Capital Press
EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER
Friday, April 1, 2022
Volume 95, Number 13
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‘STILL AMBITIOUS’
Inside Anderson Ranches’ sheep farm and its rise to success
across the southern Willamette Valley
near Brownsville.
“It would be really hard to fi nd a fi ne
dining establishment in Seattle or Port-
land where they’re not on the menu,” said
Megan Wortman, executive director of
the American Lamb Board. “They have
just been so successful.”
The business is also a rare example of
a sheep operation that’s vertically inte-
grated, with both a farm and meat pro-
cessing plant.
Getting to this point has taken many
years and many hands.
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
B
ROWNSVILLE, Ore. —
With Easter two weeks away,
the Anderson family is pre-
paring for one of its busiest
times of the year.
The Andersons run a grass-fed sheep
farm in Oregon, and Easter weekend
marks peak season for lamb consumption
in the U.S.
“The two weeks before Easter are our
biggest push,” said Reed Anderson, 62,
a fourth-generation farmer and owner of
Anderson Ranches. “We’re rockin’ and
rollin’.”
For decades, many Americans have
eaten lamb only around Easter, Christ-
mas and in white-tablecloth restau-
rants, but that is changing. The pan-
demic fueled in-home gourmet cooking,
boosting lamb’s popularity. Per capita
consumption is the highest it’s been in
decades, and lamb prices have broken
Shearer and shepherdess
Amanda Jae Photography
The Anderson family. Back row, left to right: Jake, Jessica, Reed, Robyn, Knox,
Jessica, Travis. Front row, left to right: Abigail, Scarlett, Dean.
records. The overlooked protein is having
a renaissance.
“It’s a really positive time,” said Robyn
Anderson, 59, Reed’s wife, who runs the
bookkeeping side of the business.
Anderson Ranches is one of the larg-
est and best-known sheep operations in
the Northwest, with sprawling acreage
Robyn and Reed Anderson both came
from sheep backgrounds.
They met in high school. Reed, 18,
was shearing sheep for someone Robyn’s
dad worked for. Robyn, 15, was helping
with lambing. They soon started dating
and married three years later.
See Anderson, Page 9
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Anderson Ranches sheep.
Farm groups take fi ght for chlorpyrifos to Midwest court
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A chemical company and 19
farm groups, including the Amer-
ican Farm Bureau, are suing in a
Midwest federal appeals court to
overturn the Environmental Pro-
tection Agency’s ban on the pesti-
cide chlorpyrifos on all food crops.
Gharda Chemicals Interna-
tional, the largest supplier of
chlorpyrifos products in the U.S.,
and the farm groups claim the
ban is too broad and that the EPA
ignored its own science.
They seek to at least keep the
pesticide legal on 11 crops in
select states, including strawber-
ries in Oregon and apples, alfalfa,
sugar beets in Idaho, Oregon and
Washington.
The EPA identifi ed the crops
and geographic areas in 2020,
proposing to reduce exposure to
chlorpyrifos by limiting the pes-
ticide to “high-benefi t” crops.
The EPA estimated alternatives
to chlorpyrifos would cost apple
growers $51 an acre.
Instead of narrowing uses, the
EPA banned chlorpyrifos on all
food, eff ective Feb. 28, capping
a legal and scientifi c battle that
began in 2007 when two advocacy
groups petitioned the agency to
ban the pesticide.
Chlorpyrifos has been used in
U.S. agriculture since 1965 and is
registered for more than 50 uses.
The suit argues EPA should have
evaluated the uses separately.
“If all tolerances must rise or
fall together, EPA would have to
revoke all tolerances for any pes-
ticide every time it concluded an
individual tolerance was unsafe.
That makes no sense,” according
to the lawsuit.
Douglas County, Wash., tree
fruit orchardist April Clayton
said March 23 that her farm used
chlorpyrifos to attack leafy hop-
per and mealybug, the insects that
cause little cherry virus and West-
ern X.
Chlorpyrifos was used before
bees were in the orchards or fruit
was on the trees, she said. “This
product isn’t actually going to be
sprayed on the food,” she said.
Chlorpyrifos rotated with other
pesticides to keep the bugs from
building up resistance, she said.
“Losing this tool will be a burden,”
she said.
In response to the new lawsuit,
the EPA said it didn’t have time
to fi nalize its tentative proposal to
confi ne chlorpyrifos to 11 crops.
The agency was under a deadline
set by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals to ban chlorpyrifos or
declare it safe.
The EPA notes in court docu-
ments that the agricultural indus-
try did not rush to embrace the
11-crop limit.
Some groups, such as cranberry
and banana farmers, wanted to be
included, and no chemical com-
pany volunteered to cancel other
uses, according to the EPA.
“In order to retain those 11 uses,
all other uses would need to be
cancelled,” stated Timothy Kiely,
deputy director for the EPA’s Pes-
ticide Re-evaluation Division, in a
court declaration.
Beginning in the Obama admin-
istration, the EPA resisted pressure
See Chlorpyrifos, Page 9
Judge refuses to block grazing in six Eastern Oregon pastures
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
PORTLAND — A federal judge
has denied a temporary restraining
order sought by environmental groups
that would block grazing in six East-
ern Oregon pastures.
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon
said the environmental plaintiff s hav-
en’t shown that turning cattle out on
the pastures will cause irreparable
harm to sage grouse or to rangeland
research.
Matuesz Perkowski/Capital Press File
Continued grazing isn’t likely to
The Mark O. Hatfi eld U.S. irreparably harm the ability of envi-
Courthouse in Portland, Ore. ronmental plaintiff s to enjoy undis-
turbed sagebrush grassland, since the
pastures have long been grazed and
are commonly rested on a rotating
basis, he said.
Any hardship suff ered by the envi-
ronmental nonprofi ts is also “min-
imal” compared to the harm that a
temporary restraining order would
cause Cahill Ranches near Adel, Ore.,
which relies on an aff ected pasture to
turn out cattle, the judge said.
“Several families’ livelihoods
depend on Cahill, which in turn
depends on the ability to use pub-
lic lands for its livestock operations,”
said Simon, noting that the public
interest also doesn’t weigh in favor of
Bank of Eastern Oregon Specializing in
Founded in 1945
offers Operating Lines of
by Farmers and Ranchers. Credit and Term loans on Agricultural &
Who saw a need for Rural Lending.
Equipment and Land.
a temporary restraining order.
Six other ranches are also seek-
ing to intervene in the case, which
was fi led against the U.S. Bureau of
Land Management by the nonprofi ts
Oregon Natural Desert Association,
Audubon Society of Portland and
Defenders of Wildlife.
Aside from seeking a temporary
restraining order to stop cattle from
being turned out on six pastures in
April, the environmental plaintiff s
have requested a broader preliminary
injunction against grazing on a total
of 13 Oregon pastures.
Commercial Loans.
See Grazing, Page 9
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