Mail-order weed? You betcha!

With marijuana legalization across Canada on the horizon, the industry is shaping up to look different from the way it does in nine U.S. states that have legalized adult recreational use of the drug. Age limits, government involvement in distribution and sales, and access to banking are some big discrepancies.

And yes, Canadians will be able to order cannabis online and have it delivered through the mail — something that’s illegal in the United States.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday that marijuana will be legal nationwide on Oct. 17. In the meantime, Canada’s provinces and cities are working out issues concerning how cannabis will be regulated.

Here’s what to expect:

It’s up to the provinces and territories to determine how to handle distribution, and they’re taking a variety of approaches.

Ontario plans to open up to 150 stores run by its Liquor Control Board — a model of public ownership that is unusual in the U.S. The tiny Washington state town of North Bonneville has one city-owned pot shop.

British Columbia is planning for a mix of public and privately owned stores, while Newfoundland and Saskatchewan will have only private pot shops. In some remote areas where stand-alone marijuana stores might not be economically feasible, including in the Northwest Territories, cannabis could be sold at existing liquor stores.

Just like U.S. states with legal pot, the provinces also differ on home-growing, with many allowing up to four plants and others, including Quebec, barring it.

And rather than a minimum age of 21, as U.S. states have set, Canada’s federal minimum age to use marijuana will be 18, with most provinces adding an additional year.

The varying approaches make the provinces something of a laboratory for determining the best ways to legalize, said Matt Gray, founder and chief executive of Herb, a Toronto-based news and social media platform for the pot industry.

“It’s this amazing case study for countries globally to see the amazing benefits that legalizing cannabis can have on things like the economy, eradicating the black market and getting cannabis out of the hands of minors,” he said.

Whether run by the government or private entities, the stores will obtain their marijuana from federally licensed growers. Officials also will set a minimum price.

Canada’s finance ministers have pegged it at about $10 per gram, but the Yukon minister in charge of marijuana says the government hopes to displace more of the illegal market by setting the base at $8.

The government wants to tax legal marijuana at either $1 per gram or one-tenth of a product’s price, whichever is greater, plus federal and provincial sales taxes. It’s likely to be less than the taxes imposed in the states.

Washington state’s tax rate is 37 percent, plus state and local sales taxes. In California, licensed pot businesses are blaming total tax rates that can approach 50 percent for driving people back into the black market.

The Canadian government agreed to give provinces and territories 75 percent of the tax revenue.

Canada’s cannabis businesses have a massive advantage over their American counterparts: access to banks.

Because the drug is still illegal under U.S. law, major banks have been loath to do business with the industry, even in legal marijuana states.

U.S. Treasury Department data show a slow increase in the number of banks and credit unions maintaining accounts for marijuana businesses, with 411 reporting such accounts last spring.

But many of those institutions don’t provide full-service banking, making it tough for businesses to get loans.

“The major Canadian banks were slow to warm to this,” said Chris Barry, a Seattle-based marijuana business attorney who handles industry transactions in both countries for the law firm Dorsey and Whitney.

He said smaller independent banks, investment banks and brokerage firms got the work started.

“That has pretty much dissolved as a problem,” Barry said. “The majors are coming around to participate in the market.”

Some consumers are disappointed that store shelves will only stock dried flower, oils and seeds when sales begin — no edibles. The government has said it needs about another year to develop regulations for edibles.

There’s also a labeling issue: Health Canada has dictated large warning labels on otherwise plain packages, with strict restrictions on font sizes, styles and colors. The idea is to discourage misuse and to avoid appealing to youths, but it also leaves very little room for company logos or branding.

“It looks like each bag is housing radioactive waste,” said Chris Clay, owner of Warmland Cannabis Centre, a medical marijuana dispensary on Vancouver Island. “It’s a tiny logo with this huge warning label. It doesn’t leave much room for craft growers that want to differentiate themselves.”

And that, Clay said, is one of many things that will make it difficult for mom-and-pop growers to thrive. Giant cannabis companies have been entering deals to supply marijuana to the provinces.

While micro-producers are allowed, Clay is worried that by the time rules are released, “all the contracts are going to be scooped up.”

While getting marijuana by mail may be a novel concept in the U.S., it’s nothing new in Canada. Its postal service has been shipping medical marijuana to authorized patients since 2013.

“Many of our processes are in place today for medicinal cannabis and will continue for any regulated product sent through Canada Post from licensed distributors,” Canada Post said in a written statement.

The agency requires proof of age upon delivery and won’t leave the package in your mailbox or on your doorstep if you’re not home.

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Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

The Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council will be considering new rules to determine whether multiple solar power projects should be regulated as a single facility.

The seven-member council decides whether to approve or reject the location of large power-generating facilities, including solar projects bigger than 100 acres of farmland or 320 acres of other land.

On June 29, the council is expected to appoint a “rulemaking advisory committee” to consider whether several smaller solar projects can “functionally aggregate” to become a facility that would otherwise come under its regulatory jurisdiction.

For example, a developer site two separate projects, each encompassing 60 acres, on a 120-acre plot. Could that be considered in reality one project subject to regulation.

If so, the committee would recommend criteria to determine whether multiple solar projects have crossed this threshold and whether specific rules are necessary for such situations.

Projects under the EFSC’s jurisdiction are reviewed for their impact on fish and wildlife, potential for noise, and effects on soil, among other factors. They’re also subject to bonding and insurance requirements to ensure money is available for their eventual decommissioning.

The “rulemaking project” is getting underway at a time of increasing scrutiny of solar projects on farmland in Oregon, with new proposals encountering opposition and county governments enacting restrictions on siting.

Some of the controversy has centered on solar projects below the Energy Facility Siting Council’s jurisdiction, such as a 70-acre project that’s being appealed in Clackamas County and an 80-acre project that was blocked in Jackson County.

