Friday, March 19, 2021
CapitalPress.com 11
Shipping: ‘It kind of threw the world into a tizzy’
Continued from Page 1
Early in the crisis, Davis
— who is also a Republi-
can state representative from
Albany — said the flow
of goods was reduced to a
trickle. Americans weren’t
buying, ships were halted
and even the companies that
manufacture cargo contain-
ers slowed production due to
reduced demand.
“It kind of threw the world
into a tizzy,” she said.
Then, as the months wore
on, the floodgates opened.
Consumers changed their
buying habits, ordering prod-
ucts online, many from over-
seas. Ships’ capacities were
suddenly overwhelmed, and
shipping companies strug-
gled to keep up.
“I’ve been doing this long
enough, and it just takes time
for the market to correct
itself,” Davis said.
With such high demand
for imports, Davis said carri-
ers realized it would be more
profitable for them to expe-
dite sending empty contain-
ers back to their point of ori-
gin, rather than wait to refill
those containers with agri-
cultural products.
That has exacerbated an
already difficult situation at
ports, with unprecedented
congestion and record con-
tainer volumes.
Davis and her business
partner, Macey Wessels,
operate Boshart Trucking,
which provides grass straw
baling and transportation ser-
vices for more than 40 farm-
ers in the Willamette Valley.
Davis is also vice presi-
dent of BOSSCO Trading,
working with customers in
Japan and South Korea to
sell grass straw primarily for
animal feed. In a given year,
Davis said she ships around
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is asking the Federal
Maritime Commission to continue investigating “unrea-
sonable practices” by shipping carriers that are making
it harder for U.S. farms to export their products.
40 containers of straw per
week.
But with containers
now at a premium, she said
roughly half of their ship-
ments are delayed by a week
or two, and 25% are delayed
2-5 weeks.
“I would say it’s frustrat-
ing,” Davis said. “(Our cus-
tomers) like schedules. We
pride ourselves on being
able to produce what they
want, on time. That’s been a
struggle.”
In addition, Davis said
Auction: ‘We love what we do’
Continued from Page 1
Despite the difficulties, Balmelli and
other market owners around the nation
say they are optimistic about the future
of livestock auctions. Balmelli said it
remains the one venue where there is true
price discovery, while providing a social
gathering place unique to rural America.
“We feel this loyalty to our customers
and our employees to stay in this busi-
ness as long as we can,” Balmelli said.
“We love what we do.”
The rise of video
Forrest Mangan, region executive
officer of the Livestock Marketing Asso-
ciation, said the rise of video auctions is
one example of how times and technol-
ogy have changed the industry. The asso-
ciation represents more than 800 local
livestock auction markets and allied
businesses.
Video auctions are another avenue for
larger producers to market their livestock,
Mangan said. Rather than transporting
large lots of cattle to the sale barn, they
are instead filmed on the ranch. The foot-
age can then be broadcast virtually any-
where, as well as online, inviting buyers
from across the country and around the
world.
“It just gives people more choices,”
said Mangan, who works with 100 mem-
ber markets in 11 Western states and
Canada. “Like I tell producers, it’s what
works best for your operation.”
Trent Stewart, owner of the Central
Oregon Livestock Auction in Madras,
described video marketing as “the
future.” He also works part-time as an
auctioneer for Superior Livestock, based
in Texas, supplementing his income by
traveling for auctions in different states.
The Central Oregon Livestock Auc-
tion has averaged about 70 sales and
34,000 head of cattle per year over the
last decade — a far cry from years ago
when sale barns in both Madras and
George Plaven/Capital Press
Jason Humphrey has been a veterinarian at the Chehalis Livestock Auc-
tion since 2001. He works at Cascade West Veterinary Hospital in Centralia,
Wash.
nearby Redmond sold
50,000 head each.
Video auctions and
specialized sales, such
as purebred or organi-
cally raised cattle, are
one way local auctions
Derrell Peel can find new custom-
ers and charge premium
rates, Stewart said.
