2
CapitalPress.com
Friday, May 13, 2022
People & Places
Attachment saves time handling hay
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
FRUITLAND,
Wash.
— Normally, when a hay
farmer picks up two hay
bales in the field, it is a
multi-step process.
First, he has to pick up
one bale and place it beside
the other. Then he has to
reverse the tractor, drive it
into position and spear both
bales to put them on a stack.
Fruitland, Wash., farmer
Don Larson thought it could
be done more efficiently.
“I was just tired of all the
jockeying of the equipment
in the field to get the bales
collected,” he said.
That’s when he devel-
oped SwingSpear, a hydrau-
lic attachment that pivots in
the middle, allowing him
to pick up the first bale and
drive to the second. He then
swings the first bale up and
out of the way, allowing him
to spear the second with-
out stopping, backing up or
repositioning the tractor.
“You’re in forward
motion the whole time
you’re gathering hay bales
in the field,” Larson said.
Larson has been hay-
ing for five seasons. In the
spring of 2020, he and a
co-worker discussed finding
a way to move the first bale
out of the way to get to the
second.
Larson made a small card-
board model, which looked
like it would work. He drew
on the shop floor with chalk
and started cutting pieces
and welding them together.
He then attached the first
Established 1928
Capital Press Managers
Joe Beach ..................... Editor & Publisher
Anne Long ................. Advertising Director
Western
Innovator
Carl Sampson .................. Managing Editor
Samantha Stinnett .....Circulation Manager
Entire contents copyright © 2022
DON LARSON
EO Media Group
Occupation: Owner,
Enterprise Valley Farms;
inventor, SwingSpear hay
bale attachment
dba Capital Press
An independent newspaper
published every Friday.
Age: 50
Hometown: Fruitland,
Wash.
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Don Larson demonstrates how the SwingSpear attachment for tractors and loaders
efficiently manages hay bales on his farm in Fruitland, Wash.
SwingSpear to his tractor.
Larson contacted a col-
lege friend, Chris Hen-
jum, president of Hydrafab
Northwest in Spokane Val-
ley, Wash. His engineers
then manufactured Larson’s
official prototype.
“Lean farming — the
faster someone can load a
truck, get things out of the
field and burn less fuel, the
better off they are,” Hen-
jum said. “Don’s an in-the-
trenches kind of owner,
designer and developer. He’s
going to get in there, turn a
wrench and also add value
on design and ideas.”
Larson has 10 Swing-
Spears available for sale that
fit various tractor models.
He has applied for a patent.
Larson conducted time
trials loading hay bales. He
estimates the device pro-
vides a “good savings”
and the ability to pick up
25% more hay in the same
amount of time compared to
using the old method.
“The thing with the for-
ward and reversing of the
tractor, you’re clutching,
you’re steering, the opera-
tor is turning his head and
looking around to make sure
he doesn’t back over some-
one or something,” he said.
“Continually driving for-
ward and picking up hay is
so much safer. And it does
increase the amount of hay
you can pick up in a day.”
Larson works as a log-
ger in the fall and winter and
farms during haying season.
He purchased the farm in
2015 and is the third genera-
tion farming on the property.
“I would just like to have
a happy retirement,” he said
of developing SwingSpear.
SwingSpear is designed
for 5-foot diameter bales.
Larson hopes to design a
model for 6-foot diame-
ter bales for markets in the
Midwest.
Family friend John Jen-
sen, a retired Fruitland
farmer, wasn’t surprised that
Larson came up with the
attachment. He cites Lar-
son’s “phenomenal” metic-
ulousness with equipment
maintenance.
“You take that same per-
son, that same brain, and you
Education: Salutatorian,
Columbia High School,
Hunters, Wash.; degree
in fluid power, Spokane
Community College
Family: Engaged to be
married; one daughter, 21
Website: https://swing-
spear.com/
Capital Press (ISSN 0740-3704) is
published weekly by EO Media Group,
2870 Broadway NE, Salem OR 97303.
Periodicals postage paid at Portland, OR,
and at additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: send address changes to
Capital Press, P.O. Box 2048 Salem, OR
97308-2048.