Two standalone solar projects currently under consideration by EFSC are substantially larger: one would top 5,000 acres while the other would be as large as 7,000 acres, both in Lake County in southcentral Oregon.

It’s currently an “open question” whether an additional regulatory structure is needed for multiple facilities that aggregate into a larger project, with members of the rules advisory committee likely having differing opinions on the issue, said Todd Cornett, Oregon Department of Energy’s assistant director for siting.

A similar question arose in the past regarding wind energy projects, but the issue never led to a formal rulemaking process, Cornett said.

Instead, wind projects are evaluated based on 15 questions that probe proximity, ownership and other factors, with ODE offering an opinion on whether they would come under EFSC jurisdiction, he said.

It’s not uncommon developers to adjust projects so they’re subject to regulatory processes that are seen as more advantageous, said Jim Johnson, land use specialist with the Oregon Department of Agriculture who’s involved in the solar issue.

“Some people would argue historically that’s happened with a lot of land uses, not just solar,” he said.

Planting season for industrial hemp is well underway at a 3-acre farm near Boring, Ore., where Adam Kurtz is testing new seed varieties to ensure they meet regulatory guidelines.

Kurtz is entering his third season growing hemp to make products derived from cannabinoid, a chemical compound found in cannabis that reportedly offers health and nutrition benefits ranging from pain relief to reducing anxiety and depression. He began his company, Oregon Fusion, in 2016 with business partner Ed McCauley.

“Here we do a lot of different trials,” said Kurtz, kneeling to inspect one particular strain of hemp named Sour Space Candy. “We’re testing genetics a year in advance so we can offer them to our partner farms.”

Hemp growers such as Kurtz are optimistic about the future of the industry, especially after the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee last week included the Hemp Farming Act in its latest markup of the 2018 Farm Bill. Sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the provision defines hemp as an agricultural commodity and removes it from the list of federally controlled substances.

A full Senate vote on the Farm Bill could come as early as July 4.

If the House goes along with the Senate, the Farm Bill would provide clarity on hemp’s legality at the federal level. Under the legislation, states would become the primary regulators of hemp production. Hemp farmers could also become eligible to apply for crop insurance, and researchers studying hemp could apply for competitive grants through the USDA.

“It’s going to be a real interesting year,” Kurtz said. “Over the next 12 months, we’ll start seeing more states adopt hemp programs.”

For 25 years, Kurtz lived and worked in upstate New York as a fresh-cut flower farmer. He relocated to Oregon and founded Oregon Fusion to get a foot in the door of the upstart hemp industry.

Hemp has the potential to be a “major disruptor” in several facets of the U.S. agricultural economy, Kurtz believes.

“We are at its infancy in potential,” he said.

Though hemp and marijuana are both cannabis plants, hemp contains no more than 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component in pot that gets users high. Industrial hemp can be used in several food and health products, fiber, paper, plastic, cosmetics and building materials such as a mixture of hemp biomass and lime known as “hempcrete.”

Oregon Fusion grows hemp specifically for cannabinoid extract — known as CBD — that goes into mints and cigarettes, called cones. Kurtz said he believes consumer demand for the products is only going to increase, and Oregon is already blazing the trail for testing and quality standards.

“It’s like a rocket ship,” he said. “This thing is just exploding.”

McConnell, who also serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, introduced the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 in April, garnering bipartisan support from more than 25 senators, including Oregon Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.

On June 13, the committee passed the 2018 Farm Bill, which includes language from the Hemp Farming Act. In a statement, Wyden said hemp has proven itself as a “job-creating growth industry with far-reaching economic potential.”

“It’s just common sense that farmers in Oregon and across our country should be allowed to cultivate this cash crop,” Wyden said.

Courtney Moran, a Portland attorney and president of the Oregon Industrial Hemp Farmers Association, worked closely with the senators for more than a year crafting the bill’s language to clarify what she described as “gray areas” in federal law.

Moran said the bill more clearly defines hemp to include any part of the plant — including all seeds, derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers and salts.

“When we say any part of the plant, we truly mean any part of the plant,” Moran said.

Joy Beckerman, a lobbyist and consultant with Hemp Ace International and president of the Hemp Industries Association, said the bill provides much-needed clarity on hemp’s legal status, opening the door to investors and interstate commerce that will allow the industry to flourish.

Beckerman, who was a key figure in drafting rules for Washington state’s hemp program before she moved to New York, said CBD extract is driving the industry for now, though additional investment could help pay for infrastructure to tap into what she calls the “trillion-dollar industries,” namely paper, fiber and construction.

While there is no official estimate for U.S. hemp sales, the Hemp Industries Association reports that retail sales for hemp products totaled nearly $600 million in 2015.

“This bill is going to catapult the hemp industry in the U.S.,” Beckerman said.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 35 states have already passed industrial hemp statutes.

House Bill 4060 established rules for Oregon’s Industrial Hemp Program in 2016. By the end of the year, the state had 70 registered hemp growers, 53 handlers and a little more than 1,200 total acres.

Since then, the program has seen a sharp increase in year-to-year registration. In 2017, the numbers swelled to 233 growers, 176 handlers and 3,400 acres. The same year, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1015, allowing licensed processors to make CBD extracts.

So far in 2018, there are more than 420 growers, 122 handlers and 7,800 acres. As a comparison, that is more than the total acreage devoted to hops in Oregon in 2016, when 7,765 acres were grown.

“It’s pretty dramatic,” Gary McAninch, industrial hemp program manager for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said of the growth.

ODA not only handles registration of growers and handlers, but oversees testing of the product to ensure it does not exceed the 0.3 percent THC threshold. This year, McAninch said the program will also allow private accredited labs to conduct testing.

“We got very busy last year doing that, and we got stretched pretty thin because we had limited staff,” he said.

