Friday, February 4, 2022
CapitalPress.com 5
Immigration woes taking
toll on U.S. economy
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
A labor shortage is caus-
ing hardships across the
U.S. farm economy, and the
administration and Congress
need to pass comprehensive
immigration reform to help
alleviate the problem, panel-
ists said during a virtual press
conference.
“This issue of immigration
is important right now, espe-
cially with the labor shortages
that we have that are causing,
of course, shortages in prod-
ucts and services … espe-
cially now with the highest
level of inflation in 40 years,”
said Daniel Garza, president
of the LIBRE Initiative.
The major driver is 10 mil-
lion unfilled jobs, including
acute shortage of workers in
the dairy sector.
“So even though we have
low unemployment numbers,
it doesn’t tell the full story,”
he said.
The U.S. lost 2 million
new immigrant workers in
2020 alone due to pandemic
slowdowns, and immigrants
with work visas have been
losing their jobs due to mas-
sive backlogs in the federal
government’s renewal sys-
tem, he said.
“It’s caused these mas-
sive ripple effects across our
economy, and it is impacting
the everyday lives of Ameri-
cans,” he said.
The panelists spoke about
the labor shortages in health-
care, construction, hospitality,
high-tech industries, transpor-
tation and agriculture and the
critical roles immigrants play
in those sectors.
The Jan. 26 event was
organized by the National
Immigration Forum and
the
LIBRE
Initiative,
which promotes free enter-
prise and opportunity for
members of the Hispanic
community.
On the farming front, Rick
Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho
Dairymen’s Association, said
90% of dairy farm workers in
Idaho are foreign-born.
“Because the dairy indus-
try is a year-round employer,
we don’t have access to the
H-2A program or any other
visa programs. … That
speaks a lot to what the legal
status is going to be of our
average dairy farm worker,”
he said.
In 2012 — the last time
Idaho dairy producers would
have said their dairies were
fully staffed — there were
more than 8,000 employ-
ees. Today, there are less than
5,000.
In addition, Idaho is milk-
ing 100,000 more cows than
the 550,000 head it had in
2012, he said.
“So we’re seeing our
industry continue to grow but
that workforce shrink,” he
said.
There are not enough
workers to fill jobs, and some
sort of immigration reform is
needed to fill that, he said.
“The end result is that’s
causing small businesses to
go out,” he said.
Idaho went from 560 dairy
farm families in 2012 to 400
today, he said.
“So we’ve lost a number
of small businesses, and labor
shortages is one of those pres-
sure points that caused that,”
he said.
Idaho dairy produc-
ers would look to the Farm
Workforce
Modernization
Act as a reasonable, biparti-
san solution to the problem,
he said.
The bill provides tem-
porary status for certified
agricultural workers, their
spouses and children and
optional earned legal status
for long-time workers.
The bill passed the U.S.
House, and dairy producers
hope it can move forward in
the Senate, he said.
The bill was negotiated
between employers and those
that represent the employees,
he said.
“Everybody had a seat at
the table in trying to negoti-
ate that bill, and we see it as
a very reasonable way for-
ward. And we’re hopeful that
we can see something move
in the Senate,” he said.
Artificial intelligence robot could help
breeders develop mildew-resistant vines
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
ITHACA, N.Y. — Researchers
have developed a robotic artificial
intelligence system that could advance
the development of disease-resis-
tant crops, including mildew-resistant
grapevine varieties.
The “BlackBird” robotic sys-
tem, named after a
military spy plane,
replaces microscopes
and months of human
labor in analyzing
mildew lab samples
and makes it faster to
identify which grape-
Lance
vines carry favorable
Cadle-
genetic characteristics
Davidson
for mildew resistance.
Developing mil-
dew-resistant
vines
is a big deal for the
worldwide
grape
industry, which annu-
ally loses billions of
dollars to powdery
Yu Jiang
mildew in lost fruit
and fungicide costs.
“(Powdery mildew) is a problem
everywhere in the world that grapes
are grown,” said Lance Cadle-Da-
vidson, research pathologist with
USDA’s Agricultural Research Ser-
vice and adjunct associate professor in
Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant
Science. He co-leads the BlackBird
project.
He said having resistant varieties
Allison Usavage/Cornell University
Dani Martinez makes adjustments to BlackBird, a robot that may aid in
the creation of new, disease-resistant crops.
could lead to 90% less pesticide use
per variety.
Before the BlackBird was invented,
studying mildew resistance in vines
was tedious.
The process involved breeders col-
lecting leaf samples, then researchers
spending hours hunched over micro-
scopes manually scanning for mil-
dew infection. This would take two or
more months.
Now, that same work can be done
by BlackBird in a single day, thanks
to engineer and computer scientist Yu
Jiang, assistant professor in Cornell’s
School of Integrative Plant Science.
Breeders collect leaf samples from
vines and send them into Jiang and
Cadle-Davidson’s lab. The research-
ers punch 1-centimeter disks out of
the leaves and arrange them on a tray,
then infect samples. BlackBird auto-
matically scans the leaves using an
algorithm similar to facial recogni-
tion software that Jiang programmed
to recognize mildew’s spores and fine
threads.
