Friday, December 24, 2021
CapitalPress.com 5
WSU study: ‘Systemic oppression’ underlies food production
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A Washington State Uni-
versity study says “sys-
temic oppression” under-
lies food production and
that government should do
more to include minorities
in agricultural programs.
The report cites rac-
ism and white supremacy,
without going into specif-
ics. WSU Food Systems
Director Laura Lewis said
in an interview that the land
grant university itself was
the product of a “land grab”
and that historical wrongs
continue to be felt today.
“I don’t think we can
turn a blind eye to them if
we want to make progress,”
she said.
The state Department
of Agriculture funded the
$35,000 study to identify
barriers that minorities face
in the “food system,” which
means everything from
farming to eating.
The study was done
under the auspices of WSU
Food System Program, but
led by Mercy Kariuki-Mc-
Gee, the founder of the
Haki Farmers Collective in
Thurston County.
Washington
benefi ted
from white supremacy, the
report asserts, and acknowl-
edges slaves who labored
“for the sake of American
capitalism.”
Although it was not a
report
recommendation,
Kariui-McGee suggested in
an interview that Black and
brown farmers be allocated
land and given other gov-
ernment help.
“It is such a struggle to
own land,” she said. “Gov-
ernment owns a lot of land.”
The report has six rec-
ommendations for the agri-
culture department. The
recommendations generally
WSDA
Washington State Department of Agriculture Director
Derek Sandison talks to the media at a food warehouse
Aug. 7, 2020, in Fife, Wash. The department commis-
sioned reports on the pandemic.
call for the department to
fi nancially support and con-
sult minorities, though do
not off er any specifi c policy
proposals.
The agriculture depart-
ment should require its
“partners” to show “con-
sistent growth in apply-
ing racial and equity mea-
surements to narrow equity
gaps,” according to the
report.
“This must go beyond
simply attending training
without changing behav-
ior and systems,” the report
states.
WSU should increase
contacts
with
people
they’ve had limited contact
with in the past, Lewis said.
“Historically, the under-
served, they are typi-
cally not white,” she said.
“I think we have a chal-
lenge that we will face for
decades to come.”
Congressional acts in
1862 and 1890 granted
states land to sell to estab-
lish the colleges.
WSU, Oregon State Uni-
versity and the University
of Idaho are land grant uni-
versities. The Northwest
Indian School in Belling-
ham, Wash., is a land grant
community college.
Agriculture department
spokesman Hector Castro
said the agency asked for
the report and will review
it. “I don’t think it’s imper-
ative we agree with every
statement they make,” he
said.
The WSU report was
fi nalized along with a sep-
arate
$100,000
study
funded by the agriculture
department and done by
the University of Wash-
ington School of Public
Health.
The COVID-19 pan-
demic revealed that many
people live on the brink of
not having enough to eat,
according to the report.
Agriculture department
Director Derek Sandi-
son said he intended to use
the studies to “inform our
decision-making.”
“These studies make it
clear that, although many
people and organizations
have worked diligently
for years on hunger relief,
there is still work to be
done to bring resilience and
equity to all aspects of our
food systems,” he said in a
statement.
Links to the reports
are online at agr.wa.gov/
about-wsda/focus-on-food.
Judge refuses to declare Oregon state
forest logging ‘takes’ coho salmon
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Capital Press File
Cows feed at a dairy near Kuna, Idaho. A dairy analyst
says milk prices will increase this year.
Milk prices rising
on limited supply
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Global contraction in
milk production and strong
demand bode well for milk
prices, but feed prices and
other input costs will take a
bite out of profi ts in 2022.
From a global perspective,
the big takeaway is the U.S.
has a competitive advantage
in what it costs to produce
diff erent dairy products, said
Dustin Winston, commodity
fi nance analyst for StoneX
Financial.
“This is really benefi cial
because it means we could
potentially gain some mar-
ket share,” he said, during
the University of Idaho’s Ag
Outlook virtual seminar.
A big part of U.S. dairy
products’ signifi cant price
advantage in the global mar-
ket is due to a contracting
global milk supply, he said.
High feed costs that
haven’t backed down and
weather are keeping milk
production down in the Euro-
pean Union, where a signif-
icant pullback is expected
through the fi rst quarter of
2021, he said.
New Zealand and Aus-
tralia have started the sea-
son, which began in July,
very poorly in terms of milk
production. Production in
Argentina has been very
strong, but its exports have
been severely impacted due
primarily to logistics, he said.
Limited supplies bring on
a bidding war, and prices will
likely come up over the next
six months and stay strong
through June, he said.
“We’ll likely see import
volumes dip a little bit here,”
but demand is strong, he said.
In the U.S., input costs are
a big issue. For average farms
with 500 to 1,000 cows, the
increase in input costs is about
$3.30 per hundredweight of
milk, he said.