Meanwhile, the industrial hemp pilot program in Washington state has been slower to gain traction.

Hector Castro, spokesman for the Washington State Department of Agriculture, said the pilot was created in 2016 with a one-time appropriation of $145,000. During the first year, 2017, it registered just four growers, one seed distributor, one processor and one combined grower-processor, raising $8,000 from those seven licenses.

The hemp pilot was suspended during the winter heading into its second year before lawmakers came up with $100,000 to save it. Castro said just one license holder, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, has applied for renewal on 120 acres.

“We would need to be in a position where the industry fees could support the program,” Castro said.

Other western states are farther behind the hemp bandwagon.

The state of Idaho does not currently allow the cultivation of industrial hemp. The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act took effect on Jan. 1, 2017, though registration is not yet available, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

Bonny Jo Peterson, a lobbyist for the Industrial Hemp Association of Washington, is undeterred by the lackluster start to that state’s hemp pilot. She said there is “a lot of excitement, as well as interest from farmers.”

If new regulations come out of the Farm Bill, Peterson said she believes there may be as many as 100 licensed growers in Washington by next year.

“There’s a lot of large farmers that are just waiting for it to be viable at the federal level for crop insurance,” Peterson said.

Peterson also said she plans to start growing hemp next year at a farm outside Sequim, Wash., on the Olympic Peninsula.

“My interest is in building materials and paper,” Peterson said. “I see the viability in food, plastics, biofuel and getting rid of fossil fuels. Those are the things that get me excited, and getting farmers back in control of their crops.”

Kurtz, with Oregon Fusion, said farmers can make up to $50,000 per acre growing hemp for CBD oil extract. That assumes the crop yields of about 2,000 pounds per acre, at $30 per pound. Expenses for farmers typically range from $10,000 to $15,000 per acre, he said.

Profits will increase with the development of higher-value markets, Kurtz said.

Gail Greenman, director of national affairs for the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the organization supports the federal Hemp Farming Act, providing farmers with another specialty crop to potentially grow their bottom line.

“We look forward to a more expansive market of products that Oregon farmers grow well, and can see an economic benefit not only to farmers in Oregon, but the state as a whole.”

Rick Walsh, a farmer near Klamath Falls, Ore., is planting roughly seven acres of hemp for the first time this year.

Walsh, who had been growing medical marijuana for the last couple of years, said he decided to switch to industrial hemp based on the recent glut of pot in Oregon. An article by the Associated Press reported there are nearly 1 million pounds of usable flower in the system, and an additional 350,000 pounds of marijuana extracts, edibles and tinctures.

“Basically, there’s so much marijuana around that it’s almost physically impossible to get rid of it,” Walsh said.

Walsh said he is growing hemp for the CBD extract, a market he believes will remain profitable for at least the next year or two before more competition enters the marketplace.

“I’m hoping to get in early enough to get some plants and ... prosper,” he said. “Right now, there’s quite a bit of demand.”

Brandon Scales, of Northwest Hemp Commodities, registered his business with the state earlier this year. He and his business partners are growing hemp at several locations statewide and working to open a storefront selling CBD oil extract and products in Salem within the next few months.

Anthony Rushford, a seed geneticist who has bred more than 200 strains of hemp, joined Northwest Hemp Commodities to help create a vertically integrated company, from seed to final product.

“I really think this is going to be a huge thing,” Rushford said. “The possibilities are endless.”

Scales said they also hope to break into the fiber and hempcrete markets as the business develops.

“Every part of that plant has a purpose,” Scales said. “I just see how beneficial it is and how many people it’s going to be able to help, and help the planet at the same time.”

Cows that produce milk early are more prone to develop mastitis, but this susceptibility can be detected with a blood test and countered with nutritional supplements, according to an animal scientist.

Gerd Bobe, an associate professor at Oregon State University, studied about 160 pregnant cows several weeks before they gave birth to calves, comparing those that eventually developed mastitis with those that didn’t.

Carbohydrates associated with milk production, such as lactose, usually did not appear in a cow’s blood until a few days before calving, he said.

Cattle that developed mastitis, however, had these metabolites in their blood three weeks before calving, indicating they’d begun producing milk early.

Also, cows don’t usually lose weight from muscle and calf loss before calving, but those susceptible to mastitis started breaking down those tissues earlier, as evidenced by amino acids in their blood.

This “catabolic process” makes less energy available for the bovine immune system to fight off infection.

Aside from supplements to help these cows’ immune systems, milking them before they calf could reduce the risk of infection by taking away the food source from pathogens, Bobe said.

“Also, there is less pressure in the mammary gland, which can cause damage to the tissue,” he said.

By taking preventive steps before the cow becomes infected with mastitis, the dairy producer can avoid treating the udder infection with antibiotics and generating unusable milk, he said.

Preventing unnecessary antibiotic use would have the added benefit of reducing the pressure on pathogens to build up a resistance to the drugs, Bobe said.

The ability to produce milk for a longer period of time also leaves the cow more vulnerable to pathogens, which is particularly true with older animals that are more prone to inflammation, he said.

Bobe hopes the dairy industry can use his findings to develop a simple test that would enable dairy farmers to quickly identify cows that would benefit from preventive treatments.

Reducing mastitis would also decrease the need to cull cows that suffer from chronic infections, he said.

Oregon parks officials believe a portion of the Nehalem river qualifies as “scenic,” but potential restrictions have met with consternation from agriculture and local government representatives.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department has completed a study concluding that 17.5 miles of the Nehalem river meets the criteria for scenic designation, such as free-flowing water, outstanding views and recreational opportunities.

The report was submitted on June 13 to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission, which oversees the agency and plans to vote on a “scenic” recommendation as early as November.

Restrictions meant to protect the natural features of scenic waterways can be problematic for landowners, particularly the requirement they notify OPRD at least one year before making certain changes to their property within a quarter-mile of the river.