“That’s the only way
to try and stay alive in
this game now, is a niche
market, so to speak,” he
said. “Just selling com-
Ethan Lane modity cattle anymore
doesn’t pay the bills.”
But, as Stewart points out, video
auctions aren’t for everyone. Smaller
ranchers with only a few cattle are bet-
ter suited for the sale barn, meaning they
will continue to play a vital role in the
livestock industry.
“The worst thing in the world that
could happen is have a lot of these sale
yards shut down,” Stewart said. “If they
don’t keep these auction yards in busi-
ness across the U.S., it’s going to be
ugly for all producers.”
Fewer cattle, rising costs
Data from the Livestock Marketing
Association suggest some signs of stabil-
ity for the sale barn, according to Mangan.
A survey conducted by the Live-
stock Marketing Association shows
89% of livestock producers use the
local auctions to market at least some
of their cattle.
The number of registered pack-
ers and stockyards, meanwhile, has
remained stable since 2010, dropping
by just one to 1,204 by 2019.
“Really in the Western U.S., yes we
had those two (auctions) close, but we
haven’t really seen a trend in the last
10-15 years of markets closing,” Man-
gan said.
Overall declining cattle numbers
and rising costs, however, are putting
sale barns to the test.
Derrell Peel, extension livestock
marketing specialist for Oklahoma
State University, said the number of
cattle nationwide peaked in 1975 at
132 million head. That figure dipped to
a low of 88.2 million head in 2014, and
has since recovered modestly to 93.6
million head.
“In the broadest sense of the word,
there are not as many animals that need
to be sold,” Peel said. That is due partly
to greater efficiency at beef processing
plants, and larger animals being bred
on the ranch.
“We produce as much beef today
as we did back then, but we do it with
many millions fewer cattle,” he said.
Others also point to urban sprawl in
places such as Western Washington and
Oregon, with property values increas-
ing faster than the profits of ranches
and new developments consuming
farmland.
Kyle Cheney, an 82-year-old
rancher in Centralia, Wash., operated
a livestock auction, Twin City Sales,
before he sold it 10 years ago.
“The value of the property and
reduction in livestock ... it was a com-
bination of both (factors),” Cheney
said.
What once was Twin City Sales has
since been redeveloped as a plaza that
includes a dental office and veterinary
clinic.
Five miles to the south, Balmelli of
the Chehalis Livestock Auction said
their costs are rising. Labor is espe-
cially expensive, she said, as the state
of Washington gradually increases its
minimum wage to $15 per hour.
“All these little things, they’ve tri-
pled in eight years and our commis-
sions have stayed the same,” she said.
“We just need more cattle here. We
need expenses to go down.”
Packer concentration
Another lingering concern is con-
solidation among the largest beef pack-
ers, which producers say has contrib-
uted to lower prices for cattle.
Four businesses — Cargill, JBS,
National Beef and Tyson Foods — now
control 84% of the market. With less
competition, Stewart, of the Central
Oregon Livestock Auction, said these
companies might pay just breakeven
prices buying directly from ranchers.
“That’s where the real problem is,”
Stewart said. “People are throwing
their hands in the air and giving up.”
Ethan Lane, vice president of gov-
ernment affairs for the National Cattle-
men’s Beef Association, said the indus-
try is focused on increasing “negotiated
cash trades,” like competitive bids at
the sale barn, which in turn will drive
up the base price in direct transactions.
“Everybody in the industry is try-
ing to achieve the same thing,” Lane
said. “The question is, how do we get
it done?”
The Cattle Market Transparency
Act, sponsored by Sens. Deb Fischer,
R-Neb., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., seeks
a solution that, in part, would direct the
USDA to establish regional mandatory
minimum percentages for negotiated
cash trades, thus reintroducing compe-
tition to restore prices.
Lane said the NCBA is “extremely
supportive” of the bill’s objectives, but
does not support mandatory provisions.
“We have a voluntary framework
that we’re working in right now, try-
ing to increase negotiated trade in these
regions,” he said.
