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Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
Friday, April 15, 2022
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion
Our View
Poaching wolves only makes matters worse
I
f anyone wanted to help out the
animal rights crowd in its efforts
to reinstate federal Endangered
Species Act protection to all wolves,
all he would have to do is randomly
kill the predators.
Since wolves were reintroduced
into parts of the West, the activ-
ists have been hollering that, unless
wolves are fully protected under the
ESA, they could be indiscriminately
killed.
In a few parts of Eastern Oregon,
that appears to be happening. In the
past two years, eight wolves were poi-
soned and seven were shot and killed.
This was not someone protect-
ing himself or his livestock. This was
someone poaching and breaking the
law.
Animal rights and environmen-
tal groups are pushing right now try-
ing to convince the federal govern-
Oregon State Police
A wolf that was found dead Jan. 8 south
of Wallowa, Ore.
ment to reinstate ESA protections for
wolves in the Northern Rockies. Just
last week, we published a column by
two members of the U.S. Senate mak-
ing the case for state management of
wolves in Idaho and Montana.
The senators are correct. Idaho,
Montana and other states where
wolves have been imposed on ranch-
ers and others have done their best.
Reinstating federal protections would
take management decisions out of the
states’ hands.
If you think there are problems with
wolves now, wait until management
decisions are returned to the hands of
federal bureaucrats in Washington,
D.C.
No one has been more vocifer-
ous than the Capital Press in criticiz-
ing how the reintroduction of wolves
has been managed. Time and again,
we have stood up and pointed out the
shortcomings of federal wildlife man-
agers and the unfairness their actions
have inflicted on ranchers, whose live-
lihoods depend on their ability to raise
cattle and sheep.
The basis of those criticisms was
that wolves have been allowed to run
roughshod through portions of the
rural West, attacking cattle, sheep,
wildlife and other animals such as
working dogs. We argued that ranch-
ers also were the victims but were
Inflation and war
threaten global
food security
Our View
he combination of
Russian aggression
and rising inflation
has the potential to lead the
world into a food crisis.
The USDA should shift
into high gear. The U.S.
should be as keen to sup-
ply future food relief as it is
to supply Ukraine with mil-
itary supplies. The USDA
should be taking a lesson from
the COVID crisis by imple-
menting aggressive purchase
orders, designed to scale up
production of shelf-stable
food products in anticipation
of the need for foreign aid. Is
Mars ready to produce 500
million nut bars?
The USDA is working off
the old play book of foster-
ing exports and responding to
extreme weather events. We
need to be filling our own stra-
tegic food reserves, perhaps
funded with sales from the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
We cannot let foreign pow-
ers dictate geopolitics through
food, having done so with
oil. Acting aggressively now
gives us a chance to boost
farm productivity and mitigate
a potential food crisis.
Russia has chosen to wage
war with the West, and China
is standing at its side. This is
not a time for half measures
when it comes to ensuring
food security for us and our
allies.
I am a blueberry and hazel-
nut grower in Oregon. Bud-
gets created four months ago
are becoming obsolete as
costs spike in every category
— fertilizer, labor, fuel, ship-
ping and equipment repair.
Inflation begets more infla-
tion and it ultimately works its
way through different layers
of the economy. I know when
I send my crop on to a food
processor they are facing the
same increases in energy and
labor costs, as will the grocery
store.
If prices do increase in
the nut or berry market, that
increase is split three ways,
and farmers are the desig-
nated price taker. Most crops
are not seeing “wheat like”
price increases, and as of now,
those spikes are just volatil-
ity, not money in the bank for
farmers.
So, in this environment,
any rational actor is going to
look to cut expenses in every
category possible. If a farmer
cuts fertilizer, yields decline.
If weeds are not addressed,
yields decline. If equipment is
not maintained, yields decline.
If workers are not paid a
fair wage, the crop is not
harvested.
Cutting expenses will usu-
ally lead to lower farm pro-
ductivity. I think an iteration
of these decisions is working
T
EO Media Group File
A proposed lithium mine near the Nevada-Oregon border is at the center of a controversy that has
environmentalists on both sides.
When environmental
priorities collide, part 2
P
olitical leaders who want to wean
Americans from fossil fuels envision
a day when everyone drives electric
cars, has solar panels on their roofs and
wind generators are providing the bulk of
their power.
Often times, environmental groups find
themselves on opposite sides in disputes over
the siting of “green” energy facilities and the
infrastructure necessary to support them.
Late last year, a 2,390-acre solar farm was
supported by environmentalists who want
more such facilities, but was opposed by
environmentalists advocating for the Greater
sage grouse.