During that time, the landowner can negotiate with the agency over possible alternative plans or a sale of the property.

In the forested areas surrounding the Nehalem River, the primary concern would be delayed timber harvesting, which is already regulated under the Oregon Forest Practices Act, said Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

“It’s a complicated structure that’s on top of anything else,” she said.

Changes to roads or farm buildings may also be hindered by the requirement, Cooper said.

Though the rules for scenic rivers do make allowances for agriculture, the construction or modification of a structure — such as a pumphouse — must be compatible with the surrounding aesthetics, she said.

Whether or not a design is visually obtrusive is a highly subjective question that could prove problematic for landowners, she said.

The scenic designation is also meant to protect river flows, potentially interfering with the development or transfer of new water rights, Cooper said. The protections may have implications for water quality, which is already regulated under other laws for agriculture and forestry.

The Farm Bureau is also skeptical whether the 17.5 mile stretch actually meets the criteria for a scenic designation, since the landscape has long been managed, she said.

“There are homes and roads throughout the area, so it’s not really undisturbed,” she said.

Tilamook County’s Board of Commissioners has also come out against the scenic designation, arguing that restrictions on logging will violate the state government’s duty to generate revenues from property donated by the county.

“Although we support public uses on the Nehalem River ... we cannot support the proposed designation as it fails to take into account the primacy of timber production on properties which the County deeded to the State decades ago,” according to a letter sent by the board.

An Oregon livestock nutrition company wants a former employee cited for contempt for violating an injunction in a lawsuit over the alleged theft of trade secrets.

Omnigen Research, which manufacturers a treatment for hemorrhagic bowel syndrome in cattle, has already won a lawsuit against the ex-employee, Wongqiang Wang, and been awarded $3.85 million in damages.

However, the company is asking a federal judge to sanction Wang for allegedly continuing his involvement with a Chinese company that’s reproduced Omnigen’s product in that country.

Wang is also accused of failing to turn over all his computers and other electronic media for Omnigen to review for confidential information and disregarding an order to re-assign a Chinese patent to his former employer.

“They’ve lied so many times they just can’t keep their story straight,” said Scott Davis, an attorney for Omnigen, during a June 19 hearing on the matter in Portland.

Omnigen was originally founded in Corvallis, Ore., by an Oregon State University professor, but was later sold to the Phibro animal health company.

In its motion for a finding of contempt, Omnigen asked U.S. District Judge Michael McShane to order the defendant incarcerated for civil contempt if he doesn’t comply with the earlier injunction and fines don’t work.

However, Wang did not appear at the June 19 hearing and his attorney, Roger Hennagin, said his client’s Chinese passport is revoked and he cannot leave that country.

Hennagin also asked to withdraw as Wang’s attorney, saying he hasn’t seen his client face-to-face since last year and is having trouble communicating about the case through email.

Davis, Omnigen’s attorney, said he was under the impression Wang was a legal permanent resident and could return to the U.S., so the situation is “all news to us and a surprise.”

Despite the injunction, Wang is deeply involved with Mirigen, a Chinese company that cloned Omnigen’s secret formula, he said. It’s implausible that he’s turned over all his electronic devices, as evidences by email communications.

Hennigan countered that Wang is using a computer at a university library in China.

“Much of their position is based on supposition, hypothesis and inferences,” he said.

Omnigen also asked for sanctions against Wang and his attorney for violating a protective order by viewing “attorneys eyes only” documents during the litigation, which began in 2016.

Hennagin acknowledged providing his client with access to these protected documents, citing his lack of technological expertise and his desire to save money for his client by not spending time separating them out from other documents.

“It was not a bad faith mistake,” he said, noting that he instructed Wang not to look at the protected files.

McShane took Omnigen’s requests under advisement but warned the company that potential relief was limited under the circumstances.

“I hope your client understands I can’t grant you police powers to seize things,” he said.

ORONDO, Wash. — Cherry harvest is off to a decent start in Central Washington with good quality, strong early prices and apparently not too big a labor shortage.

“Fruit quality is outstanding. We really have some outstanding sugar in our fruit this year,” said B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherry Growers in Yakima, the industry’s promotional arm.

Demand was out-pacing supply with 3 million, 20-pound boxes shipped as of June 19 and South Korea as the single biggest market averaging almost 40,000 boxes per day, Thurlby said.

That same morning in Orondo, 16 miles north of Wenatchee, a small army of 105 young H-2A-visa guestworkers, just a week on the job from Mexico, picked Orondo Ruby cherries at Griggs Orchards.

“We’ve increased our H-2A by 50 percent from last year, but we’ve had a lot of domestics stopping by, which is nice, and we’ve been hiring them,” said John Griggs, co-owner.

Labor has been tight for years industry-wide, but Griggs said California’s cherry crop, always earlier than Washington’s and Oregon’s, was light this year, which freed up pickers to move north sooner this year. He said he had 87 domestic pickers and could use 30 more. He was a week into full harvest with three to four to go.

California was still shipping a few boxes on June 19 and will finish just shy of 4 million, 18-pound boxes, Thurlby said. The Pacific Northwest, with Washington the bulk of it, expects to pick 20.4 million, 20-pound boxes into August, down 22.7 percent from last year’s record 26.4-million-box crop.

Tom Riggan, general manager of Chelan Fresh Marketing, said wholesale prices started in the $80- to $90-per-box range with limited volume in the first two weeks of June. As of June 19, prices were around $55 to $70 per box, depending on fruit size. Cherries were selling at $4.99 and $7.99 per pound in Wenatchee grocery stores.

Marketers will quickly adjust prices downward to help retailers make Fourth of July sales prices as volume substantially increases, Riggan said.

“Demand is there and quality is phenomenal. Size profile is better than last year and sugars are very high, so it’s setting up so far so good. When quality is there, it flies off the shelves,” Riggan said.

