Friday, August 27, 2021
CapitalPress.com 3
Worker shortage derails USDA’s hazelnut forecast
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A shortage of workers has
derailed the USDA’s annual
hazelnut forecast this year,
leaving the industry with-
out a source of crop data that
informs market strategies.
Usually, the agency’s
National Agricultural Statis-
tics Service recruits at least
16 employees to head out to
Oregon hazelnut orchards and
collect samples for a state-
wide production forecast
that’s released in late August.
Those numbers won’t
be available in 2021, since
USDA wasn’t able to recruit
even half that number of
workers despite raising their
hourly wage from about $14
to $17, said Dave Losh, the
agency’s state statistician.
“We just couldn’t get the
people this year,” he said.
“This is the fi rst time we’ve
had this kind of problem.”
Some people who’ve con-
ducted the surveys in the
past had already taken other
jobs while others had moved
away from the area due to
reduced work opportunities
during coronavirus restric-
tions, Losh said.
Though it’s possible that
extended unemployment ben-
efi ts dissuaded people from
returning to work, the USDA
was still able to recruit enough
workers last year when such
fi nancial assistance was also
available, he said.
The agency has identi-
fi ed potential recruits who
expressed interest in fi lling the
positions next year, Losh said.
“We’re defi nitely going to start
earlier.”
The Oregon Hazelnut Mar-
keting Board pays NASS
to perform the forecast as
an “objective yield survey”
while processors also do sub-
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File
Devon Johnson, a USDA employee hired to conduct a
hazelnut survey, collects hazelnuts in this fi le photo.
Due to the labor shortage, the agency’s National Agri-
cultural Statistics Service won’t be issuing a hazelnut
forecast this year.
jective surveys based on the
“gut” feelings of growers, said
Larry George, president of the
George Packing Co.
“There’s a lot of data points
we use,” he said. The lack of
a survey “doesn’t completely
turn us blind but it is the most
public and important data
point we use.”
Oregon hazelnuts typi-
cally command a premium of
15-20% over global prices,
which the industry tries to
maintain by pacing shipments
to buyers through the market-
ing year, George said.
The goal is to avoid sur-
pluses that would depress
prices as well as shortages that
would leave demand unful-
fi lled, he said. “We need to
have a really good idea when
we start selling how much vol-
ume we have.”
Without the USDA’s objec-
tive survey forecast, the indus-
try is anticipating a harvest of
65,000-70,000 tons, up from
last year’s crop of roughly
61,000 tons, George said.
Orchards seemed to have
recovered well from recent
heat waves and an ice storm
earlier in the year, he said.
“We’re cautiously optimistic.”
Last year, the USDA’s sur-
vey overshot actual produc-
tion by forecasting a 71,000-
ton crop, while subjective
surveys were closer to the
mark, said Terry Ross, exec-
utive director of the Hazelnut
Growers Bargaining Associa-
tion, which negotiates prices
with processors.
Ross said he doesn’t blame
the USDA because farm-
ers have planted a lot of new
trees but the growth hasn’t
been consistent from year to
year, making statistical sur-
veys diffi cult.
“The industry’s gone
through fi ts and starts try-
ing to get the acres in the
ground,” he said. “NASS has
a hard job. This is not an issue
with NASS.”
The full impact of not hav-
ing USDA’s forecast available
may not become clear until
later, though it’s not expected
to have an impact on prices,
Ross said. “We’ll have to see
if we miss it.”
WSDA fi nds Asian giant hornet nest
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Cattle at the Easterday feedlot near Pasco, Wash.
Tyson expected Easterday
to sign over feedlot operation
Tyson Fresh Meats pro-
vided details Friday to back
claims that Cody Easter-
day piled on another layer
of deceit by selling his cat-
tle feedlot for $16 million to
competitor Agri Beef after
defrauding Tyson.
Easterday told Tyson last
December he could sign
over the North Lot cattle
operation in Pasco, Wash.,
to begin making amends for
billing Tyson for cattle he
never delivered, according
to documents fi led in the
U.S. Bankruptcy Court for
Eastern Washington.
