Friday, January 21, 2022
CapitalPress.com 9
Local: ‘A food hub is a response to a community need’
from other local farmers and
getting more produce to low-
er-income consumers.
Continued from Page 1
supply chain from farm to
table, especially that intra-
state supply chain,” he said.
A goal is to “bring together
those farm, food and bever-
age providers with the mar-
kets that are most likely to
sustain them.”
Katie Baker, FARE Idaho
executive director, said help-
ing members understand and
access COVID-19 relief pro-
grams was a focus in 2021.
This year’s emphasis is to
“connect producers with
retailers to create a more resil-
ient food system.”
“My hope is to really build
a community around this orga-
nization so we can together
create positive change for the
industry,” she said.
For Krick, buying local
food was an early interest.
He opened the first of his
three downtown Boise restau-
rants, Bittercreek Alehouse,
in 1996. The established con-
cept, prime location and good
staff aid viability “and allow us
to take some risks and do fun,
creative projects,” he said.
“I had some friends who
were local farmers that sold
at a local farmers market I
helped set up” downtown,
Krick said. “I got introduced
to more local farmers. I real-
ized we could be part of the
solution as a restaurant sim-
ply by buying from them.
It’s been a long journey. The
movement has grown.”
The state does not have a
large food hub. The last was
Idaho’s Bounty. Hailey-area
farmers and consumers in
2007 founded the coopera-
tive, which ultimately grew to
include about 90 producers.
It opened a Boise-area ware-
house as part of an aggressive
2016 expansion plan. The
expanded hub did not sustain
viability and ultimately had to
downsize before closing its
doors in 2018.
Baker, who worked as an
Idaho’s Bounty volunteer and
staff member for eight years,
said challenges included dis-
tribution management and
expenses in an inherently
low-margin business. Staff
and board leaders struggled
with the strategic plan and
operating model.
She said FARE Idaho
“realized that distribution,
marketing and sales were still
Fair return
Brad Carlson/Capital Press
Puget Sound Food Hub Co-op
Rabiou Manzo, Global Gardens program manager, with
yield from central Boise’s Treasured Mushrooms, one of
Global’s 14 farms. “People have seen how important it is
to have local produce” in the era of COVID-19, he said.
Puget Sound Food Hub Cooperative General Manager
Andrew Yokom. The co-op, which plans to scale up its
operations, is “telling people about our work and our
mission,” Yokom said.
problematic for producers.
So one of the organizational
goals is to connect producers
with retailers.”
FARE itself is not a hub.
Krick said the state has some
successful small hubs, such
as Global Gardens in Boise,
“but on the macro level we
have not been successful. It
takes some regional density to
make that work.”
FARE Idaho board president Dave Krick with executive
director Katie Baker at Krick’s restaurants in downtown
Boise. “I got introduced to more local farmers. I realized
we could be part of the solution as a restaurant simply
by buying from them,” Krick said.
ation can range from land-use
patterns and economic devel-
opment to scaling up distri-
bution so small farmers can
access larger-scale buyers.
One key to success is,
“Are you delivering on your
programs?” DeLuna said. “If
you are about food access,
then your key to success is,
are you expanding access to
quality food, are you serving
your constituency?”
All food hubs are not cre-
ated equal, she said.
“Constituencies are dif-
ferent for each food hub,”
DeLuna said. “They are born
for different reasons and
driven by different commu-
nity needs.”
he said.
At Puget Sound Food Hub
Cooperative in Mount Ver-
non, Wash., general manager
Andrew Yokom said they plan
to scale up this year. The orga-
nization also plans to fine-tune
production plans for specific
crops so the grower at plant-
ing has a better idea where the
crop is going, in what quantity
and at what price.
The hub will also empha-
size “working hard and get-
ting out there, telling people
about our work and our mis-
sion,” he said.
The Ecotrust nonprofit
opened The Redd on Salmon
Street, a Portland food hub,
three years ago.
“It’s beneficial to have
food hubs everywhere,” said
Emma Sharer, Ecotrust oper-
ations director.
But, she said, analysis is
crucial.
“The food hub we built at
The Redd is perfect for last-
Global Gardens, based in
central Boise, is a program of
the Idaho Office for Refugees
and the nonprofit health and
human services organization
Jannus Inc. Its food hub con-
nects 14 immigrant and refu-
gee farmers with buyers.
To do that, it distributes
produce to local restaurants,
grocery stores and institu-
tions, and via drive-thru sales
at a farmers market.
A separate communi-
ty-supported agriculture sub-
scription program has eight
pickup sites.
Program manager Rabiou
Manzo said Global Gardens’
volume grew partly because,
since COVID-19 arrived,
“people have seen how import-
ant it is to have local produce.”