Helicopters were busy in the greater Wenatchee area June 15 and 16 blowing off cherries from rain. Griggs said he had two helicopters fly once over his orchards in Orondo and three to four times over his orchards farther north near Beebe Bridge, east of Chelan.

“We’ve come through really well. I haven’t seen any splits so far. I think it’s because it stayed cool and the rain was not very long in duration,” Griggs said.

Longer rain followed by hot weather swells and splits cherries, ruining them for market.

Thurlby said he was hearing more concern about wind than rain from growers throughout Central Washington.

Norm Gutzwiler, a Malaga grower south of Wenatchee, was preparing to start picking June 21 and he was having no trouble finding pickers because of those coming up from California.

Charles Lyall, a Mattawa grower, called labor “pretty decent with a few shortages.” He said he was able to pick most of his early varieties and Bing on time, struggled to get and keep pickers and had 130 domestics at his peak. He said he paid them 23 to 28 cents per pound. Griggs said he’s paying his H-2A and domestic pickers 33 cents per pound.

Lyall said while his early Chelans and Tietons were light at just 2.75 tons per acre, size was good 9- and 8-row and sold to Malaysia and China at $85 per box.

“It was good, but not a home run. It will pay the bills. It was gorgeous fruit. I wished I’d had a bit more tonnage,” Lyall said.

He was finishing Bing harvest at a “sweet spot” of 6 tons per acre and in the $22 to $24 per box range on 11-row, a smaller size.

Lyall started harvest on June 3, just a day or two behind his neighbor, John Doebler, who was first in the Northwest.

TILLAMOOK, Ore. — Members of one of the Northwest’s largest dairy cooperatives, the Tillamook County Creamery Association, cut the ribbon to their new visitor center June 19 with fanfare that included politicians, employees and dairy farmers.

Eight-year-old Juliana McCoy traded in a day at camp for a visit to the grand opening with her mom that included a picture with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown. Her visit was sweetened with one of Tillamook’s famous ice cream cones, and in the visitor center’s Farm Room, Juliana tried to beat the average 21 seconds it takes a professional to prep a cow for milking.

“It was worth it,” Juliana declared.

Those activities, and more, are now open to the estimated 1.3 million visitors expected to walk through the doors of the new facility, better known as the Tillamook Cheese factory.

With $778 million in gross revenues last year, the Tillamook County Creamery Association is the largest co-op in Oregon, employing nearly 900 people. Its approximately 90 farm families — mostly from the Tillamook area — own the cooperative and provide the milk for the cheese, ice cream, yogurt and other products.

At the ribbon-cutting, Brown tossed out a question to the audience: “What’s the state drink?”

The front row of dairy farmers had the answer: “Milk!”

State Sen. Arnie Roblan praised dairy farmers for their commitment to the cooperative that has endured for more than 100 years. He jokingly suggested that the name of the new 38,500-square-foot center should be called “Are we there yet?” for the backseat questions excited children have asked on their way to Tillamook since the original center opened in 1949.

As demand grew, the creamery’s board has expanded, remodeled and rebuilt the visitor center. It is one of the Northwest’s biggest attractions, rivaling Seattle’s Space Needle in the number of visitors it draws, according to association CEO Patrick Criteser.

The new building opens to the public June 20, and is open each day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Labor Day, then 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. through mid-June.

Inside the new building, visitors are greeted by pictures and displays of the Tillamook dairy’s history, which began when local farmers shipped their dairy products on the Morningstar, a two-masted ship built by residents to transport goods to Portland. The ship’s image adorns packages of Tillamook cheese and other products.

A staircase at the entryway leads to a long hallway divided into farm education rooms, a viewing gallery overlooking the cheese production facility and the popular cheese-tasting room.

Downstairs are roomy food halls and a marketplace. Visitors can order from three stations that feature yogurts, pastries, ice cream or cheesy meals and snack selections that can be eaten in the cafeteria or on an outside patio.

In the marketplace, visitors can take home cheese and other Tillamook products along with a wide variety of memorabilia.

An Oregon blueberry breeding company has taken the next step in its international expansion by purchasing a nursery producer in the Netherlands.

Fall Creek Farm & Nursery of Lowell, Ore., has bought the Driesvenplant nursery company of Horst, The Netherlands, for an undisclosed sum, boosting its annual output of about 35 million blueberry plants by 10 percent.

“Hopefully, it will allow us to deliver new value to the blueberry industry,” said Cort Brazelton, the firm’s director of international business development.

The acquisition marks the fourth wholly-owned foreign subsidiary of Fall Creek Farm & Nursery, which began its global expansion in Mexico in 2012, followed by Peru in 2014 and Spain in 2016.

The company also licenses plant varieties and offers technical support to companies in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, South Korea and South Africa.

Driesvenplant is more than just an investment in the Netherlands, said Brazelton. The company gives Fall Creek a foothold in the market for “mid-chill” and “high-chill” blueberry plants in Northern and Eastern Europe, complementing its investment in “low-chill” climates.

“We were late to the business in Northern Europe. We were focused on different areas,” he said. “We’re going to become a better company if we do this right.”

While Fall Creek has bred and propagated blueberries for that market, it will now have a “high tech grow-out nursery” developed by Driesvenplant, Brazelton said.

The Driessen family, which started the nursery, will retain their farming operation and horticultural technology interests, such as the “Easy Harvester” system for more efficient blueberry hand-picking.

“It’s really the Silicon Valley of horticulture,” Brazelton said of Driesvenplant’s location.

Advances in blueberry genetics, mechanization and growing systems are becoming integrated to improve efficiency at a time of growing labor shortages around the world, he said.

The crop must be more attractive for consumers as well as profitable for growers, Brazelton said. “That doesn’t come from one thing. That comes from the whole system.”

