Friday, August 19, 2022
CapitalPress.com 9
Farmers, customers scramble to make plans after flour mill fire
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
PENDLETON, Ore. — Pacific
Northwest wheat farmers are mak-
ing plans to cope with the fallout
from a massive early-morning fire
Aug. 10 that left the Grain Craft
flour mill in Pendleton a “total loss.”
As of 2 p.m. Aug. 15 the mill was
still smoldering due to the amount of
grain and finished flour in the build-
ing, Pendleton Police Chief Chuck
Byram told the Capital Press.
Representatives of Grain Craft,
insurance adjustors and state fire
marshal investigators were on site to
develop a plan to secure the building
and put out the fire, Byram said.
“They’re just in the initial stages
of trying to implement a plan to fig-
ure out what we’re going to do with
the rest of that building,” he said.
The company is working with
farmers to handle the excess sup-
ply, said Natalie Faulkner, director
of communications for Grain Craft,
based in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The building was more than 100
years old, Faulkner said. Twenty-two
employees worked in the mill. There
were no injuries in the fire.
Byram said the mill was a “total
loss.” The fire is “one of the most
significant” in his more than 20
years in law enforcement and in
Pendleton.
“It’s one of those things where
people are going to have to adjust,”
he said. “Hopefully, Grain Craft is
able to get back in business here
in Pendleton. Not only are they
an employer, but a lot of farmers
depend on them for their services.”
The company does not disclose
the production capacity of the build-
ing, Faulkner said. The extent of the
damage and possibility of rebuilding
are not yet known, she added.
“It’s still an active situation, we
are still evaluating everything, just
trying to understand the cause and
circumstances,” Faulkner told the
Capital Press.
Ben Maney, president of Oregon
Wheat Growers League, farms north
of Pendleton.
He doesn’t take his grain to the
facility, but “a substantial amount of
farmers” in the area do, he told the
Capital Press.
“It’s been a staple for the Pendle-
ton community for an awfully long
time, generations, and it’s always
Kathy Aney/EO Media Group
Flames shoot from the Grain
Craft flour mill in Pendleton,
Ore., on Aug. 10.
been a central location (in) town,”
he said.
The fire is the latest hit for
growers, after experiencing severe
drought last year, Maney said. Many
crops had rebounded this year with
spring rains.
“A lot of farmers don’t have
home storage, and they can’t store
that grain on their farm,” he said.
“For this heartbreaking event to hap-
pen today, it puts the community and
a lot of the farmers in a tough situa-
tion. It hits the community hard.”
Jeremy Bunch, CEO of Shep-
herd’s Grain, a farmer-owned flour
company, sent an email to customers
about the fire.
“We are working on a contin-
gency plan now and getting wheat
staged for movement to another
Grain Craft mill,” Bunch said.
“Unfortunately, there will be an
interruption in flour supply as we
work through these details. We apol-
ogize for the inconvenience this
causes. We are working hard to min-
imize this flour supply interruption
and will provide a timeline update
very soon.”
The cause of the fire was
“mechanical failure,” Byram, the
police chief, told the Capital Press.
On Aug. 9, dispatchers received a
report of black smoke coming from
the mill, “with no visible flames,”
according to a police department
press release. The fire department
responded, extinguished the small
fire and remained on fire watch.
The fire subsequently reignited
at about 4 a.m. Aug. 10 and the
mill became fully engulfed due
to the dry grain and the wooden
structure, Byram said.
Employees identified the source
of the fire, Byram said.
“It happened in the mill itself,
with one of the pieces of equip-
ment, with a rubber bushing or
housing that obviously got too hot
and started the fire,” he said.
There were no injuries, he said.
It’s the middle of harvest,
Byram said, so the mill was pro-
cessing a lot of flour. He didn’t
have an exact figure, but said
Grain Craft employees estimated
there were “hundreds of thousands
of pounds of processed flour in the
bins.”
Some surrounding buildings
have been damaged by water and
smoke, Byram said.
The Pendleton Fire Depart-
ment, Umatilla Tribal Fire Depart-
ment, Umatilla County Fire Dis-
trict No. 1 and other agencies
responded to the scene, at 501 S.E.
Emigrant Ave.
Pendleton Assistant Fire Chief
Tony Pierotti told the East Orego-
nian newspaper the silos were full of
finished grain, so the fuel load was
“extreme.”
Valley Wide Cooperative, Bleyhl Farm Service to merge
supply, energy, agronomy
and feed.
Bleyhl has over 800
members
and
more
than 4,000 customers in
south-central Washington.
The combined coopera-
tive will employ more than
1,300. Valley Wide said it
will add the Bleyhl loca-
tions and maintain all other
operations and staff at exist-
ing Valley Wide sites.
