Friday, June 3, 2022
CapitalPress.com 9
Meadowfoam growers bring processing in-house
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Oregon
meadowfoam growers have
begun extracting oil from the
seed crop themselves with a
new processing facility that’s
intended to make them more
self-sufficient.
“Eventually, we got to the
scale where there’s money to
be made by bringing man-
ufacturing in-house,” said
Mike Martinez, CEO of the
Oregon Meadowfoam Grow-
ers cooperative. “It’s the next
logical step.”
The cooperative has
already moved into the new
15,000-square-foot facility in
Salem, Ore., and expects to
fully complete the $2.5 mil-
lion project before the new
meadowfoam crop is har-
vested this summer.
Farmers in the cooper-
ative have outsourced pro-
cessing of meadowfoam
seeds, whose oil is used in
cosmetics, since the organi-
zation formed in the 1980s.
“Everything historically
was contracted out,” Marti-
nez said.
However, that approach
was risky because the mead-
owfoam seeds were handled
by food processors who typi-
cally extract oil from crops at
a much larger scale.
When the entire Oregon
meadowfoam crop is pro-
cessed in a few days by large
machinery, any malfunction
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Meadowfoam grows in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Growers have invested in a new
meadowfoam processing facility.
Charles Ortiz, field operations manager for the Oregon
Meadfoam Growers cooperative, with bags of mead-
foam oilseeds that are ready for processing.
has the potential to damage
a substantial portion of the
state’s output, Martinez said.
“It’s a lot less risky from
our perspective to have a
fixed asset where we’re pro-
cessing three-quarters of the
year,” he said.
Under the previous
out-sourcing approach, the
cooperative was unable to
finish processing the crop
until early in the year fol-
lowing harvest, he said. It
took time to consolidate and
ship the meadowfoam seeds
to a facility in California.
Now, the cooperative
expects that it will begin
processing soon after farm-
ers deliver meadowfoam
seeds in late July, which also
reduces the time they spend
waiting for payment.
“You can get cash cycled
seed farmers, said Charles
Ortiz, the cooperative’s field
operations manager.
“It’s a simple crop to
grow,” he said.
A big advantage is that
meadowfoam is a broadleaf
crop, which expands options
for herbicides, he said. Grass
weeds can be controlled in it
with older chemistry that is
less expensive.
“There are some chronic
grass weeds that meadow-
foam helps break the cycle
of,” Ortiz said. “You have
to break the biological cycle
for them.”
Killing grass weeds
within grass seed crops
requires specialized herbi-
cide formulations that are
costlier than those that work
in a broadleaf crop such as
meadowfoam, he said.
Capital Press File
back to the grower faster,”
Martinez said.
Last year, the coopera-
tive’s marketing arm, Nat-
ural Plant Products, saw
its sales grow 25% over
the previous year due to
increased spending on cos-
metics during the coro-
navirus pandemic, which
reduced spending on ser-
vices, he said.
That upward growth tra-
jectory won’t likely remain
as steep but the cooperative
expects to keep the custom-
ers it gained in 2021, Marti-
nez said. “You don’t land a
whale every year.”
Meadowfoam seeds will
fetch 70 cents per pound for
the 2022 crop, up from 65
cents per pound last year, he
said. The price has remained
largely flat for the past
decade but yields have risen
from roughly 700 pounds
to 1,000 pounds per acre as
farmers refined agronomic
practices.
Acreage has likewise
been stable at about 5,000
to 6,000 acres in Oregon’s
Willamette Valley in recent
years, though the coopera-
tive bumped up production to
7,000 acres last year to build
an inventory for the change
in manufacturing methods.
While
meadowfoam
prices haven’t been enough
for farmers to “drool over,”
the crop generates a profit
and serves as a valuable rota-
tion for grass seed, Martinez
said.
Due to reduced costs
for fertilizer and chemi-
cals, meadowfoam is also
a low-input crop for grass
“New means expen-
sive in the chemical world
because somebody’s got to
make their money back for
the research,” Ortiz said.
The cooperative has
recently seen its fortunes
improve after experienc-
ing economic volatility in
the early 2000s, when an
oversupply brought acreage
down to nominal levels.
A distributor for mead-
owfoam oil over-contracted
for the crop in the late 1990s,
placing much larger orders
than the demand would jus-
tify. The resulting oversup-
ply prompted the coopera-
tive to largely cease growing
the crop aside from research
purposes between 2000 and
2006.
“It was way out of bal-
ance,” Martinez said.