Fall Creek has cooperated with Driesvenplant since the 1980s. Buying this longtime partner will help ensure product and service uniformity while offering the former owners a further global reach, he said.

Brothers Marcel and Leon Driessen, the founders’ sons, will stay on as technical advisor and operations manager, respectively.

Agricultural companies are transforming to adapt to labor shortages and other factors, Brazelton said.

That’s particularly true for the blueberry industry, which is “no longer a niche business” even as it’s still less than 10 percent of the global strawberry industry, he said.

“We’re growing from a niche crop to a preferred, high-value commodity,” Brazelton said. “It’s going to be a different industry.”

Capital Press

Daylong rains June 17 in parts of Idaho and Oregon stalled some hay growers and raised concerns about a cherry crop especially sensitive to heavy precipitation.

The greater Boise area June 17 received widespread rain, with greater amounts in some spots, said Troy Lindquist, a senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Boise. Parts of the Boise National Forest to the north and east of Boise received about a half inch of rain while the heaviest amounts, about an inch, fell in the Owyhee Mountains to the south and west, he said. That benefited the Owyhee Basin, where snowpack has been well below average.

Heavy rain can stall alfalfa hay production and reduce its feed nutrition value. For cherry producers — now in the middle of harvest in southwest Idaho — inopportune precipitation combined with other conditions can cause serious problems.

“We are still evaluating the effects,” Sally Symms, who chairs the Idaho Cherry Commission and is vice president of sales with Symms Fruit Ranch west of Caldwell. “So far, because the weather has been cool, we are hoping it did not cause too many issues other than slowing us down a bit.”

Cherries, high in sugar content as they ripen, can split if water stays on the fruit, especially if the weather is warm. At Symms Fruit Ranch west of Caldwell, it appeared cool weather and some light winds helped keep cherries healthy.

“Hopefully, because of the cool weather, any damage has been avoided,” Symms said. She had not heard from other Idaho cherry growers as of midmorning June 18.

At Symms Fruit Ranch, “fortunately, we have a small gap in production,” she said. Tieton cherry harvest started there June 12 and concluded June 16, the day before prolonged rain, she said. Fruit size was larger than expected, leading to higher tonnage. She expected Bing cherry harvest to start June 20 and wrap up around June 28 to June 30.

“We have had a fair bit of rain off and on the last little while,” said Scott Jensen, University of Idaho Extension educator in Owyhee County. “The only calls or concerns have been guys trying to get hay up.”

Jensen, based in Marsing, saw a hayfield on the rainy June 18. “It was double-raked and ready to go, and now it’s soaking wet,” he said. “It’s going to have to be dried out and raked again so the other side can get dried.”

Cutting, drying and baling comprise hay production, which sometimes includes raking during the drying step. Time is of the essence throughout the season, which typically yields four cuttings and sometimes five.

Heavy rainfall mainly causes problems for hay that is cut and on the ground, Jensen said. “Once it’s cut, you don’t want to see any rain until it’s in the stack,” he said.

“But sometimes, if they wait to cut — if they’re looking for a window of some favorable weather — the hay is more mature and at some point starts to lose nutritional value and total dollar value,” he said. In that case, hay can lose valuable leaf content and end up with more coarse stems.

Idaho Hay & Forage Association Vice President Ben McIntyre’s family farms between Caldwell and Marsing, and processes hay for other growers. McIntyre Farms covers about 3,000 acres of hay cuttings combined on its own farm and for clients. The second cutting is starting in various locations in southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon, he said.

Too much moisture can mean fewer leaves in the bale and lower quality ratings as well as higher potential for mold, McIntyre said. Quality ratings also suffer when hay’s characteristic green fades, indicating more nutrient loss.

“Most of this first cutting has been rained on from earlier storms we got from mid-May to the end of May,” he said. “So probably only about 10 percent of the hay we put up (stacked) ended up being put up without rain.”

Very little dairy-quality hay has been baled so far, McIntyre said. The season’s first and fourth cuttings produce most of the high-quality hay that dairies demand, he said. The middle two cuttings, grown in warmer temperatures, largely supply general cattle feeding.

Whether there is a fifth cutting each year depends on the first cutting, he said. “As long as it took to put the first cutting up this year, we will probably not get a fifth.”

On June 18, McIntyre said he had recorded 1.4 inches of rain at McIntyre Farms in 36 hours, and heard reports of about double that amount on Idaho’s east side.

IHFA President Will Ricks, a hay grower in Moneteview said the past weekend’s storm in Eastern Idaho followed the previous week’s dry conditions that allowed some growers to put up hay. The first cutting remains under way in that area.

“Anytime during harvest, if you get rain, it’s hard on hay,” Ricks said. “You lose some feed value there. It’s just part of Mother Nature. You just get used to it. It will work out over time.”

UI Canyon County Extension Agent Jerry Neufeld, in Caldwell, said the steady rains June 17 probably helped many farmers except possibly growers who had not yet planted beans or corn.

Jensen said the rains likely help to improve cattle grazing conditions and reduce range-fire danger in the short term.

By CRAIG REED

For the Capital Press

ROSEBURG, Ore. — Katherine Ritchie was up to the challenge when it was implied that shearing sheep was a man’s job.

Several months later, the young woman from the Roseburg area attended a shearing school at Washington State University in Pullman. She has now been shearing for six years.

“It is very physically demanding work, very mentally demanding,” she said during a break at a four-day shearing school on the Dawson Ranch. She was an instructor at the school that attracted four teenagers, one being a female, and one adult.

“You have to convince yourself to grab another sheep,” said the 25-year-old Ritchie. “When you are standing around feeling tired, no sheep are getting shorn.”

Because of the physicality of holding a 150-pound ewe or a slightly lighter lamb between your knees and feet while working electric blades over the animal’s skin to remove the wool fleece, shearing is not a job that attracts many women.