The robot can gather information at
a scale equivalent to the resolution of a
regular optical microscope, with even
higher accuracy.
“In plain language, we tried to create
a tool that replaces the most laborious
part of this research study,” said Jiang.
The software helps researchers
identify phenotypes, or visible traits,
of vines that carry more favorable
genetic characteristics for mildew
resistance.
Breeders can use this genetic infor-
mation to develop mildew-resistant
varieties.
House panel supports creating CAFO improvement fund
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
BOISE — The Idaho
House Resources & Conser-
vation Committee Jan. 31
sent to the House floor a pro-
posal to help pay for water
quality improvement projects
at confined animal feeding
operations across the state.
House Bill 466 would
make a one-time appropri-
ation of $5 million from the
state general fund to start a
water quality improvement
fund.
Gov. Brad Little’s pro-
posed budget includes a one-
time cash transfer of $20 mil-
lion from the general fund to
the Agricultural Best Man-
agement Practices Fund.
That money would focus on
non-point-source projects,
which address pollutants that
do not come from a single
identified source. Requests
in recent years far exceeded
available funding.
HB 466 would use $5
million of that $20 million
to start the fund for confined
animal feeding operations.
The Idaho Dairymen’s
Association said the federal
Clean Water Act defines con-
fined animal feeding opera-
tions as point sources, so they
are not eligible for help from
other sources.
The association expects
the $5 million to fund 15-20
projects over 18 months. It
envisions 60% of the costs to
come from the fund and rest
from producers. A commit-
tee would select projects and
determine the funding level.
Committee
members
voted to send HB466 to the
full House with a do-pass
recommendation. An alter-
native proposal with stricter
guidelines did not pass.
House Majority Leader
Mike Moyle, R-Star, a com-
mittee member, supported
the alternative motion. He
told Capital Press the concept
is good, but it would be bet-
ter to spell out more in statute
so the program relies less on
Department of Environmen-
tal Quality rule making.
Dairy and cattle indus-
tries “are at the table trying
to make a difference,” Rep.
Laurie Lickley, R-Jerome,
committee vice chairman and
the bill’s sponsor, said at the
hearing.
Water users in Idaho’s
central mountains OK terms
of management agreement
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Idaho Department of
Water Resources staff told
the state Water Resource
Board Jan. 21 that 10 orga-
nizations OK’d terms of an
agreement that paves the way
for developing a groundwa-
ter management plan for part
of the central mountains.
Users in the Big Wood
and Little Wood Basins expe-
rienced a second straight low
water year in 2021. Water
Resources Director Gary
Spackman last May initiated
an administrative proceeding
covering water rights.
Last summer’s settlement
among groundwater users
and holders of senior sur-
face water rights, reached
with help from state leaders,
applied to the 2021 irriga-
tion season only. If the new
agreement is made final, it
would apply for three years
and then be revisited.
State law prioritizes
senior rights during water
shortages. Snowpack so far
this year is 120% of nor-
mal in the Big Wood Basin
and 128% in the Little Wood
Basin, the USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Ser-
vice reported Jan. 24.
The agreement’s terms
include detailed water man-
agement practices within
the Big Wood River Ground
Water Management Area and
the Wood River watershed,
the board said in a release.
A draft groundwater man-
agement plan must be fin-
ished and presented to the
Big Wood River Ground
Water Management Area
Advisory Committee for
review and recommenda-
tions. Spackman would have
to review and adopt a final
plan.
“This has been a hard task
to get done,” Water Resource
Board member Dean Steven-
son of Rupert said.
Terms of the agreement
include reducing ground-
water use; maintaining river
flows at a targeted level; lim-
iting the groundwater season
of use for irrigation; and cre-
ating a conservation, infra-
structure and efficiency fund.
The Big Wood & Little
Wood Water Users Associa-
tion would deliver water each
year to senior right hold-
ers. Amounts differ for each
river. The Galena Ground
Water District would acquire
the water, which on the Big
Wood River would be cov-
ered by the fund.
Terms on the Little Wood
River include a streamflow
target May 1-Sept. 30 at a
station near Richfield.
The term sheet calls for
participating groundwater
districts to fallow irrigated
farmland to achieve annual
or baseline levels of reduced
groundwater use. Galena and
South Valley groundwater
districts would fallow differ-
ent amounts.
Groundwater
districts
would carry out additional
usage reductions in drought
years as determined by
snowpack and streamflow
levels.
The agreement calls for
contributions to the new fund
— $210,000 a year shared
by users and the state Water
Resource Board — to help
finance conservation or infra-
structure projects, and pay
for some delivery of stored
water.
An equal number of sur-
face water and groundwa-
ter users, and a board repre-
sentative, would be on the
fund’s committee. It would
make decisions, reviewed
and approved by the Water
Resource Board, on projects
and stored-water purchases.
The agreement proposes the
Wood River Resource Con-
servation & Development
Council hold and administer
the funds.
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