“Now a large factor of that
is feed, and we know that feed
costs have been extremely
high,” he said
But labor and other costs
are also having a signifi cant
impact on the balance sheet
for producers, he said.
“Lately, we’ve been saying
$18 milk isn’t what it used to
be,” he said.
The cost of milk produc-
tion is rising and will likely
rise again next year, he said.
“The higher price of milk
that’s being sold might not
be as favorable as fi ve or 10
years ago, but it’s defi nitely
going to help alleviate some
of that margin pressure,” he
said.
It’s not the greatest out-
look, but there are a lot of
bullish factors, especially if
input costs get a little cheaper.
Gross margin over feed cost is
looking fairly favorable, basis
has been strong and, hope-
fully, feed costs will continue
to be aff ordable, he said.
The U.S. dairy herd has
been contracting since its peak
in May, and he thinks that will
continue for some time. Cull
cattle prices are a lot higher
than the historical average, so
there’s value in culling, con-
sidering feed costs for a cow
that might not be producing a
high yield, he said.
U.S. cow numbers will
probably be down 0.5% to
1.1% year over year midway
through 2022, he said.
“I don’t see any way to
take this other than bullish,”
he said.
Idaho’s farmgate milk price
has been rising, and StoneX is
forecasting between $19 and
$21 per hundredweight in the
coming months.
“We don’t expect any rea-
son why prices, especially for
the fi rst half of 2022, shouldn’t
stay near these levels at least.
They should be pretty strong,
and I think we’re pretty solid
in that expectation,” he said.
PORTLAND — A fed-
eral judge has refused to
declare that logging activ-
ities in Oregon’s Clat-
sop and Tillamook state
forests have unlawfully
harmed threatened coho
salmon.
Though U.S. District
Judge Michael Mosman
has rejected a motion by
environmental groups to
declare that timber sales
in those state forests vio-
late the Endangered Spe-
cies Act, his ruling doesn’t
put an end to the litigation.
The Center for Bio-
logical Diversity, Cas-
cadia Wildlands and the
Native Fish Society have a
“strong case” they’ll suc-
ceed on the merits, but at
this point, their evidence
of illegal “take” isn’t
beyond dispute, Mosman
said.
The plaintiff s must
prove that logging road
construction
caused
landslides that harmed
streams enough to kill or
injure coho salmon, he
said.
“You just can’t get
there from here without
something more,” Mos-
man said at the conclu-
sion of oral arguments in
Portland on Dec. 16.
However, the judge
has agreed to revisit
the issue after hearing
expert testimony next
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year from the environmen-
tal nonprofi ts and the State
of Oregon, as well as Til-
lamook County and the
Oregon Forest and Indus-
tries Council, which have
intervened in the lawsuit.
Amy Atwood, attor-
ney for the environmen-
tal nonprofi ts, argued that
fi ndings from the National
Marine Fisheries Service,
numerous studies and doc-
umentary evidence all
prove that landslides from
logging roads adversely
affect coho salmon.
“It’s apparent from our
photography that sedi-
ment was delivered,”
Atwood said. “Our con-
tention is that fine sedi-
ment is always harmful.”
If the environmental
nonprofits convince the
judge that ODF’s manage-
ment resulted in unlawful
take, it could have impli-
cations beyond state for-
estland. Similar logging
activities on private for-
estland could then also be
vulnerable to lawsuits.
Attorneys for the defen-
dants and intervenors
countered that the envi-
ronmental plaintiffs have
not established a suffi-
cient causal link between
the Oregon Department
of Forestry’s logging
authorizations and the
alleged “take” of coho
salmon.
“They just haven’t
done the who, what,
where, when and how,”
said Jay Waldron, Tilla-
mook County’s attorney.
“Landslides occur in Til-
lamook County every day.
It doesn’t automatically
result in take or habitat
modification.”
The fact that sediment
has entered streams alone
isn’t enough to prove that
coho salmon were killed
or injured in violation
of the ESA, said Deanna
Chang, attorney for the
state government.
“They have not estab-
lished
that
landslide
occurred due to any activ-
ities of ODF,” she said.
“Not all steep slopes are
prone to landslides. Not
all areas to be harvested
are on steep slopes.”
Chang said the court
briefs filed by the plain-
tiffs are not sufficient
for the judge to rule that
ODF violated the law. To
make such a conclusion,
he must consider expert
testimony from both sides,
she said.
“It’s not just the intro-
duction of sediment to a
stream,” Chang said. “It
has to have an adverse
impact on listed species.”
Thank you for reading
The Capital Press
This month we end another year of uncertainty. The pandemic still looms large and
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economy means precarious days are ahead. The political divides — East and West,
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Nonetheless, the decorations are up, the trees are lit
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