Bleyhl, by merging into
Valley Wide, is position-
ing itself and its farmer
owners “to take advantage
of the leverage, scale and
resources of a $750 million
farm supply organization,”
CEO Joel Marcott said in
a release. The merger will
“empower our cooperative
with the supply chain, cap-
ital and network to remain
competitive against other
agribusinesses while pro-
tecting the values associ-
ated with the cooperative
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Juliet Marshall/University of Idaho
Barley growing in eastern Idaho.
NASS reduces Idaho barley
production estimate by 14%
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
USDA’s National Agri-
cultural Statistics Service
has reduced its Idaho barley
production estimate for this
year, but the crop will still be
much larger than the drought-
stricken 2021 harvest.
NASS said its Aug. 1 fore-
cast calls for production of
53.2 million bushels, down
14% from its July 1 prediction
but up 22% from last year’s
crop.
Yield is expected to aver-
age 95 bushels per acre, down
14% from the 111 bushels
forecast July 1.
About 560,000 acres of
barley are expected to be har-
vested this year, up 14% from
490,000 acres in 2021.
Mike Wilkins, a state Bar-
ley Commission board mem-
ber who farms near Rupert in
the south-central region, said
his irrigated, spring-planted
crop appears to be “a strong
average — maybe a pinch
better — and way better than
last year.”
He said his yields are up 30
to 40 bushels an acre from last
year, depending on the indi-
vidual field. His yield last year
was 30 to 40 bushels off the
long-term average.
“Average yield pays the
bills,” said Willkins. “We’re
pretty happy.”
Some winter-planted bar-
ley may not do as well as the
crop planted in the spring, he
said.
Newdale-area
grower
Dwight Little said neighbors
tell him the dryland crop in
eastern Idaho is headed for
below-average yields, and
the irrigated crop also is “see-
ing some effects of continual
heat.”
Plants in the region
emerged during the unusu-
ally cool, wet spring with
extra horizontal tillers to
fill. Hot, dry conditions fol-
lowed quickly and have per-
sisted. Little said in much of
the dryland crop “there was
not enough moisture to sup-
port what the plant thought it
could produce.”
Results appear mixed in
eastern Idaho irrigated bar-
ley, he said. The supply of irri-
gation water was larger than
expected, thanks to the wet
late spring, but a few growers
were still short on water.
In soil with insufficient
moisture, a stretch of high
heat slows the plant, Little
said. “Barley needs continu-
ous replenishment of mois-
ture it is losing.”
He said some growers in
high-elevation areas near the
state’s southeast corner got
good moisture at emergence,
and beneficial monsoon rain
more recently. That crop
looks good but was planted
late, so it will finish closer to
the first frost.
“This thing just changes
with the weather,” Little said.
“You can’t ever sing your
good fortune till you cash
your check.”
Idaho-based Valley Wide
Cooperative will gain loca-
tions in agriculture-rich
central Washington while
Bleyhl
Farm
Service
will have access to more
resources when they merge
on Oct. 1.
Bleyhl fields Washing-
ton retail and energy loca-
tions in Sunnyside, Zil-
lah and Grandview, where
the cooperative also has
its headquarters, agron-
omy operation and fertilizer
plant.
Nampa,
Idaho-based
Valley Wide will add them
to its current 80 locations on
Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Wash-
ington and Wyoming. Sales
for Valley Wide, which has
just over 3,200 members,
totaled $598.8 million in
the fiscal year ended Aug.
31. Segments include farm
model.”
He said other bene-
fits include greater buy-
ing power and seasonal
risk diversification across a
larger geographic area and
“access to resources to meet
the challenges of an increas-
ingly competitive industry.”
Valley Wide’s merg-
ers “are not about becom-
ing part of a big organiza-
tion that throws its weight
around,” CEO Dave Holtom
said, but rather “local coop-
eratives in communities
across the PNW working
under one brand, and lever-
aging that brand and unified
volume to take the advan-
tage back to all the com-
munities and customers we
serve.”
In global agriculture
and energy enterprises, “it
will take all of us working
together to not only com-
pete, but to flourish,” he
said.
Valley
Wide
will
increase its board of direc-
tors to 12 members by add-
ing one from Bleyhl. The
Valley Wide board added
three members last year in
its merger with Ag Link, a
northeast Washington coop-
erative with seven locations.
The Bleyhl merger is a
“natural step” following
the Ag Link merger, Erica
Louder, the Valley Wide
communications director,
told Capital Press. It sub-
stantially increases service
opportunities in the Yakima
Valley, and “we can serve a
lot more of ag.”
She said Bleyhl’s orchard
and vineyard supply seg-
ment provides a new oppor-
tunity for Valley Wide.
Bleyhl and Valley Wide
members recently voted
to approve the merger by
95% and 87%, respectively.
Financial details were not
released.
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