4 CapitalPress.com Friday, January 7, 2022 New cover crop research could shape California groundwater policies By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press The U.S. has prevailed in its dispute with Canada over access to Canadian markets for U.S. dairy products. A dispute resolution panel convened under the United States-Mexico-Can- ada Agreement found Can- ada’s use of tariff rate quo- tas (TRQ) to unfairly restrict U.S. dairy products is incon- sistent with its USMCA obligations. The panel agreed with the U.S. that Canada is breach- ing its commitments by reserving the vast major- ity of TRQs exclusively for processors, who have lit- tle incentive to import U.S. dairy products. A tariff rate quota applies a preferential rate to a pre- determined quantity of imports. Any imports above that quantity are subject to signifi cantly higher tariff s. With the bulk of TRQ access reserved for proces- sors, only a small amount is left for distributors — and retailers have no access to TRQs, Shawna Morris, vice president for trade with the U.S. Dairy Export Council and National Milk Produc- ers Federation said in an ear- lier interview with Capital Press. “It’s these latter two groups that we think have Hay expo to help farmers weather shipping problems he said. “Even when you said, ‘Hey, here’s the price,’ (customers) were like, ‘Oh, well, that’s what we’ve got to pay, that’s the market, here you go.’” Eddie expects the indus- try to be watching for new regulations and overtime rules in 2022. “Stick with what you know, weather the storm and we’ll all try to make it through until things hope- fully kind of subside, get back to where they were,” he said. “Crop prices are going to be a little higher ... while input costs are higher, everything else is cost- ing more. We’ll weather through it and see what happens.” LEGAL PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87 Notice is hereby given that the following vehicle will be sold, for cash to the highest bidder, on 01/12/2022. The sale will be held at 10:00am by LIGHT TRUCK PARTS OF SALEM INC 2510 TURNER RD SALEM, OR 2000 INTL 450 TK VIN = 1HTSCAAN7YH300022 Amount due on lien $97.00 Reputed owner(s) DS SERVICES OF AMERICA INC LEGAL PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87 Notice is hereby given that the following vehicle will be sold, for cash to the highest bidder, on 01/10/2022. The sale will be held at 10:00am by COPART OF WASHINGTON INC 2885 NATIONAL WAY WOODBURN, OR 2014 GMC ACADIA 4W VIN = 1GKKVTKD7EJ343633 Amount due on lien $1515.00 Reputed owner(s) ALEXANDER T CHOGLO LEGAL PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87 Notice is hereby given that the following vehicle will be sold, for cash to the highest bidder, on 01/10/2022. 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The sale will be held at 10:00am by COPART OF WASHINGTON INC 2885 NATIONAL WAY WOODBURN, OR 2016 KIA SEDONA VA VIN = KNDMB5C15G6102365 Amount due on lien $1415.00 Reputed owner(s) ELLEN & ARNOLD GARCIA S269623-1 S276280-1 LEGAL PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87 Notice is hereby given that the following vehicle will be sold, for cash to the highest bidder, on 01/10/2022. The sale will be held at 10:00am by COPART OF WASHINGTON INC 2885 NATIONAL WAY WOODBURN, OR 2021 KYRV COLEMAN TT VIN = 4YDT18022MM930472 Amount due on lien $1455.00 Reputed owner(s) ALINA & VITALIY RYZHKOV M & T BANK S276278-1 ting, if you can manage to do that.” Growers should still be doing as much as they can business-wise while still breaking even, Eddie said. Eddie said he’s optimis- tic about the outlook for hay demand. Domestically, the need is solid. Exports are slow but many exporters are still purchasing crop, he said. “You just have to make sure that with an increased cost, you’re getting what you need out of it,” he said. “You’ve got to run your business like a business,” he said. “Pay attention to what goes in and pay attention to what comes out.” Hay prices are about $200 to $250 a ton for big bales of alfalfa, and small bales were $200 to $280 a ton, Eddie estimated. “Demand was very high,” S276283-1 Like their counterparts in many other ag sectors, hay farmers have been grappling with shipping problems in the past year. “Hay is a hard thing to get shipped out, especially when it’s cheaper and eas- ier for (railroad) lines to ship back empty containers rather than fi ll them full of hay,” said Andrew Eddie, a farmer in Moses Lake, Wash., and president of the Washing- ton State Hay Growers Association. Eddie also pointed to the “substantial” increase in the cost of shipping hay. Those and other hot top- ics will take center stage at the upcoming Northwest Hay Expo, Eddie said. The expo is Jan. 19-20 at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick, Wash. Fertilizer prices and chemical availability are other topics Eddie expects farmers to be thinking about. “We’re not sure when we’re going to get product, if we’re going to get product or how much we’re going to have,” he said. “That’s kind of a big thing for most grow- ers and supply companies.” If chemicals are