R-CALF loses case over eartags
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Carissa Cook, development director for Willamette Val-
ley Vineyards, enjoys a glass of wine at the company’s
new restaurant in Lake Oswego, Ore.
Oregon winery expands
into restaurant business
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
LAKE OSWEGO, Ore.
— Wine is often intended to
enhance the flavor of food,
but Willamette Valley Vine-
yards wants to prove the
inverse is also true at its new
off-site restaurants.
“The food is there to
highlight the wine and
showcase the wine,” said
Carissa Cook, the Ore-
gon-based
company’s
development director. “The
food will be a support to the
wine.”
The company recently
opened the first restaurant
in Lake Oswego, Ore., and
plans to open two more this
year, in Vancouver, Wash.,
and Happy Valley, Ore. A
fourth restaurant is planned
for next year in Bend, Ore.
Jim Bernau, the winery’s
president and CEO, does not
plan to stop there, ultimately
aiming for 50 locations, Cook
said. “He wants them all over
the country eventually.”
Food is already served at
a full restaurant at the com-
pany’s headquarters near
Salem, Ore., where its impact
was big enough to help spur
the broader investment in off-
site eateries.
“We found the customers
stay a little longer and spend
a little more when there’s a
food component,” Cook said.
“They’re doing that because
they form a connection with
this wine.”
Memorable food expe-
riences while people sip
Willamette Valley Vine-
yards wines are expected
to strengthen the compa-
ny’s brand, but the restau-
rants are meant to substan-
tially boost its revenue as
well.
Each location is projected
to generate more than $2 mil-
lion in wine and food sales,
including the bottles that cus-
tomers buy to take home.
Last year, the publicly
traded company had nearly
$32 million in revenues, so
if the four initial restaurants
perform as planned, they’d
increase sales by roughly
25%.
“We definitely expect sig-
nificant bottle sales through
here,” Cook said. “We expect
to be hitting revenue with the
restaurants.”
Restaurant visits are also
expected to provide a lon-
ger-term sales lift, with each
location projected to gener-
ate 600 wine club member-
ships a year. Club members
are generally more loyal to
the brand and buy more wine.
The restaurants will also
feature a selection of beers
and cocktails for non-wine
drinkers, but will only sell
wines produced by Willa-
mette Valley Vineyards, sea-
sonally highlighting varietals
from across the state.
“It’s a chance to show-
case the wines’ full poten-
tial,” Cook said. “This is
really trying to create a brand
experience.”
To emphasize wine sales,
the restaurants will charge
for glasses and bottles at the
same price point as at the
winery.
A glass of wine typically
costs about four times more
when purchased at a restau-
rant, so the savings for cus-
tomers will be considerable,
Cook said.
“We’re not doing a restau-
rant markup,” she said, not-
ing that higher restaurant
prices can discourage wine
consumption with restaurant
meals. “It’s hard when you
know you can go to the gro-
cery store and get the wine
cheaper.”
Wine club members get
20% off the price of wines,
while the company’s share-
holders get a 25% discount.
Both are given priority for
reservations.
“Owners get the top ech-
elon of perks,” Cook said.
“We want to be sure they feel
good about their investment.”
The restaurant locations
were influenced by where
the company’s shareholders
live and the level of inter-
est in food and wine experi-
ences in the neighborhoods,
she said.
Ranchers have lost their
appeal in a case against
USDA that alleges the
agency violated the Federal
Advisory Committee Act, or
FACA, in its effort to man-
date radio frequency identi-
fication eartags.
Identification is required
on all adult cattle and bison
entering into interstate com-
merce. But current law
gives producers flexibility in
deciding which type of iden-
tification to use, including
low-cost metal eartags.
R-CALF
USA has
strongly opposed a man-
date for the exclusive use
of RFID, saying it would be
costly and burdensome to
producers and a case of gov-
ernment overreach to benefit
RFID eartag manufacturers.
The 10th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in Wyo-
ming on Friday ruled against
R-CALF and four indepen-
dent ranchers in their appeal
of a federal judge’s dismissal
of their amended lawsuit in
May 2021.
The amended lawsuit
sought to prohibit USDA
Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service from
using the work product of
two committees allegedly
formed in violation of the
advisory committee act
RFID ear tags on a cow.
should the agency proceed
with future efforts to man-
date RFID tags.
R-CALF contended the
committees consisted of
RFID manufacturers and
other advocates and alleged
they pursued the precise
agenda dictated to them by
APHIS.
