Friday, March 25, 2022
CapitalPress.com 3
Easterdays move to reset bankruptcy cases
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The court battle over
the fraud-forced sale of
ex-cattleman Cody Easter-
day’s bankrupt farming and
ranching empire in East-
ern Washington intensifi ed
Wednesday.
Lawyers for Easterday’s
wife and mother told U.S.
Bankruptcy Judge Whit-
man Holt in Yakima that
the attorneys and two cred-
itor committees oversee-
ing the liquidation of East-
erday Farms and Easterday
Ranches should be ousted.
Debby Easterday, Cody’s
wife, and Karen Easterday,
whose late husband, Gale,
started the Columbia Basin
companies, claim the attor-
neys and committees are
allowing the Ranches busi-
ness to rob the Farms busi-
ness. They
are separate
family busi-
nesses with
different
creditors.
Another
Cody
d i ff e r-
Easterday
ence is the
Farms busi-
ness expects to emerge from
bankruptcy with between
$20.4 million and $45 mil-
lion left for the ex-owners,
according to court records.
The Ranches business,
weighed down by Cody
Easterday’s $233 million
debt to fraud victim Tyson
Fresh Meats, will be broke.
The Easterdays allege
that money is improperly
flowing from the solvent
Farms to the insolvent
Ranches, including about
$1.1 million for fuel,
labor and hauling cattle
and feed last summer.
“If that happened, it’s
problematic,” Holt said.
Much bigger sums are at
stake as the committees and
Easterdays negotiate a set-
tlement. Although the Farms
and Ranches businesses
fi led for bankruptcy sepa-
rately last year, the debts are
intertwined.
Cody Easterday, due to
be sentenced June 13 for
wire fraud, pledged in a plea
agreement last year to pay
back Tyson. A judge has
twice delayed sentencing to
give him time to sell family
property to raise money for
restitution.
Tyson attorney Alan
Smith told Holt that anything
the Easterdays have after
bankruptcy proceedings will
be “fair game.”
“They manage to go ahead
and pooh-pooh, frankly, the
biggest breach of fi duciary
duties here, which is the fact
that Karen and Debby and
Gale were all directors and
were supposed to be super-
vising Cody as he committed
his fraud,” Smith said.
“Frankly, if there is equity
in Farms, if there is equity
in anything else, if there is
equity in Karen’s ranch that
she has and lives on, all of
these things are fair game,”
he said.
Before
Wednesday’s
court hearing, the Easterdays
demanded the Farms and
Ranches committees resign
and be replaced by new
directors.
The committees are resist-
ing the move. Holt did not
rule Wednesday and set more
hearings on whether there’s a
confl ict of interest between
the Farms and Ranches
committees.
Easterdays base some of
their claim for consideration
on their work in the past year
to maximize the value of
their assets for creditors.
According
to
court
records, a combine broke
down during wheat har-
vest. Rather than waiting
six weeks for a replacement
part, Debby Easterday drove
all night to pick one up in
Nebraska and immediately
drove back.
Lawyers submitted a sev-
en-page memo on Cody
Easterday’s eff orts last year,
including his role in selling
the family’s farms to Farm-
land Reserve Inc. for $209
million.
“Nobody has worked
harder than the Easterdays
to run assets into cash,” said
Jeff rey Misley, Cody and
Debby Easterday’s lawyer.
The Easterdays also are
trying to remove from the
case Los Angeles attorney
Richard Pachulski and other
lawyers who work with both
creditor committees.
The Easterdays claim that
Pachulski and his fi rm can’t
represent both committees
because the committees have
confl icting interests.
In a court fi ling, Pachul-
ski’s fi rm said allowing the
Easterdays to remove the
committee would be “cata-
strophic” for everyone else.
The Easterdays are risk-
ing “destroying the recov-
eries for (creditors) because
they are not getting as much
as they want,” the fi ling
claims.
Tyson contracted with
Cody Easterday to supply
cattle for its beef plant in
Eastern Washington. East-
erday billed Tyson for cattle
that didn’t exist.
Oregon FFA elects 2022-23 state offi cer team
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
REDMOND, Ore. — The
dim of the lights, the roar of
the crowd, the pulsing music
and fog machine on stage
created an air of tension and
excitement in the moments
before each new member of
the Oregon FFA state offi -
cer team was announced last
weekend.
After two years of going
virtual, the Oregon FFA
State Convention returned
in-person March 17-20 to the
Deschutes Fair & Expo Cen-
ter in Redmond, culminating
on the fi nal morning with the
highly anticipated election of
state offi cers.
“It’s
been
diff erent,
because we have all these
members who have never
been to an in-person state
convention,” said Lawson
Setzer, who was chosen as
the 2022-23 Oregon FFA
president. “Trying to get that
hype about Oregon FFA back
installed within all of our
members has been a huge
deal for all of us.”
George Plaven/Capital Press
The 2022-23 Oregon FFA state offi cer team. From left are Lawson Setzer, president;
Grant Hills, vice president; Maddie Dollarhide, secretary; Brekkan Richardson, trea-
surer; Jessie Samarin, reporter; and Uriel Aguilar Torres, sentinel.
This year’s six-member
state offi cer team includes
Setzer, from Santiam Chris-
tian FFA; Grant Hills, from
Hermiston, as vice president;
Maddie Dollarhide, from
Dufur, as secretary; Brek-
kan Richardson, from Sandy,
as treasurer; Jessie Samarin,
from Canby, as reporter; and
Uriel Aguilar Torres, from
Gervais, as sentinel.