Global Gardens has chal-
lenges — including land avail-
ability — and opportunities
such as growing more types of
vegetables, aggregating food
Food hubs
John Klimes, a FARE
Idaho board member who
owns Agrarian Harvest in
Buhl, said a small food hub is
succeeding in Bellevue, south
of the Sun Valley area. For the
much larger Idaho’s Bounty,
“a big challenge was space and
distance. … When you start
putting two hours of drive time
in a refrigerated truck on the
road, that distance starts cost-
ing a lot of money.”
Managers of sizable food
hubs in the Spokane and
northern Puget Sound areas
in Washington state and in
Portland continue see many
opportunities and have over-
come challenges.
At the Local Inland North-
west Cooperative, known
as LINC Foods, in Spokane
Valley, partnerships direc-
tor Brian Estes said reve-
nues grew more than five-
fold between 2017 and 2021,
helped by its members and
staff and a successful barley
malting enterprise.
“Having the right people,
both growers and the staff
of the co-op, going in the
right direction with the right
resources, that’s what it takes
to seize opportunities effi-
ciently enough to be viable,”
Brad Carlson/Capital Press
mile logistics — bringing in
food from rural producers,
aggregating food from small-
scale urban producers and
distributing it out in a tight
radius,” Sharer said. “But if
we look at another location in,
say, The Dalles, the opportu-
nities look so different.”
Response to a need
USDA defines a food hub
as actively managing aggre-
gation and distribution, and
marketing source-identified
food products, mainly from
local and regional producers.
The idea is to boost the
hub’s capability to meet local
wholesale, retail and institu-
tional demand.
“A food hub is a response to
a community need,” said Syd-
ney DeLuna, who coordinates
the Oregon Food Hub Net-
work and is a community food
systems consultant on contract
with Oregon State University.
Needs driving a hub’s cre-
Helping refugees
At LINC Foods in Spo-
kane Valley, Carl Segerstrom,
the procurement director,
said an inherent challenge is
that local food often is more
expensive than food from
elsewhere.
“But at the same time, we
are very focused on giving a
fair return to farmers,” he said.
LINC’s Estes said a found-
ing premise more than seven
years ago was to help grow-
ers increase sales, not simply
to act as an intermediary. The
team “has been able to work
with growers to really seize
that opportunity and make
sure we are truly creating new
value for our producers by
opening up those marketing
opportunities.”
At The Redd in Port-
land, navigating COVID-19
remains a challenge.
“Our operations and facil-
ities teams hold all these
parts together, supporting
our anchor tenants in their
businesses, filling vacancies
through equitable leasing pro-
cesses and bringing in and
supporting businesses that are
serving our local food com-
munity,” Sharer said.
With FARE Idaho, Baker
said, businesses across the
state “had an opportunity
to come together and share
ideas, issues, concerns and to
help each other through the
process of operating in the
pandemic.”
Farmers markets
As for selling and deliver-
ing local food in bigger quan-
tities, Krick, the restaurateur,
said farmers markets could
expand on the order-ahead
model, which has found suc-
cess during the pandemic.
He said equipping a farm-
ers market with cold stor-
age, a small processing or
packaging area and a ship-
ping-and-receiving
setup
would be more viable than
developing a food hub, and
could bring new opportunities
for the market and participat-
ing producers.
“Local food is going to be
more nutritious and sustain-
able, including when we have
supply-chain hiccups,” Krick
said of the idea.
Violations: Property owners, land use experts at odds over liability for cannabis fines
Continued from Page 1
“Sometimes landowners know
exactly what they were doing and
then try to put all the blame on the
growers. Other times, it’s clear the
landowners are clueless,” said Roger
Pearce, land use attorney and Jack-
son County hearings officer.
Whether landowners knew they
were leasing to an illegal operation
or not, Pearce and Sickler say they
may be liable for violations under
state and county law.
In the Wetzel case, according to
Jackson County public records, on
June 10, 2021, Oregon State Police
raided the Wetzels’ home after
obtaining a search warrant.
Officers entered the house with
guns drawn, searched for evidence
and seized property. The Wetzels say
they were frightened while hand-
cuffed for about four hours.
“They searched this place from
top to bottom,” said Gloria Wetzel,
her eyes watering.
During the raid, the tenant and his
workers fled the approximately two-
acre grow site leased from the Wet-
zels far from the couple’s residence.
Using equipment designed to
detect THC levels, Oregon State
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Jerry and Gloria Wetzel, longtime cattle ranchers, drive to a piece of
acreage they own that they leased out last year, about a 10-minute
utility vehicle drive from their house.