To Reach Us
have that person design an
implement for a tractor, and
what do you have?” he said.
“You have an extremely
well-built, extremely dura-
ble piece of equipment. This
thing’s for real. It’s built to
last generations.”
Jensen helps Larson with
haying and logging. He
believes the tool will save
farmers time, fuel and wear
and tear on their equipment.
“I drive the truck in the
field,” he said. “I was just
absolutely blown away at
how much faster it was.”
Circulation ...........................800-781-3214
Email ........... Circulation@capitalpress.com
Main line .............................503-364-4431
News Staff
Idaho
Carol Ryan Dumas ..............208-860-3898
Boise
Brad Carlson .......................208-914-8264
Western Washington
Don Jenkins .........................360-722-6975
Eastern Washington
Matthew Weaver ................509-688-9923
Oregon
George Plaven ....................406-560-1655
Mateusz Perkowski .............800-882-6789
NASA climate research scientist wins World Food Prize
By DAVID PITT
Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa —
A NASA climate research
scientist who has spent
much of her career explain-
ing how global food produc-
tion must adapt to a chang-
ing climate was awarded
the World Food Prize on
Thursday.
Cynthia
Rosenzweig,
an agronomist and clima-
tologist, was awarded the
$250,000 prize in recogni-
tion of her innovative mod-
eling of the impact of climate
change on food production.
She is a senior research sci-
entist at the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies
and serves as adjunct senior
research scientist at the
Columbia Climate School at
Columbia University, both
based in New York.
Rosenzweig, whose win
was announced during a cer-
emony at the State Depart-
ment in Washington, said
she hopes it will focus atten-
tion on the need to improve
food and agricultural sys-
tems to lessen the effects of
climate change.
“We basically cannot
solve climate change unless
we address the issues of
the greenhouse gas emis-
sions from the food system,
and we cannot provide food
security for all unless we
work really hard to develop
resilient systems,” she told
The Associated Press during
an interview ahead of the
ceremony.
Jose Fer-
nandez,
the under-
secretary
of state for
economic
Cynthia
growth,
Rosenzweig energy and
the environ-
ment, said more than 160
million people worldwide
experienced food insecu-
rity last year, a 19% increase
over the year before, and
one of the root causes is a
decline in food production
due to global warming.
“Climate change has
already had a significant and
negative impact on global
agricultural production and
its impact is only going to
get worse. We’re seeing
rice fields drown in floods.
We’re seeing other crops
wither in drought. We’re
seeing shellfish die in more
acidic oceans and crop dis-
eases are spreading to new
regions. We likely would not
understand all these prob-
lems as well as we do today
without the work of Dr. Cyn-
thia Rosenzweig, this year’s
World Food Prize laureate,”
he said.
The Des Moines-based
World Food Prize Foun-
dation award recognized
Rosenzweig as the founder
of the Agricultural Model
Intercomparison
and
Improvement Project. The
organization draws scien-
tists from around the world
and from many disciplines
to advance methods for
improving predictions of the
future performance of agri-
cultural and food systems as
the global climate changes.
The foundation credited
her work with directly help-
ing decision-makers in more
than 90 countries establish
plans to prepare for climate
change.
In her work, Rosenzweig
has studied how farmers can
deal with climate change
and how agriculture worsens
the problem. For example,
she contributed to a research
paper published last month
that said global agri-food
systems create nearly one-
third of the total global
greenhouse gases emitted by
human activity.
Rosenzweig said the
world needs to reduce such
emissions and adapt to the
changing climate. She noted
that greenhouse gases come
from many parts of food
production, including the
release of carbon and carbon
dioxide through the clear-
ing of forests for farmland
and the oxidization of car-
bon through the plowing of
fields. The use of fertilizer
also releases atmospheric
nitrous oxide, farm equip-
ment emits fossil fuels and
cattle release methane.
Rosenzweig,
who
describes herself as a climate
impact scientist, grew up in
Scarsdale, N.Y., a suburban
area that she said led her to
seek out life in the country.