Conflicting environmental priorities are
colliding in southeast Oregon and north-
east Nevada, where what’s being billed as
one of the world’s largest lithium deposits is
located.
Effective storage is necessary to ensure
a power supply when the sun isn’t shining
and the wind isn’t blowing. All of that will
require a lot of raw materials that need to be
dug out of the ground and processed.
Lithium is the key component in lithi-
um-ion batteries used in electric cars and to
store the electricity generated by solar panels.
An Australian mining company has plans
for an 18,000-acre open-pit lithium mine in
an area controlled by the Bureau of Land
Management known as Thacker Pass. Those
supporting increased domestic battery pro-
duction and “green” energy are hailing the
development as an important step in lessen-
ing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Other environmental interests, however,
willing to follow the law.
Ranchers have worked hard to use
non-lethal means of separating wolves
from cattle and sheep.
But all of that is for naught when
irresponsible parties take the law into
their own hands. It accomplishes
nothing — except to put law-abiding
ranchers on the defensive.
We’ll say it again. We are unim-
pressed by how federal wildlife man-
agers have done their jobs manag-
ing wolves. From the beginning, they
needed to do more to keep wolves
away from livestock.
But we are 100% opposed to ille-
gally poaching wolves.
Doing that only gives the animal
rights and environmental crowd more
ammunition in the court of law — and
the court of public opinion — to criti-
cize ranchers.
Stop the poaching. It only makes
matters worse.
say the mine will despoil the land, poison the
water and degrade wildlife habitat. Addition-
ally, bands of the Paiute and Shoshone tribes
say the project will encroach on historic and
cultural sites important to native peoples.
Green energy environmentalists find them-
selves on opposite sides from other environ-
mentalists who have filed a lawsuit to stop
the project.
It’s quite the conundrum.
Farmers and ranchers who rarely have
environmentalists as partners to litigation
might not know who to root for in this par-
ticular dispute. But anyone who supports
the responsible harvesting of vital natural
resources has to side with the mine.
At present, many of the materials needed
to make batteries and solar cells are in
the hands of either unfriendly or unstable
nations. Labor and environmental protections
in those countries are either lax or non-exis-
tent. The despots who run those countries are
more than happy to despoil their lands and
gouge others for the necessary minerals.
The United States has deposits of these
minerals, and plenty of laws, rules and regu-
lation to mitigate the potential environmental
impacts and protect miners.
An 18,000-acre pit and the ensuing tailings
will be a mess and an eyesore. We wouldn’t
want it in our backyard, that’s for sure. But if
the country is determined to pursue “green”
energy policies, it shouldn’t be willing to
push the negative impacts off on the third
world.
What’s a committed environmentalist and
enthusiastic alternative energy advocate to
do? We can’t wait to see how this plays out.
GUEST
VIEW
Jim
Hoffmann
across every farm, dairy and
ranch in America. As harvest
progresses, and crop prices do
not justify the cost to bring it
to market, we will see disturb-
ing pictures of produce left in
the field and milk or apples
dumped into ditches.
The current inflationary
environment seems set up to
reduce production at a time
the world needs it to increase,
to feed the world and to com-
bat inflation. With reduced
supplies, food inflation may
spiral out of control and in
some less prosperous parts of
the world, potentially caus-
ing political instability. Have
we ever not been drawn into
such a crisis?
What might a for-
ward-thinking administration
do in this scenario? There
is no magic wand to elimi-
nate inflation; it will come
in waves as a payback for
an unconstrained monetary
policy that enabled multi-
ple administrations’ deficit
spending.
The only question is how
to mitigate the damage. Iron-
ically, the answer is probably
higher prices in the near term.
The great danger is food scar-
city. The USDA should want
farmers operating at maxi-
mum capacity and achieve
this by securing available
food, trying to establish price
signals to spur maximum
planting and harvest, direct
the private sector to pull for-
ward demand with contracts
for shelf-stable foods. It may
be that every calorie will
count.
There is still time to orga-
nize increased storage facil-
ities, finesse immigration,
manage transportation bottle-
necks, redirect water — but
only if the government oper-
ates with war time urgency.
These are constructive mea-
sures that mitigate inflation.
The Biden administra-
tion also has to start the pro-
cess of sensitizing Americans
to the age-old concept of con-
servation; it is the best return
on investment in times of
scarcity.
Jim Hoffmann is the owner
of Hopville Farms in Indepen-
dence, Ore. He transitioned
into farming in 2012 following
a long career in investment
management. He attended the
University of Wisconsin-Mad-
ison with degrees in econom-
ics and real estate investment
analysis. He is a resident of
Monterey County, Calif.