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Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
Friday, April 16, 2021
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
Feeding world will take land, and lots of it
A
prodigious amount of U.S.
farmland continues to be
converted to other uses. The
American Farmland Trust estimates
that between 2001 and 2016 more
than 11 million acres were taken out
of ag production.
While in the overall scheme of
things this is a proverbial drop in
the bucket — the total farm acreage
is 915 million — development con-
tinues to chip away at the land that
feeds us all.
Ultimately, as more land is turned
into housing developments or hobby
farms, and as the U.S. popula-
tion continues to grow — 328 mil-
lion people eat a lot — we will run
headlong into the limitations of how
much food farmers can grow.
Add to that the growing global
population — 7 billion and counting
— and sooner or later we will find
out whether farmers can keep every-
one fed.
Which brings us back to the land
— farms, ranches and national for-
Brad Carlson/Capital Press
Development on former farmland in
southeast Meridian, Idaho.
est and Bureau of Land Management
allotments.
So often the arguments offered
by critics of agriculture lean on the
“logic” that some farms — large
ones, primarily — are too efficient.
Now that’s a statement. It’s kind of
like being accused of being too hand-
some or too beautiful.
Yet that’s the rub. Critics say that
large farms use more water than
small farms and large dairies produce
more manure than small dairies.
Sure enough, that is true. But,
assuming that the same amount of
food, or more, will be needed by a
growing population, it will have to
come from an increasing number of
animals and crops raised on ranches
and farms. Whether they are raised
on one 10,000-acre farm or 1,000
10-acre farms won’t make much
difference.
Except for one thing. Any econ-
omies of scale will disappear, and
the cost of production will increase.
Whether the prices paid to those
farmers will also increase to cover
those costs is an unknown.
In the meantime, efficiency is the
friend of the farmer — and the con-
sumer. After all, if prices increase too
much, it will directly impact consum-
ers, particularly those who are low
income.
So there is the conundrum. Taking
agricultural land out of production is
not just bad for farmers and ranchers.
It’s bad for consumers and the rest of
the world.
That’s why we need to keep close
tabs on developers and others who
see farmland and little more than
shovel-ready for the next housing
subdivision.
The protection of farmland must
be taken seriously. Some states, such
as Oregon, have worked to identify
high-value farmland and protect it.
Land trusts and other organiza-
tions have also come up with means
of protecting farmland by purchasing
the development rights. This allows
farmers and ranchers to continue,
and even provides money to improve
their operations.
All of which needs to be balanced
against property owners’ rights.
Again, what’s really at stake is not
only farms and ranches. Ultimately,
what’s a stake is our nation’s ability
to feed itself — and help feed the rest
of the world.
Without debate, that is the most
important value of agriculture. And
doing it depends on land, efficiency,
technology, research and plain old
know-how.
Our View
Time will tell if OT bill benefits farmworkers
T
he best that can be said
about farmworker overtime
legislation passed by the
Washington Legislature is that it
gives producers time to adjust and
protects them from backpay law-
suits set in motion by a recent state
supreme court ruling.
Otherwise, the bill — and similar
legislation working its way through
the Oregon Legislature — is sure
to prompt dramatic changes in farm
labor in the Pacific Northwest.
Congress in 1938 established a
federal minimum wage and provided
for overtime pay for work over 40
hours. The act provided a host of job
classifications, including farmwork-
ers, that are exempt from the over-
time rule.
Washington lawmakers in 1959
adopted a similar provision into state
law.
In a case filed by two former milk-
ers from Yakima County, the Wash-
ington Supreme Court struck down
the exemption Nov. 5 in a 5-4 deci-
Capital Press File
Washington legislators have come up with a bill that will eventually provide over-
time pay to farm workers.
sion. Left unclear by the ruling was
whether it applied just to dairies or
all farms, or whether those impacted
could collect three years in back
wages as made possible under a sep-
arate state law.
A bill originally was introduced
to protect farmers from having to
retroactively pay overtime. It was
amended instead to require all farm-
ers to pay overtime.
After much wrangling and nego-
tiation, a bill was finally hammered
out that will require Washington
farmworkers be paid time-and-a-half
pay after 40 hours in a week begin-
ning in 2024. It also protects farmers
from those retroactive pay lawsuits.
Much has changed since 1938.
If fairness were the only consider-
ation, it’s hard to argue against pay-
ing farmworkers overtime.
But the economics of agriculture
have not changed since 1938. Farm-
ers are still price takers, not price
makers, who cannot simply pass
along higher labor costs to consum-
ers the way retailers and manufactur-
ers, though limited by the impacts of
competition, do.
So, farmers will do whatever they
can to cut down on labor by adopting
more automation, different cropping
systems or by choosing to produce
less labor-intensive crops.
No doubt some farmworkers will
receive overtime. But, in the end,
there will be fewer farmworkers
receiving a paycheck.
Times change. Time will tell if this
legislation will produce the benefits
its sponsors intend.
