U.S.
Chad Higgins, professor of bio-
logical and ecological engineering
at Oregon State University, is one
of the nation’s leading agrivoltaics
experts.
In one study, Higgins found the
shade created by solar panels tri-
pled water use efficiency in a sheep
pasture.
This summer, Higgins’ research
team completed another study
with sheep grazing among pan-
els. Early results show the lambs
drank less water in the shade, pre-
ferred to graze underneath the pan-
els, appeared less stressed and the
pasture had a higher stocking rate.
Higgins said landowners can
also benefit from lease payments
from energy companies; experts
told the Capital Press they have
seen lease rates range from $800 to
1,500 per acre per year.
Solar energy companies want to
use farmland because it tends to be
flat, pre-disturbed and deep-soiled.
Solar panels actually “prefer” tem-
perate farm conditions because
panels are usually made of silicon,
the same material computer chips
are made of, that doesn’t perform
well if too hot or wet.
But agrivoltaics has its
challenges.
Higgins said the “biggest imped-
iment” is liability; there aren’t yet
many laws in place to govern what
happens when a farmer damages a
panel or a panel injures a farmer.
Another challenge is that in
some states, particular counties
allow solar panels on high-qual-
ity farm soil classes, while others
do not.
Also, Higgins said, most com-
panies build panels with energy
production as the primary goal and
overlook landowners’ needs. Hig-
gins said he believes panels should
designed with the farmer’s needs
in mind — such as being able to
pass underneath with a tractor.
Higgins said a company called
STracker is making solar panels
with agriculture in mind.
“It’s like Yoda: ‘unlearn what
you’ve learned.’ These solar arrays
don’t look anything like what
you’ve seen before,” said Higgins.
Raised solar panels
One hot afternoon at STracker’s
solar panel manufacturing shop
John Jacob, beekeeper and
owner of Old Sol Apiaries, holds
a panel of honeycomb and bees
in front of solar panels.
in Ashland, Ore., blue and gold
sparks flew from the welding table.
The shop buzzed. Jeff Sharpe, the
company’s engineer, dismounted
his yellow bike and strode across
rust-colored iron shavings to a pile
of equipment.
Sharpe is a second-generation
solar business owner. After spend-
ing a decade farming in Montana,
Sharpe saw the need to bridge
the gap between agriculture and
energy.
He invented a towering dual-
axis solar panel with 14-foot
ground clearance. Raised panels,
he said, work better for farms.
Some producers, however, need
panels raised, but only a few feet
off the ground.
A sweet habitat
John Jacob, CEO of Old Sol
Enterprises and president of the
Oregon State Beekeepers Asso-
ciation, said managing his bee-
hives near solar panels has been a
game-changer.
Jacob keeps some of his hives
in White City at a solar site owned
by Pine Gate Renewables. The
ground under the panels is car-
peted with native plants and flow-
ers for the bees.
Jacob said because the shade
from the panels keeps things
blooming, his bees at this site pro-
duce twice as much honey as those
elsewhere. The hives also produce
stronger queen bees. And working
with Pine Gate Renewables, Jacob
said, allows him to lock more land
into long-term agricultural use.
“I know not everybody thinks
solar panels are pretty, but from
my point of view, beauty is in
the eye of the bee-holder — pun
intended,” he said.
Light-bearers
Both indoors and outdoors,
more farmers are innovating with
light. Researchers predict that as
knowledge and technology grow,
the next generation of agricultur-
alists will push the boundaries of
light even further.
In his largest glass greenhouse
— 107,639 square feet — Tyler
Meskers stood beside his two boys
and his wife, Megan, who was
pregnant with their third child.
“I’m glad they get to grow up
this way,” he said. “And who
knows how agriculture and tech-
nology will change for them.”