“What they’re selling matters,
too,” Lane added. “That’s part of the
business model, figuring out where to
go and where to get the best price for
your livestock.”
harm as the U.S. becomes
an unreliable source of prod-
ucts,” he said.
Stuart Follen, president
of SL Follen Co., which
owns and operates Ore-
gon Hay Products, said the
Shipping Act of 1984 does
not allow carriers to unilat-
erally limit access for U.S.
companies trying to conduct
business.
SL Follen Co. annually
ships approximately 65,000
tons of hay products to Asia
and the Middle East, accord-
ing to the company’s website.
“Ocean carriers, by
unnecessarily
restricting
access to ocean containers
and shipping them back to
Asia empty, are damaging
countless American farmers,
agricultural processors and
international trading compa-
nies throughout the U.S. and
especially along the West
Coast,” Follen said.
Plan: Groups say breaching
dams could save four of the most
endangered salmonid species
Continued from Page 1
Two auctions close
Already in 2021, two sale barns on
the West Coast closed their doors within
weeks of one another.
Woodburn Livestock Auction in
Woodburn, Ore., and Shasta Livestock
Auction Yard in Cottonwood, Calif., both
announced their closures in February.
Brad Peek, general manager of the
Shasta market, said the decision to
halt regular Friday auctions was dif-
ficult but necessary. The sale barn
was opened in 1961 by Peek’s father,
Ellington Peek, and is a major part of
his family’s legacy.
“Obviously, it’s sad,” Peek said.
“We are friends with our customers,
number one. It’s going to be some
inconvenience for them.”
In 1989, Ellington Peek co-founded
Western Video Market, getting into the
business of video livestock auctions.
Since then, Brad Peek said the com-
pany has grown steadily, marketing
cattle and lambs.
Western Video Market now holds a
dozen sales every year — six in Cotton-
wood, and six remotely in places such
as Nevada, Wyoming and Nebraska.
The company sells close to 350,000
head of cattle annually, Peek said.
“We need to focus on that part of
our business,” Peek said. “It’s growing,
and highly successful.”
Meanwhile, cattle numbers at the
sale barn had been dwindling since the
1990s, dropping from 150,000 per year
to between 60,000 and 80,000 per year.
The last in-person sale at Shasta
Livestock Auction Yard was Feb. 12.
The last sale at Woodburn Livestock
Auction was Feb. 23. That property is
now up for sale, according to owners
Tom and Mary Elder.
In a statement, the Elders said they
decided to shut down the livestock por-
tion of their business “due to the contin-
ual declining head counts and rising costs
of doing business.” They will continue to
hold online-only machinery sales.
carriers have dramatically
raised shipping costs for agri-
cultural goods. For example,
she said one container head-
ing for Shibushi, Japan, now
costs $500, a 50% increase
since December.
“These are huge multi-na-
tional global companies that
us little guys have a hard time
going up against,” Davis
said. “If there are any unfair
trading practices happening,
then the (maritime commis-
sion) definitely needs to take
a look.”
Gary Frederickson, pres-
ident of Oregon Hay Prod-
ucts in Boardman, said the
disruptions caused by carri-
ers returning empty contain-
ers to China is predatory and
damaging to all West Coast
agricultural exporters.
“These actions are causing
irreparable short-term harm
to U.S. exporters and poten-
tially permanent long-term
His proposal includes
a 35-year extension of the
license of all remaining
dams in the Columbia River
Basin greater than 5 mega-
watts and a 35-year mora-
torium on litigation related
to anadromous fish under
the Endangered Species
Act, National Environmen-
tal Policy Act, and the Clean
Water Act.
“Each of our organiza-
tions strongly supports the
removal of the four Lower
Snake River dams to help
restore the region’s cultur-
ally significant wild salmon
and steelhead, and we fully
support aiding every com-
munity impacted by the
removal of the dams,” the
letter states.