Tyson said it was blind-
sided a month later by East-
erday selling the lot to Agri
Beef, which also has a pro-
cessing plant nearby. Tyson
said it never had a chance to
top Agri Beef’s off er.
A lawyer for bankrupt
Easterday Ranches told a
judge Aug. 18 that Tyson
off ered only $10 million.
Tyson calls the claim “a
ruse.”
“Tyson never off ered to
purchase the North Lot for
$10
mil-
lion,”
the
company
states.
C o d y
Easterday
is due to be
Shane
sentenced
Miller
for
fraud
Oct. 5 and
has agreed to repay Tyson
$233 million and another
company an additional $11
million.
Tyson is asking a bank-
ruptcy Judge Whitman Holt
in Yakima to give it stand-
ing to challenge the sale to
Agri Beef, which closed a
week before Easterday fi led
for bankruptcy on the fami-
ly’s remaining farms.
Tyson calls the $16 mil-
lion paid by Agri Beef
“woefully inadequate” and
a fraud on creditors.
Pachulski Stang Ziehl &
Jones, the Los Angeles law
fi rm heading up the bank-
ruptcy, defends the sale to
Agri Beef.
A fi rm lawyer, Alan
Kornfeld, told Holt that
Tyson submitted a “soft”
$10 million off er last year.
Tyson fi red back in the
new court fi lings. Tyson
actually expected Easter-
day to sign over the feed-
lot once the fraud was
uncovered.
“During our meeting
last week you told us you
could transfer the North Lot
and the ER cattle brands
as a fi rst step to reimburs-
ing Tyson,” Shane Miller,
Tyson’s group president of
fresh meats, said in a Dec.
12 email to Easterday.
Miller told Easterday
the company was using $10
million as a “place holder”
in the transfer agreement
to indicate the value of the
land for tax purposes. Later
in the month, the value
was revised downward to
$2.9 million based on an
appraisal.
By cutting out Tyson,
Easterday Ranches “was
free to dissipate well over
80% of the sale proceeds to
insiders, affi liates and pro-
fessionals,” according to
Tyson.
Some $11.7 million went
to Easterday Farms and
the English Hay Co., both
owned by Easterday family
members.
Karla Salp/WSDA
Asian giant hornets emerge from the nest that was
found Aug. 19 near Blaine, Wash.
giant hornet nest destroyed
in the U.S.
Live Asian giant hornets
have been seen in What-
com County and across the
border in British Columbia,
but nowhere else in North
America.
The department focused
its eff orts east of Blaine in
the past week after a res-
ident submitted a photo
of an Asian giant hornet
attacking a paper wasp
nest.
The department net-
ted, tagged with electronic
devices and released two
hornets Aug. 11. Those hor-
nets eluded their followers.
A third hornet netted Aug.
17 helped entomologists
focus their search Aug. 19.
Department staff , joined
by staff from the Oregon
Department of Agriculture
and USDA’s Animal and
Plant Health Inspection
Service, started searching
for the nest at 7:30 a.m.
Thursday and spotted it at
9:15 a.m.
There may be more
nests, according to the
department, which asks
the public to report suspect
sightings at agr.wa.gov/
hornets.
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S253065-1
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
An Asian giant hornet
nest was found Aug. 19 in
Whatcom County, Wash.,
about a quarter mile from
where a hornet was sighted
earlier this month, accord-
ing to the Washington State
Department of Agriculture.
Department entomolo-
gists will develop a plan to
eradicate the nest, which is
in a rural area east of Blaine
near the Canadian bor-
der. The eradication likely
will be within a week, the
department said.
The nest is at the base
of a tree on private prop-
erty, and entomologists will
investigate whether the hor-
nets are nesting in the tree or
ground, department spokes-
woman Karla Salp said.
At this time of the year,
no new queens should be
emerging, she said. The nest
“should not be in a repro-
ductive state,” she said.
The department was
more pressed to quickly
eradicate the nest it found
last October. At that time of
year, queens were emerg-
ing. It was the fi rst Asian
S222032-1