Police determined the operation was
growing marijuana.
Mark Taylor, founding board
member of the Southern Oregon
Hemp Co-Op, said he knows the
Wetzels to be “honorable people”
and said he feels it was inappropriate
for officers to raid the home of the
landowners rather than targeting the
tenant’s grow site.
Taylor said he is also upset that
the couple is being fined for viola-
tions committed by the lessee.
“The whole case smells of gov-
ernment overreach,” he said.
Jerry Wetzel said that when he
and Gloria started leasing acre-
age to someone they thought was
a hemp grower in 2020, they knew
hemp was legal in Oregon but did
not know operations required per-
mitting. Thus, they didn’t ask to see
permits.
The illegal grower, at his own
expense, constructed 54 green-
houses and installed electricity, also
without permits. The lessee, Jerry
Wetzel said, told him the structures
were temporary.
“We weren’t told to ask for a
license to prove it’s legal hemp or
legal greenhouse(s),” he said.
When the growers fled, the Wet-
zels were stuck with the fine.
The Wetzels say they believe
laws that punish landowners regard-
less of intent for the actions of their
lessees are unjust.
Annick Goldsmith, the hemp
co-op’s small farms adviser, said she
believes the county shouldn’t “cast
such a wide net that (it) victimize(s)
people like Jerry and Gloria.”
Land use experts, however, say
liability laws placing the burden on
the property owner are standard.
“It’s pretty straightforward. In
most cases, ultimately the person
who owns land is responsible for
compliance with all laws that deal
with the use of that land,” said Jim
Johnson, land use and water plan-
ning coordinator for the Oregon
Department of Agriculture.
Pearce, the attorney, said land-
owners may be held liable for state
and county violations, potentially
for pollution, illegal water uses, con-
struction of unpermitted structures
and failure to register farm labor
camps.
Sickler, the sheriff, said land-
owners should verify an operation
is legitimate “to prevent a criminal
organization from setting up shop in
our county.”
The Wetzels, who received
$150,000 in rent between March
2020 and April 2021, say they
thought they had taken sufficient
precautions because they were not
business partners of the tenant and
had worked with an attorney to cre-
ate an agreement in 2020 to protect
the farm’s interests.
Now, the Wetzels say they wish
they had also known to ask for per-
mits. They, along with Taylor of the
co-op, advise landowners to check
permits, conduct a background
check, ask for an up-front secu-
rity deposit and engage a seasoned
real estate attorney before leasing to
hemp growers.
WOTUS: EPA committee offers recommendations on defining navigable waters
Continued from Page 1
jurisdiction under the Clean Water
Act by using the term “navigable.”
Any definition of WOTUS
should be limited to traditional
navigable waters and territorial
seas. Jurisdiction over non-naviga-
ble tributaries should be limited to
those tributaries containing clearly
discernible physical features, as
well as consistent flow into tra-
ditionally navigable waters. Any
consideration for adjacency must
be limited wetlands that directly
abut WOTUS.
• Define WOTUS using clear
terms that are easy to interpret and
apply. The most important aspect
of any definition of WOTUS is it
must be easily interpreted by farm-
ers, ranchers and leaders of rural
communities and interpreted with
clear lines of jurisdiction. It is nec-
essary that a new WOTUS rule
avoid vague terminology that both
landowners and regulators cannot
apply without engaging in burden-
some analyses.
Accurate and current online
interactive tools should be con-
sidered for the purpose of map-
ping jurisdictional waters to pro-
vide an informal guide to farmers,
ranchers and leaders of rural com-
munities. Agency determinations,
however, must be made in the field
to ensure a holistic approach in
arriving at an accurate determina-
tion and provide for adequate due
process.
• Define jurisdictional features
with an eye toward allowing farm-
ers, ranchers and rural commu-
nities the necessary flexibility to
implement innovative environ-
mentally beneficial projects that do
not adversely impact the function
or water quality of WOTUS.
• Retain exclusions that are
critical to farmers, ranchers and
rural communities and recog-
nized regional differences. The
most important exclusions are pri-
or-converted cropland; ground-
water; farm ditches, road ditches,
canals, ponds, playas, stock ponds,
prairie potholes and other isolated
features.
In addition, storm water deten-
tion, tail water recovery or other
environmentally beneficial prac-
tices should not be considered
WOTUS. Wastewater, reclaimed
water or recycle water systems
should not be considered WOTUS.
The committee also recom-
mends the agencies reconsider
the round-table process and retain
previous public input processes
to include all stakeholders. It also
emphasized the importance of
ensuring USDA is in lock step with
the regulatory process surrounding
WOTUS.