READERS’ VIEW
‘New normal’ looks
like ‘old crazy’
I enjoyed reading your opinion
piece in the April 2 Capital Press
about hard truths that need to be
said/echoed.
As a West Point grad, Army
veteran, clean energy executive
and dad of four amazing kids, we
need to bring some sanity back
to government/politics — “peo-
ple must be heard”/”no elected
official should be allowed to rule
indefinitely be decree.”
My electeds including Con-
gressman Kurt Schrader seem
out of touch/lost when it comes
to what is important to the work-
ing/middle-class bearing the tax
brunt and getting little in return.
With the administrative state, leg-
islatures are avoiding their respon-
sibility and have delegated their
power in representing us.
At the tip of the spear are pub-
lic schools opening full-time. Cur-
rently, 6 hours a week is a far cry
from over 30 hours that was nor-
mal before the pandemic and that
is already at the bottom of the
list nationally. Then there is tril-
lions in spending, freedoms taken
away/government takeover of our
lives without debate/discourse/
laws, businesses closed. “New
normal” looks like “old crazy” to
me.
Anyhow, keep it up; good
to read. Hopefully it helps edu-
cate and motivate oblivious peo-
ple to get off the sidelines and get
involved to push back on teachers’
unions and overwhelming liberal
Democrats monopolizing power
in Oregon, unresponsive to what
matters at the grassroots level as
our state and nation continue to
decline.
Nate Sandvig
Neskowin, Ore.
A better fish
passage option
for dams
This letter regards Idaho Con-
gressman Mike Simpson’s pro-
posal to remove four of the Snake
River dams. His proposal may
or may not save the salmon, and
would greatly negatively impact
the Northwest’s economy.
I have an idea, and am writing
with a solution which your readers
may wish to learn about.
Discussion and negotiations of
dam removal will take a decade.
The salmon don’t have that long
— their end-time is nearing. If
we want to get the salmon past
the dams in a hurry, the company
WHOOSHH Innovations Inc. has
a proven design, a “fish tube” that
efficiently and harmlessly trans-
ports salmon of all sizes over
the dams. I spoke with Steve
Dearden, vice president of sales at
WHOOSHH. He verified that:
1) WHOOSHH passage prod-
ucts can be both a short- or long-
term solution for salmon passage
at the 4 Snake River dams.
2) WHOOSHH fish passage
systems could be in place and
operating by the end of 2022.
3) Their technology not only
counts and images each fish, but
can be used to sort out non-native
fish species so that those fish spe-
cies do not get past the dam.
This is efficient and economi-
cal, and is a win-win solution for
the salmon and the dams:
1. Provide the salmon upstream
passage to their spawning grounds
without the delays and stress of
having to climb so many ladders.
2. Save billions of taxpayer
dollars in the removal of the dams,
loss of jobs, increased transpor-
tation costs of farm products and
damage to roads.
3. Save consumers billions in
electric rates over the course of
the next innumerable years.
4. Begin immediately (with-
out a 10 year delay) and track the
result.
WHOOSHH fish tubes are
being successfully used in North
America, Europe and Asia. Once
installed they are long-lived and
require little maintenance.
To see how the system works,
the company has three videos on
YouTube, or you can check out
their website: whoosh.com
The leadership and engineers
at WHOOSHH should be con-
sulted about how they can save
our salmon, our dams — and us
— billions of dollars.
Thank you very much.
Robin Wylie
Wylie Farms LLC
Nampa, Idaho
There are
no shades of
sustainability
In Carol Ryan Dumas’ article,
livestock pharmaceutical corpora-
tion Elanco’s Animal Health Chief
Sustainability Officer Sara Place
presents a creative interpretation
of the word “sustainable” where
industrial dairies can be zero car-
bon emission entities.
In her view, “shades of sus-
tainability” exist depending on
the size and resources of an agri-
cultural operation. But in the case
of industrial dairies, which pro-
duce massive amounts of manure
and climate warming methane
emissions, there are no shades of
sustainability.
Many industrial dairy narra-
tives greenwash fossil fuel infra-
structure and cloak biogas in the
language of renewable energy.
But digesters only capture a frac-
tion of methane emissions from
industrial-scale dairies, releasing
carbon dioxide and contaminants
like ammonia, nitrogen oxide and
other gases that induce smog and
cause sickness. Children are par-
ticularly susceptible to this pol-
lution as their lungs are still
developing.
Instead of relying on false solu-
tions that only bandage a wound
in need of serious triage, we need
to focus on practices that actually
prevent methane emissions and
provide healthier alternatives for
people and animals. Getting cows
off of factory farms and back into
pastures is a start. Managed graz-
ing restores cropland and avoids
the methane production that
results from factory farms’ anaer-
obic waste management, pre-
venting soil contamination and
drastically reducing greenhouse
emissions.
There are no shades of sustain-
ability. There are only practices
that will save our planet, protect
our people and safeguard our nat-
ural resources. Factory farms, like
mega-dairies, are not a sustainable
practice.
Tarah Heinzen
Legal Director,
Food & Water Watch
Portland, Ore.