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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2015
Ecotrust calls for stake in ‘Ag of the Middle’
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Oregon’s medium-sized
ag producers churn out
high-quality meat, grain and
greens, but gaps in the ag-
gregation, processing and
distribution infrastructure
make it difficult to put on
consumers’ plates at an af-
fordable price.
A new report from
Ecotrust, a Portland nonprof-
it, calls for investment in “Ag
of the Middle” producers and
the network that can sustain
a strong regional food econ-
omy.
The report, “Oregon Food
Infrastructure Gap Analysis,”
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producers as too big to survive
by selling only at farmers’
markets or to CSAs (commu-
nity-supported agriculture),
ONLINE
http://bit.ly/1Kxg19t
ERICK MORTENSON — Capital Press
Ecotrust, a Portland nonprofit, is retrofitting a former iron-
works to become a regional food development and distri-
bution hub. The group published a report on infrastructure
gaps that hamper medium sized growers and producers.
but too small compete in com-
modity markets.
“It’s absolutely the most
painful place to be as a pro-
ducer,” said Amanda Oborne,
one of the report’s authors
and Ecotrust’s food and farms
vice president.
The 250-page study de-
scribes a haphazard system in
which growers and other food
producers spend too much
time on the supply chain in-
stead of developing their
product. They must cobble to-
gether outlets, pick, pack and
store things themselves and
deliver small amounts to mul-
tiple buyers.
Neighborhood
grocery
stores in Portland, especially
those catering to consumers
willing to pay more for local,
organic or sustainably pro-
duced food, are besieged by
clusters of delivery vehicles.
Some of them amount to a
cooler in the trunk of a grow-
er’s car. In Portland’s increas-
Merger: Deal should be
done by the end of the year
ingly busy streets, getting from
store to store isn’t easy.
The founder of Portland’s
Bowery Bagels, which uses
Northwest grains, told the report
writers he delivers to 114 outlets
on weekdays. “I can make more
bagels,” CEO Michael Madigan
is quoted as saying, “but I can’t
deliver any more.”
The report says Ag of the
Middle producers often lack
branding or marketing strate-
gy and do without communi-
cations and strategic planning.
The result is a system that
is “highly fragmented, lacking
consistent data and informa-
tion, and dependent on person-
al relationships,” according to
the study.
Ecotrust is investing in the
solution. The organization is
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building in Portland’s eastside
industrial area to be a food de-
velopment, storage and distri-
bution hub.
The building on Southeast
Salmon Street — called “The
Redd” after the egg nests
salmon make in streams —
will have 16,000 square feet
of development, incubator or
processing space for meat,
grain and greens. A mezza-
nine will contain 8,000 square
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space.
A building next door will
have cold storage and ware-
housing space, and a delivery
company that uses electric car-
go bicycles capable of hauling
up to 800 pounds of product to
restaurants or other customers.
Portland has a reputation
as a “foodie” city, but Oborne
said Ecotrust and its part-
ners are intent on developing
a “food system, not a food
scene.”
Visit us online at
www.DailyAstorian.com
Continued from Page 1A
6 5th annual
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showcasing the students of Maddox Dance Studio
S ATURDAY JUN E 13 • 2:30PM & 6:30PM
S UN DAY JUN E 14 • 2:30 PM
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Reg ister
N ow
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
Charter Communications is buying Time Warner Cable for
about $55 billion.
Commission Chairman Tom
Wheeler said that the FCC
weighs every merger on its
own to see if it will be in the
public interest, and that “an
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cient.” He said the FCC “will
look to see how American
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from the deal.
“One has to be sober about
genuine risks that this deal
could still be rejected,” said
MoffettNathanson’s
Craig
Moffett in a research note
Tuesday, given the number of
Internet and TV subscribers
involved.
The deal comes with a
$2 billion break-up fee if it
doesn’t go through. If regu-
lators don’t approve it, Char-
ter would pay Time Warner
Cable; if Time Warner Cable
kills the deal and goes with
another buyer, it’ll pay.
Charter Communications
Inc., based in Stamford,
Conn., will provide $100
in cash and shares of a new
public parent company equal
to 0.5409 shares of Charter
for each outstanding Time
Warner Cable Inc. share. The
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File
A Time Warner Cable truck is parked in New York.
Barnhart: Her
family tried to help
Continued from Page 1A
Clatsop County, Co-
lumbia Memorial Hospital,
Providence Seaside Hospi-
tal and Greater Oregon Be-
havioral Health are moving
forward with a crisis respite
center in Warrenton, which
could provide an alternative
for the mentally ill when
prison or hospitalization are
not options.
Artanya Barnhart shared
her gratitude toward the As-
toria Police, in particular, for
trying to help her mother. She
also thanked Norman Tutton,
a retired Wyoming police of-
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and has taken an interest in
the circumstances surround-
ing Barnhart’s death.
The family has declined
to discuss Barnhart’s mental
health in detail, other than
to say they had tried to help
her.
“My mom was battling
with mental issues for a long
time,” Artanya Barnhart
said. “In my opinion, she
wasn’t asking for help, she
was screaming for help.
“And she did not get the
help that she needed.”
transaction values each Time
Warner Cable share at about
$195.71.
The companies on Tues-
day valued New York-based
Time Warner Cable at a total
of $78.7 billion, including
debt.
The deal is expected to be
completed by the end of the
year.
Photo by James Olson | Alderbrook Imaging
John Malone’s Liber-
ty Broadcast Corp., which
owns more than a quarter of
Charter’s stock, is backing
the acquisition, which puts
Charter in the same league as
Comcast. Liberty Broadband
is expected to own about 20
percent of the new Charter,
which will also include Bright
House Networks, a smaller
cable provider Charter said
Tuesday it is buying for $10.4
billion.
Charter, combined with
Time Warner Cable and
Bright House, will have
nearly 24 million customers,
compared with Comcast’s
27.2 million. It also lags
AT&T, whose pending deal
with DirecTV would give it
26.4 million TV customers
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net customers as well as tens
of millions of wireless cus-
tomers.
Whether
government
regulators will approve the
Charter deal after quashing
Comcast’s bid for Time War-
ner Cable remains to be seen.
The Comcast deal would have
given it more than half of the
country’s high-speed Internet
subscribers, which the gov-
ernment feared would give it
the power to undermine on-
line video competitors.
Charter will have less than
30 percent of those fast-broad-
band customers, the company
said Tuesday.
“We’re a very different
company from Comcast and
this is a very different transac-
tion,” said Charter CEO Tom
Rutledge on a conference call
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going to get done,” said Time
Warner Cable CEO Rob Mar-
cus.
In a statement Tuesday,
Federal
Communications
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