She moved to Tuscany, Italy,
with her husband-to-be in
her 20s and developed a pas-
sion for agriculture. Upon
returning to the United
States, she focused her edu-
cation on agronomy.
She worked as a graduate
student at the Goddard Insti-
tute for Space Studies in the
early 1980s, when global cli-
mate models were beginning
to show the effects of human
generated carbon dioxide on
the global climate. As the
only team member studying
agronomy, she researched
the impact on food produc-
tion and has been working
since then to answer those
questions, she said.
Rosenzweig’s work led
to the Environmental Pro-
tection Agency’s first pro-
jections of the effect of cli-
mate change on the nation’s
agricultural regions in the
agency’s assessment of the
potential effects of climate
change on the United States
in 1988. She was the first
to bring climate change to
the attention of the Amer-
ican Society of Agronomy
and she organized the first
sessions on the issue in the
1980s.
She completed the first
projections of how climate
change will affect food pro-
duction in North America in
1985 and globally in 1994,
and she was one of the first
scientists to document that
climate change was already
impacting food production
and cultivation.
The research organiza-
tion she founded, AgMIP,
develops adaptation pack-
ages, which could include
the use of more drought-tol-
erant seeds and improved
water management prac-
tices. In Bangladesh the
group is working with rice
farmers to develop new
practices for managing rice
paddies to reduce the sig-
nificant release of methane
produced by the existing
process.
She said even the largest
agribusiness corporations
have shown a willingness to
listen. She said some mod-
els colleagues have devel-
oped show how businesses
could be effected by climate
change and how they too
have a role to play in revers-
ing the impact on climate.
“It’s really a global part-
nership of all the global food
system to come together to
restrain climate change and
maintain the food security
for the planet,” she said.
World Food Prize Foun-
dation President Barbara
Stinson, who announced the
winner, credited Rosenz-
weig for innovations that
helped countries respond to
climate change.
Nobel Prize laureate Nor-
man Borlaug created the
World Food Prize in 1986
to recognize scientists and
others who have improved
the quality and availability
of food. Rosenzweig will
receive the award and make
a speech during an October
ceremony in Des Moines.
THROUGH
SATURDAY
MAY 12-14
92nd Washington FFA Con-
vention: Location to be determined.
Join us for the live, in-person 92nd
Washington FFA Convention. Web-
site: https://www.washingtonffa.org/
SATURDAY
MAY 14
Agricultural Pesticide Collec-
tion Event: There will be a free Agri-
cultural Pesticide Collection Event
on May 14 in Clackamas, Ore. This
is an opportunity for forest land-
owners, farmers and other commer-
cial and institutional pesticide users
to search out their barns, sheds,
and basements for old, restricted
or unusable pesticides. Participa-
tion is free and anonymous, but par-
ticipants must pre-register for an
appointment. Pre-register for the
event by May 1 at https://conserva-
tiondistrict.org/.