“However, this goal can-
not be achieved by sus-
pending the protections of
our bedrock environmen-
tal laws for a generation or
more, along with an unprec-
edented attack on environ-
mental justice for millions
of people that live across
the Columbia River basin,”
the letter continues. “The
proposed suspension of
core environmental laws is
the most sweeping we have
ever encountered and is
unacceptable.”
The groups claim in
their letter that breaching
the dams could save four
of the most endangered sal-
monid species from extinc-
tion. But Simpson’s pro-
posal demands “the most
extensive rollback of envi-
ronmental safeguards in
the modern environmental
era.”
“Rep. Simpson is asking
millions of the region’s res-
idents to sacrifice their clean
water protections and is risk-
ing the future of many other
endangered,
threatened,
or sensitive species in the
Northwest as the price for
removing these four dams,”
the letter states. “Moreover,
this deal would set a terrible
and dangerous precedent for
the rest of the nation, creat-
ing a model wherein envi-
ronmental progress can only
occur by sacrificing human
health and environmental
protections elsewhere.”
“Cynically, Rep. Simp-
son’s proposal continues
the false narrative that envi-
ronmental safeguards are
to blame for declining wild
salmon populations,” the let-
ter states. “Nothing could be
further from the truth.”
“While we support pro-
viding funds and resources
to help the communities that
would be impacted by the
removal of the Snake River
dams, Rep. Simpson pro-
poses to spend $34 billion
with virtually no account-
ability on how those funds
would be spent,” the letter
states.
The groups say that under
Simpson’s proposal, most
funding would go towards
“special interests and large
agribusiness,” claiming that
funding would go towards
“large factory farm agri-
businesses to further subsi-
dize operations that already
cause massive water and air
pollution and other environ-
mental ills” and a “vague
list of other infrastructure
projects including unproven
hydrogen storage and small
modular nuclear reactors
that have little to do with the
Snake River dams.” The let-
ter argues that “Rep. Simp-
son would be the sole arbiter
who picks winners and los-
ers for decades to come.”
“The entire purpose of
breaching the Snake River
dams is to rescue popu-
lations of wild fish,” the
groups write to the legisla-
tors. “But, perversely, Rep.
Simpson’s proposal would
jeopardize those very same
fish by removing their legal
protection from other major
sources of harm.”
The groups “applaud any
effort to get the ball rolling
on dam removal and wel-
come a robust conversation
on how to make that happen
in the near term,” the letter
states.
Simpson told the Capital
Press his concept is designed
to improve water quality and
quantity of all watersheds in
Oregon, Idaho, Washing-
ton and Montana. He wants
producers and stakeholders
who voluntarily participate
in watershed partnerships to
be able to work proactively
without the threat of litiga-
tion from tribes, conserva-
tionists and states, he said.
“I believe conservation-
ists giving up lawsuits for 25
years against agriculture is
a fair trade if it means sav-
ing Idaho’s endangered wild
salmon and steelhead from
certain extinction,” Simp-
son said. “It seems conser-
vation groups who call my
concept a ‘non-starter’ and
‘dead wrong’ are more con-
cerned about ending litiga-
tion against Northwest dams
and agriculture than actually
helping the fish and improv-
ing the watershed.”
Kristin Meira, execu-
tive director of the Pacific
Northwest Waterways Asso-
ciation, which advocates for
maintaining the dams, said
agriculture agrees with the
environmental groups that
salmon recovery needs to
be addressed through exist-
ing federal laws, regula-
tions, policies and processes
that protect and balance both
environmental and human
interests.
“We do not agree that
breaching the Lower Snake
River dams is the silver bul-
let that will address the com-
plexities of recovering our
region’s wild salmon and
steelhead,” Meira said.
NOAA Fisheries, in part-
nership with tribal and state
governments and a variety
of economic and environ-
mental interests, has already
established
agreed-upon
goals for recovery of the
region’s salmon and steel-
head, with “comprehen-
sive” science-based plans
for achieving those goals,
Meira said.
“We look forward to
working together as a
region to accomplish this
challenging but achievable
work,” she said.