Ritchie was inspired to learn how to handle sheep and the clippers back when she was helping push her family’s sheep through a chute and into a shearing trailer. She said it was a 100-degree day so she had stepped inside the trailer for some shade when a guy on the shearing crew made a sexist comment, insinuating that since she was a girl, she couldn’t handle shearing.

Ritchie has since advanced to where she is not only a full-time shearer, but also an instructor. She has also earned the respect of that person who inspired her and they are now friends. In addition to instructing five students at the recent Dawson Ranch school, she was an instructor at a week-long school at Washington State University in April.

“You really have to want to do this,” she said of shearing. “You have to want to learn. You have to learn how to hold them (sheep) and to have the proper footwork.”

Wendy Wyatt Valentine of Langlois, Ore., and Diane Isenhart of Coquille, Ore., are both long-time shearers. They both got into it because shearing is in their family’s history, dating back several generations. Their fathers, Fred Wyatt and Hank Isenhart, were on some shearing crews together.

Wendy Valentine, who is 53, and Diane Isenhart, 42, agree that there aren’t many women in the profession. They admit it is hard work, but add that women can do it and that there is a need for more shearers.

“It’s a tough world, it’s a man’s world, it really is,” Isenhart said of shearing. “But I’m not saying a woman can’t do it. You just need to learn the physics of it, how to do it the easiest way because we’re not built like men and we’re not as strong as men. If you learn to do it right, if you learn how to control the animal, then you can still get that big sheep sheared.”

Valentine said she is happy to see anybody get into the shearing business because many older shearers, like herself, are easing up on the number of sheep they are shearing and there is a need for younger people in the profession.

“It’s a male-dominated profession, but even though we’re built different, we can still shear sheep,” she said of women.

When she was 20, Isenhart traveled to New Zealand and sheared 250 lambs in a nine-hour day. On that same trip, she did 204 ewes in an eight-hour day.

Valentine, when she was in her early 20s, sheared 208 sheep in just under eight hours. She stopped because there were no more sheep.

Isenhart said that now she just does small flocks of sheep, but she still loves working with the animals.

“You don’t do something for 28 years and not like it,” she said. “Anybody can shear sheep, it is just a matter of whether you’re going to shear the second one and then the 10th one when your body begins to hurt.”

Valentine said the only women she knows in western Oregon who have been shearing full-time are Isenhart and Ritchie.

While Valentine and Isenhart are shearing less, Ritchie has been working on some bigger jobs that have ranged up to a few thousand animals. In addition to Oregon, she has sheared in Washington, Montana, California and North Dakota. She was planning to attend an advanced shearing school in South Dakota this month.

“There’s always more to be learned,” she said of shearing. “There’s always little things you can learn to be better.”

Ritchie doesn’t mind sharing those details with students at shearing schools because she has seen first-hand that there is a need for more shearers. She explained that if a veteran shearer is injured and can’t continue, that’s up to 200 animals a day that aren’t being sheared, putting a shearing crew behind and there’s only a few spring months to get the job done.

At the Dawson Ranch school, 19-year-old Chloe Fink was learning how to shear under the guidance of Ritchie. Fink had learned how to clip lambs for show during her 4-H years, but now she was learning shearing techniques.

“I think we’re just as capable,” Fink said. “Men are stronger, they have natural-born strength, so sometimes we (women) just have to work smarter than harder.”

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Hundreds of citizen scientists have begun buzzing through locations across the Pacific Northwest seeking a better understanding about nearly 30 bumblebee species.

Bumblebees, experts say, are important pollinators for both wild and agricultural plants, but some species have disappeared from places where they were once common, possibly because of the same factors that have been killing honeybees.

“It’s really important for us as humans to study these species systems for animals that are the little guys that make the world go around,” said Ann Potter of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, one of the entities in three states — Oregon and Idaho are the others — participating in the three-year Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas project.

Researchers hope to accumulate enough information to recommend ways to conserve bumblebees and their habitat.

“There’s more and more interest in restoring habitat for pollinators,” said Rich Hatfield of the conservation group, the Xerces Society.

Citizen scientists are being dispatched to selected 2.5-acre sites with insect nets, plant and bee guides, and an app for smartphones so findings can be recorded, photographed, mapped and sent to a central database. Researchers say just more than 200 have signed on to visit 400 sites through the end of August. More volunteers are needed, Hatfield said, especially to work in more remote areas.

Bees are captured and put in a chilled cooler so they go into a state of lethargy. Diagnostic photos are taken, and the bees are released unharmed when they warm up.

Bumblebees, unlike honeybees, don’t overwinter in a hive. Bumblebees build nests, typically in holes in the ground, and generally only number a few hundred individuals by the time fall arrives. Any honey they produce they consume.

With the arrival of winter, all bumblebees die except a few fertilized queen bees that in the spring head out alone to start a new nest and produce worker bees, beginning the cycle over.

“Here’s a species that spends a big part of its life as a vulnerable queen,” said Andony Melathopoulos of Oregon State University. Bumblebees have “this really fascinating solitary phase.”

Honeybees are imports from Europe brought in as agricultural workers to pollinate crops. Native bumblebees also help pollinate crops. But when it comes to native North American plants and some crops, the more robust bumblebee with its ability to “buzz” pollinate by grabbing onto an entire flower and shaking the pollen loose is for some plant species the only insect up to the task.

The Western bumblebee, once considered common and widespread, has disappeared from much of its former range. Clues as to why Western bumblebee populations have plummeted are being sought in the current study.

“We really don’t know a lot about them,” said Ross Winton of Idaho Fish and Game. “The more we learn, the more concerned we get.”

The Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas could ultimately be an example for other states interested in learning more about how bumblebees are doing.

“It is a model for other states,” Melathopoulos said. “I think everyone is looking at the Pacific Northwest and this initiative as a test case.”