The lifting of COVID-19
restrictions means the team
will once again be able to
travel together and visit with
FFA members and industry
partners from across the state.
“I’m confi dent we’ll be
one heck of a team because
we are resilient,” Dollarhide
said. “We’ve gone through
the heat of COVID, and vir-
tual anything and every-
thing. So we’ll defi nitely be
a team that can adapt as fast
as possible to any situation
thrown our way.”
The year of service also
means that each FFA offi -
cer will postpone the start
of their college careers — a
Ukraine situation heightens market volatility
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Disruptions in Ukraine’s
agricultural production and
exports continue to send ripple
eff ects around the world, a top
agricultural economist says.
Ukraine is a powerhouse
producer and exporter and a
market mover in the crops and
countries in which it trades,
Veronica Nigh, senior econ-
omist with American Farm
Bureau Federation, said in a
new “Market Intel” report.
“The growing global con-
cern is that the prolonged
absence of Ukrainian prod-
ucts on the global market will
lead to additional suff ering in
the form of food price crises in
countries not directly involved
in the confl ict,” she said.
Ukraine is the world’s sev-
enth-largest producer and
fourth-largest exporter of corn.
It was responsible for 13% of
global exports in the 2020/21
trade year.
It is also the eighth-larg-
est producer and sixth-largest
exporter of wheat, responsible
for 8.5% of global exports in
2020/21, she said.
Russia is an even larger
supplier of wheat, with 20%
of the world’s wheat exports in
2020/21.
Ukraine is the largest pro-
ducer and exporter of sun-
fl ower seed and its products,
including oil. The nation was
responsible for 47% of global
exports in 2020/21.
Russia is also a signifi -
cant supplier, with 29% of
sunfl ower seed oil exports in
2020/21.
In addition, Russia is a
major global player in all three
nutrients in fertilizer: nitrogen,
phosphate and potassium, she
said.
Russia is the largest nitro-
gen exporter, supplying 16.5%
of global exports in 2018, the
most recent year for which
data is available.
Russia is the third-larg-
est phosphate exporter with a
12.7% share of global exports
in 2018.
And it is
the third-larg-
est potassium
exporter as
well, supply-
ing 16.5%
of
global
Veronica
exports
in
Nigh
2018.
Russia is
also the third-largest oil pro-
ducer and the second-largest
natural gas producer. Natural
gas accounts for 70-90% of
the cost of nitrogen fertilizer,
she said.
“As the assault on Ukraine
stretches on, the impacts to
Ukraine’s ability to produce
the volume of tradable com-
modities the global market
has grown to depend on will
become more signifi cant,” she
said.
Not only will an ongo-
ing war likely lead to fewer
planted acres, but it is also
likely to change the mix of
crops, she said.
“With a heightened focus
on feeding the Ukrainian peo-
ple, it is likely that farmers will
be encouraged to plant and
harvest crop cereals intended
for local consumption, rather
than corn, sunfl ower seed and
rapeseed for export,” she said
In the case of crops yet
to be planted, as well as the
wheat and rapeseed crops
already in the ground, farmers
will be challenged to fi nd fuel
for their machinery and fertil-
izer for their fi elds, which will
likely reduce the total harvest,
she said.
Beyond production, a criti-
cal piece of the Ukraine puz-
zle will be the level of damage
that its infrastructure sustains.
Signifi cant damage to roads,
bridges, rail lines and ports
will make moving people and
products more time-consum-
ing and more expensive, she
said.
For more detail, visit:
https://www.fb.org
The Willamette Valley’s
Biological Hub
Since 1981
diffi cult decision for Rich-
ardson, who plans to attend
Oregon State University
where she will double major
in English literature and
agricultural education.
Coming from a family of
educators, Richardson said
the importance of school
is strongly emphasized at
home. But after talking with
her parents, they decided
running for FFA state offi ce
was a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to aff ect Oregon
agriculture and infl uence the
next wave of leaders.
“It was give-and-take.
I’m happy with my deci-
sion,” Richardson said.
When discussing what
they gained from their
years in FFA, offi cers used
words like “servant lead-
ership,” “inclusivity” and
“self-confi dence.”
“You don’t have to be
scared to be yourself,” Agu-
ilar Torres said. “No mat-
ter who you’re around, you
don’t have to put up a fake
front.”
The team described run-
ning for offi ce as an intense
process. The weekend
began with 17 candidates
for the six positions, endur-
ing hours of interviews with
the 11-member nominating
committee. By the time the
fi nal day arrived, there were
10 fi nalists who made their
case to the delegates.
“It’s defi nitely an intense
process, but it needs to be
because of how important it
is that we have good people
who are willing to serve our
state and our organization,”
Richardson said.
Hills said his heart was
in his throat while awaiting
the fi nal announcement, but
at the same time he knew he
would be happy no matter
who won.
Samarin agreed, saying
that all the candidates con-
sidered themselves to be a
team even before reaching
that eventual moment.
“We’ve all built each
other up and built upon
one another,” Samarin said.
“That’s just been an amaz-
ing process.”
Dollarhide said the rush
of emotion as the offi -
cers were announced was
indescribable.
“I think it’s safe to say
we’re all defi nitely on top of
the world,” she said. “We’re
all really excited to be here
together.”
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