In her 2021 dismissal,
U.S. District Judge Nancy
Freudenthal ruled APHIS
did not form or select the
membership of the Cattle
Traceability Working Group
and the Producer Traceabil-
ity Council and did not exer-
cise management or con-
trol over the operations of
either. Therefore, APHIS is
free to use whatever work
product it obtained from the
committees.
The appeals court last
week agreed.
“We agree with the dis-
trict court that there is
no basis to conclude that
defendants either estab-
lished or utilized the (work-
ing group or the coun-
cil) within the meaning of
FACA,” the court said in
its decision.
APHIS employees sup-
posedly calling for the cre-
ation of an industry-led task
force does not prove defen-
dants actually established
either group. The evidence
in the record quite clearly
indicates that both groups
were formed and composed
of industry leaders, the court
said.
“Consequently, we reject
plaintiffs’ requests to direct
the entry of judgment in their
favor. Instead we affirm the
district court’s decision in its
entirety,” the court said.
“We are disappointed but
not surprised that the appel-
late court would not rein in
the USDA’s action of estab-
lishing and utilizing hand-
picked committees to assist
it in crafting public policy
outside the public’s view,”
said Bill Bullard, R-CALF
CEO.
R-CALF has litigated the
case for nearly three years,
but it is over and R-CALF is
now focusing on the USDA’s
new RFID rulemaking
effort. USDA has submitted
a proposed mandatory RFID
rule to the White House
Office of Management and
Budget, he said.
Fish and Game gains ground on crop
depredation in south-central Idaho
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Idaho
Department
of Fish and Game staff-
ers say crop destruction by
elk, as reflected in depre-
dation claim spending, has
dropped substantially in the
south-central region.
Claims paid to landown-
ers in the region last sum-
mer totaled about $215,000,
the lowest in six years,
compared to $543,000 in
the summer of 2020, said
Terry Thompson, a regional
spokesman for the depart-
ment. Claims totaled 11 last
summer, down from 16.
Managers aim to build on
the success by honing tech-
niques developed in the past
few years.
John Guthrie, regional
habitat biologist and former
longtime landowner-sports-
man coordinator, led a field
study of depredation-re-
duction tactics in 2018 and
2019.
“We have been imple-
menting these in a manage-
ment sense,” he said. “We
are starting to see success.”
Recently, more elk stayed
out of fields where Fish and
Game used a tall, temporary
version of electric fencing.
They also stayed away or
left in response to propane
cannons or shotgun shells
that fire a noisy, firecrack-
er-like projectile. Radio col-
lar data help managers track
movement.
Guthrie said the study
proved the electric fencing
effective at creating “more
of a psychological barrier
for elk” but was not immedi-
ately embraced by landown-
ers. The approach has gained
acceptance in the last two
years among landowners.
The electric fence is
installed on top of typi-
cal rangeland pasture fence
posts. Polyvinyl chloride
tubes, equipped with electri-
fied wire, are then slid over
the top of fence posts, mak-
ing them 2 to 3 feet taller. He
said the PVC is quick and
easy to install and remove.
“The lift has really been
by private landowners being
willing to accept and engage
in those tools,” Guthrie said.
Mike
McDonald,
regional wildlife manager
in Twin Falls, said about
40% of the region’s dam-
age claims involve elk get-
ting into corn. The region is
a major corn producer, and
the depredation claims can
be expensive.
“One issue we continue
to wrestle with is elk in
standing corn,” he said.
Guthrie said the number
of corn-related claims has
stayed about steady in the
region since 2017, but loca-
tions have varied as land-
owners and wildlife man-
agers reduce depredation in
one area, and then see new
pressure in another.
Crop depredation by elk
is more common south of
Interstate 84 and the Snake
River, he said.
“Those new depreda-
tions are probably occurring
because we have slightly
growing elk populations in
those areas, but I would ven-
ture to say they are as much
or more based on changes in
ag practices” like growing
more corn, Guthrie said.
Aside from deterrence,
hazing and other non-lethal
methods, the department
can lethally remove the ani-
mals using public depreda-
tion hunts and landowner
kill permits.
Guthrie said the Fish and
Game Commission has been
proactive in adjusting pub-
lic hunting seasons and tag
allocations to the region’s
elk population where it is
higher than the landscape
can support.
Thompson said that in the
Pioneer and Smoky-Ben-
nett zones, which encom-
pass several big-game man-
agement units, more tags
were issued for antler-
less elk in 2019-20, result-
ing in elk populations fall-
ing to within management
targets.