10
CapitalPress.com
Friday, September 17, 2021
Initiative targets managing
forests against wildfi re risks
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Idaho Potato Commission
The Idaho Potato Commission will spend more on the Big Idaho Potato
Truck tour this year. Last year’s tour was cut short by COVID-19 con-
cerns.
Idaho Potato Commission
approves higher budget
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
The Idaho Potato Commission’s
board members have approved a
7.4% budget increase for the next
fi scal year, which ends next Aug. 31.
The new budget compares to a
year-earlier spending plan aff ected
by COVID-19. For example, coro-
navirus concerns and restrictions in
2020 prompted the commission to
quickly end the Big Idaho Potato
Truck national tour and to develop
programs to encourage retail sale of
foodservice potatoes. Foodservice
disruptions also caused growers to
plant fewer acres of potatoes, a key
budget driver.
President and CEO Frank Muir
said most of this year’s increased
spending involves getting the Big
Idaho Potato Truck back on the road
for its 10th anniversary tour. The
commission also will spend more
on foodservice programs and staff
travel.
“Our focus year after year is to
launch demand-building programs,”
he said.
The commission also is spending
$100,000 for a potato-storage phys-
iologist at the University of Idaho;
it has committed a total of $500,000
over fi ve years.
Muir said the new budget of about
$16.65 million — up from $15.5 mil-
lion a year ago — anticipates $14.8
million from the state potato tax and
$300,000 from other sources such as
grants, seed grower contributions,
and sales of merchandise and themed
license plates. Some $1.5 million is
from the reserve fund, which builds
if sales exceed forecasts.
The tax is 12.5 cents per hun-
dredweight, paid 60% by grow-
ers and 40% by a fi rst handler such
as a shipper or processor. Budgeted
tax collections refl ect planted acres,
a rolling fi ve-year average yield —
used to accommodate year-to-year
changes in weather and other grow-
ing conditions — and a reduction for
potatoes that are unusable.
Planted acres totaled 314,039
acres this year and 295,790 last year,
according to United Potato Growers
of Idaho in-person counts.
The state each year produces
about one-third of the nation’s pota-
toes, leading the country.
The Western Governors’
Association has begun a new ini-
tiative to tackle wildfi res by man-
aging for healthy forests.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little, WGA
chairman, said the West faces a
growing need for
additional capac-
ity, both intel-
lectual
capac-
ity and physical
infrastructure,
to responsibly
manage natural
Idaho Gov.
resources.
WGA’s Work- Brad Little
ing Lands/Work-
ing Communities initiative will
expand relationships between
western communities, federal
and state partners and local and
tribal governments to manage
land and resources, he said.
“The goal is to develop bipar-
tisan strategies to support local
communities seeking to improve
cross-boundary management of
lands, mitigate wildfi re risks and
restore ecosystems,” he said.
One challenge is to expand
market support for active man-
agement of western working
lands, he said.
“A good example is examin-
ing potential markets for the rela-
tively low-value timber and bio-
mass that needs to be removed to
reduce the threat of uncharacter-
istic wildfi re,” he said.
The initiative highlights one
of the most important lessons in
land management, said Sonya
Germann, Montana state forester.
“The best and most dura-
ble solutions are those that are
‘IF WE DON’T MANAGE THESE FOR-
ESTS, FIRE’S GOING TO MANAGE
THEM FOR US — AND WE DON’T
WANT THAT.’
Tom Schultz, director of resources and government aff airs
for Idaho Forest Group
locally driven — ones that galva-
nize and support local leadership,
encourage collaboration, pro-
mote local industries and work-
force capacity and provide mar-
kets for the goods we derive from
achieving our collective manage-
ment goals,” she said.
Lesli Allison, executive
director of Western Landown-
ers Alliance, said there are
many great examples across the
West of successful public-pri-
vate partnerships and locally led
conservation.
“We can build on these mod-
els, but scaling up will require
political will and investment,”
she said.
Tom Schultz, director of
resources and government aff airs
for Idaho Forest Group, said
Idaho has identifi ed more than 6
million acres threatened by wild-
fi res due to insects and disease,
and that number is more than 80
million acres nationwide.
“So through Shared Steward-
ship and Good Neighbor Author-
ity, we have the opportunity to
address some of these risks,” he
said.
“We know the threat is out
there, and active management is
one of the key tools that we have
to address and mitigate those
threats,” he said.
While there have been suc-
cesses, there are also plenty of
challenges.
“The will is there, the getting
it done is very, very diffi cult. We
simply don’t have the resources to
meet the scale of the need,” Ger-
mann said.
The processes and authori-
ties are helpful tools. But there
are still barriers to knitting those
things together and making them
work on a large landscape-style
basis, she said.
“So I think it’s going to take
resources, policy push … but I
think the will is there and the tim-
ing is right,” she said.
There’s been too much war
between working lands and the
environment, and there’s a need
to work together more coopera-
tively, Allison said.
“I think fi nding the political
will to come together on common
ground and fi nd those solutions
and deepen mutual understanding
and trust is imperative if we’re
going to be successful,” she said.
Shultz said there needs to be a
priority focus on treating forests
and the agreements that need to
be put in place to get it done.
“If we don’t manage these for-
ests, fi re’s going to manage them
for us — and we don’t want that,”
he said.
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