WEDNESDAY
MAY 18
NRCS-WA Local Work Group
Meeting for Puget Sound (online):
7 p.m. Producers from Thurston, Kit-
sap, Mason, Pierce, King counties
and conservation districts are invited
to participate. Local Work Group
Meetings are a valuable part of the
NRCS planning process, providing an
opportunity for local land managers
to be part of a collaborative effort
to improve natural resources within
their area. This year’s meeting will be
on Zoom: https://bit.ly/3kjqlIU Con-
tact: 253-256-6741 or amy.hender-
shot@usda.gov
Dairy Tech 2022 Conference:
Austin Marriott Downtown, Aus-
tin, Texas. Hosted by the Interna-
tional Dairy Foods Association and
dairy.com, the conference will focus
on the impact of technology and
innovation in the industry. Web-
site: https://www.idfa.org/events/
dairytech-conference
FRIDAY
MAY 20
NRCS-WA Local Work Group
Meeting for SW Washington
(online): Noon. Producers from
Clark, Underwood (Skamania), Lewis
County, Cowlitz, Pacific, Wahkiakum,
Grays Harbor counties and conser-
vation districts are invited to partici-
pate. Local Work Group Meetings are
a valuable part of the NRCS planning
process, providing an opportunity
for local land managers to be part of
a collaborative effort to improve nat-
ural resources within their area. This
year’s meeting is on Zoom: https://
bit.ly/3OGiQtD Contact: 360-557-
3282 or bobette.parsons@usda.gov
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY
MAY 24-25
Habitat Working for Farmers
(online): 8 a.m.-noon. Oregon Soil
and Water Conservation Districts and
the Oregon IPM Center have teamed
Designer
Randy Wrighthouse .............800-882-6789
To Place Classified Ads
Telephone (toll free) ............800-882-6789
Online ............................CapitalPress.com
Subscriptions
Mail rates paid in advance
Easy Pay U.S. $4 /month
(direct withdrawal from bank
or credit card account)
1 year U.S. ...........................................$ 65
2 years U.S. ........................................$115
1 year Canada.....................................$230
1 year other countries ...........call for quote
1 year Internet only.............................$ 52
Visa and Mastercard accepted
To get information published
Mailing address:
Capital Press
P.O. Box 2048
Salem, OR 97308-2048
News: Contact the main office
or news staff member closest to you,
send the information to
newsroom@capitalpress.com
or mail it to “Newsroom,” c/o Capital Press.
Include a contact telephone number.
Letters to the Editor: Send your
comments on agriculture-related public
issues to opinions@capitalpress.com, or
mail your letter to “Opinion,” c/o Capital
Press. Letters should be limited to
300 words. Deadline: Noon Monday.
Capital Press ag media
CapitalPress.com
CALENDAR
Submit upcoming ag-related
events on www.capitalpress.com
or by email to newsroom@capital-
press.com.
Sierra Dawn McClain ..........503-506-8011
FarmSeller.com
up to bring you a virtual conference
on practices Western farmers are cur-
rently using to develop habitats that
conserve agricultural biodiversity and
their associated benefits. Website:
https://bit.ly/3ifLti9
WEDNESDAY
MAY 25
Becoming Firewise — Fire
Resistant Landscapes and Homes:
6-8 p.m., Treasure Valley Commu-
nity College Science Center, Room
104, 650 College Blvd., Ontario, Ore.
Scheduled instructors are Al Crouch,
fire mitigation specialist with U.S.
Bureau of Land Management Vale
District, and John Rizza, regional wild-
land fire specialist with Oregon State
University Extension. Contact: 541-
881-5755 Website: http://tvccfirewise.
eventbrite.com
WEDNESDAY-
THURSDAY
MAY 25-26
Roots of Resilience Grazing
Conference: Pendleton Conven-
tion Center, 1601 Westgate, Pend-
leton, Ore. Dave Pratt, a Ranching
for Profit emeritus, will kick off the
conference Wednesday morning
with “Three Secrets to Increasing
Profit,” how livestock managers can
improve sustainability by improv-
ing their financial bottom line. After
lunch, Chris Schachtschneider, OSU
Extension, will demonstrate low-
stress livestock handling in the
Happy Canyon Arena. Thursday’s
events move north to the Gardena
School, Touchet, Wash., for a pre-
sentation by internationally known
soil health expert Nicole Masters.
After lunch, the conference moves
to Tumac Farms, where there will be
a field practical with Masters. Web-
site: https://rootsofresilience.org/
grazing-conference-2022
THURSDAY JUNE 2
Sustainable Produce Summit:
1-7:30 p.m. Marriott Desert Springs
Resort, Palm Desert, Calif. The sum-
mit will focus on sustainability.
Website: https://www.events.farm-
journal.com
MarketPlace.capitalpress.com
facebook.com/CapitalPress
facebook.com/FarmSeller
twitter.com/CapitalPress
youtube.com/CapitalPressvideo
Index
Markets .................................................12
Opinion ...................................................6
Correction policy
Accuracy is important to Capital Press
staff and to our readers.
If you see a misstatement, omission or
factual error in a headline, story or photo
caption, please call the Capital Press news
department at 503-364-4431, or send
email to newsroom@capitalpress.com.
We want to publish corrections
to set the record straight.