deliv- ered late, farmers will have already needed to spray, Eddie said. “It’s a little uncertain right now.” Farmers are working to get their supplies early. “The problem is it’s tough to locate, it’s tough to get stuff and then suppliers don’t really have the means to get it here any earlier,” Eddie said. “So it’s kind of just a sit-and-wait game and maybe push off a spray or fertilizer until after fi rst cut- S276286-1 By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press the strongest incentives to actually purchase U.S. dairy products,” she said. The U.S. and Canada negotiated specifi c mar- ket access terms covering a wide variety of dairy prod- ucts, said Jim Mulhern, pres- ident and CEO of National Milk Producers Federation. “But instead of play- ing by those mutually agreed upon rules, Canada ignored its commitments. As a result, U.S. dairy farm- ers and exporters have been unable to make full use of USMCA’s benefi ts,” he said. The offi ce of the U.S. Trade Representative brought the case in May after trying to resolve the matter through consultations with Canadian offi cials. “We expect Canada to abide by its commitments so that the American dairy industry can fully access the Canadian markets just as USMCA promised,” said Krysta Harding, presi- dent and CEO of U.S. Dairy Export Council. The dairy access case is the fi rst dispute panel pro- ceeding brought under USMCA. USDEC and NMPF cer- tainly hope and expect that Canada will comply, Morris told Capital Press. “Flouting the fi rst ruling of USMCA would set a ter- rible precedent for the integ- rity of the dispute settle- ment tool and, certainly, that should be a priority for Can- ada as well,” she said. That said, USMCA pro- vides a process for leveling compensation measures — retaliatory tariff s — if Can- ada does not comply, she said. “The level of compen- sation would get decided by the panel that heard the case,” she said. S276284-1 sensing images cover crops may appear as water-using vegetation for which growers can be penalized. “Because winter cover crops may appear on remote sensing images as water-using vegetation, the sole use of model-driven data coming from sat- ellites could become a disincentive to the practice (of cover cropping) being used,” said Jeff Mitchell, plant sci- ences professor at the University of California-Davis. Panel rules against Canada in U.S. dairy dispute S276277-1 University of California ANR This almond orchard near Durham in Butte County, Calif., shown in 2017, was one of 10 sites studied to determine soil water content in cover cropped versus non-cover cropped almond orchards and to- mato fi elds from 2016 to 2019. Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press File A dispute resolution panel has sided with the U.S. against Canada’s eff orts to restrict access to its dairy markets. Under the USMCA trade treaty, Canada is re- quired to provide more access for U.S. dairy products. S276281-1 SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, Calif. — New cover crop research released this December may help shape ground- water policies under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, in several San Joaquin Valley counties. SGMA, passed in 2014, is a legisla- tive package related to how groundwater is managed in California. It aff ects many aspects of farmers’ practices, including how they pump groundwater. SGMA requires local agencies to form groundwater sustainability agen- cies, or GSAs, to monitor high- and medium-priority basins. The GSAs then develop groundwater sustainabil- ity plans and regulations for their local regions based on information collected through monitoring. The problem is that the type of mon- itoring agencies use — typically remote sensing with devices like drones — mis-categorizes cover crop systems. Winter cover crops, researchers say, generally require no irrigation and pro- vide long-term benefi ts, but on remote The new research from Mitchell and his team shows that winter cover crop- ping is benefi cial, is not a substantial water user and should be measured dif- ferently by GSAs. The research was conducted from 2016 through 2019 by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources researchers and collaborators. They worked on 10 large sites in Central Valley almond orchards and tomato fi elds. The researchers collected data to quantify changes in soil water stor- age and evapotranspiration, compar- ing cover-cropped areas to bare fallow areas. The work focused on winter cover crops, grown November to March. According to Samuel Sandoval-So- lis, one of the researchers, winter cover crops are generally not substantial water users. In a recent presentation to water reg- ulators, growers and other stakeholders, Alyssa DeVincentis, a former UC-Davis Ph.D. student who worked on the proj- ect, said it can take years before growers start to accrue noticeable benefi ts from cover cropping, but she said the practice is worthwhile because “long-term ben- efi ts of cover crops can be signifi cant.” S276285-1 By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN Capital Press S276340-1