The study is being paid for by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Idaho and Washington, and in Oregon by another government entity called the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research.

Collaborators include the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Idaho Fish and Game, Oregon State University, The Oregon Bee Project, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Xerces Society, an environmental group that works to conserve invertebrates.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by county commissioners in a prime marijuana-growing part of the state to put back in place their restrictions on commercial pot production.

The appeals court’s dismissal without comment Wednesday of the Josephine County commissioners’ case marks the latest step in the struggle between the county’s political leaders to tamp down the proliferating marijuana business, and growers trying to protect their businesses and investments.

In December, the county commission passed an ordinance banning commercial pot farming on smaller rural residential lots and reducing larger grow sites.

Ross Day, attorney for the marijuana farmers, said the county’s appeal to the court was frivolous.

“Hopefully the county gets the message that it acted illegally when it adopted the ordinance,” Day said after the Oregon Court of Appeals made its ruling.

The commissioners were appealing a ruling by the state Land Use Board of Appeals, or LUBA, that put their restrictions on marijuana production on hold. LUBA said the county had failed to properly notify land owners.

Wally Hicks, attorney for the county, said the ruling is both a setback for the county’s effort to protect property owners.

“Some participants in the marijuana industry have been abundantly clear that they will challenge any meaningful regulation the county introduces. Thus, regardless of which way the Court of Appeals ruled, the matter has always been destined for a return trip to LUBA,” Hicks said in an email.

Members of the commission in the southern Oregon county have called pot farms a nuisance. Voters in the state legalized marijuana with a 2014 ballot measure, prompting a “green rush” as pot entrepreneurs set up shop in the fertile, rainy mountainous area.

Pete Gendron, a marijuana grower in Josephine County and president of the Oregon SunGrowers’ Guild advocacy group, has pointed out that growers have invested large sums to start operations and said they were shocked when the county tried to restrict them.

One grower had a letter from the county dating back a year or more stating that cannabis cultivation was farm use and was allowed, and he invested a half-million dollars because of those assurances, Gendron said.

In a sign of how bitter the dispute has become, the county commission filed a lawsuit in federal court, contending that the state cannot dictate marijuana regulations over county restrictions because weed remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The pending lawsuit calls on the federal court in Medford to declare that two ballot measures in 1998 and 2014 that legalized medical and recreational marijuana, respectively, are pre-empted by federal law.

Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Carla Scott has argued the lawsuit should be dismissed.

“A political subdivision of a state such as Josephine County lacks standing to challenge a state law in federal court on supremacy grounds,” Scott recently wrote in a filing in the case, the Daily Courier newspaper of Grants Pass reported.

HERMISTON, Ore. — As Val Tachenko smiled and handed over a carton of just-ripe strawberries to a customer on a recent Thursday afternoon, one person was not happy.

Her young grandson pokds his head over the edge of the table and frowns at the remaining boxes.

“He took my best one!”

It’s hard to say what looks best. The table in the Nixyaawii Governance Center groans with baskets of fresh greens, onions, cherries and strawberries, which Tachenko, owner of Val’s Veggies, sells alongside the CSA boxes that she’s brought to deliver to weekly customers.

A CSA, or Community-Supported Agriculture, allows people to pay a fee at the beginning of a season and then get a box of fresh vegetables delivered to them each week from a local or regional farm. As of this week, Tachenko has expanded her delivery service to customers in Pendleton and Hermiston.

Tachenko said she’s seen a lot more awareness about local eating since she first started her CSA in 2009 at her Baker City farm, where she raises cattle, chickens and grows vegetables in a 16-acre garden. Before that she sold wholesale produce, operated farm stands and sold at farmer’s markets.

“I’ve always been very passionate about people eating local,” she said.

Tachenko has been one of the only consistent growers in the region to maintain a CSA. She has 48 customers, and usually caps the service at about 60.

Tachenko sells at farmer’s markets in La Grande, and has a fruit stand in Baker City. Each Thursday, she sells produce at a table in the Nixyaawii Governance Center in Mission.

With so many opportunities to buy local produce, Tachenko said many people don’t understand why a CSA box is a good option.

The service relies on seasonal vegetables, which means that you won’t find peppers in early June.

“People struggle to eat seasonally,” Tachenko said. “The first few weeks it’s mostly greens. (People) want tomatoes, corn. Those aren’t available yet.”

But the boxes allow people to get vegetables that may not be available at the market.

“The CSA boxes come first,” she said, opening up one of the boxes awaiting pickup. It’s stuffed with kale, rainbow chard, spinach, bok choi and green onions.

“Today they got zucchini and broccoli. I don’t have enough of that to sell at the table, but the boxes got that. They get the first pick of what’s available.”

They also allow people to get vegetables delivered to them, instead of having to go to the store or market. Mirroring the process of online services, Tachenko said, has been crucial for small farms trying to keep up.

“The thing that has hurt CSAs is online delivery,” she said. “People just want to order stuff off their phones.”

Tachenko said while growers can’t ignore potential online customers, she likes the social and educational aspects of farmer’s markets.

“People don’t know what a kohlrabi is,” she said. “Maybe I can show them. There’s a lot you miss out on when you get deliveries to your door.”

CSAs aren’t for everyone — farmers or customers. John Finley of 3rd Gen Farms in Hermiston ran one for several years, but eventually decided to focus his efforts on selling at markets.

“We generally got two complaints,” he said. “One, people were getting too much. Two, they were getting things they didn’t really want.”

He said when they were doing the CSA, customers could get between three and 10 items per week, depending on how much they paid.

Tachenko acknowledged those challenges with her own customers.

“It’s a tough fit for some people in our society,” Tachenko said. At the end of each season, she sends out a survey to customers asking them, among other things, how many meals they cook a week.

“I was surprised that a lot of people only cook two to three meals a week,” she said. She said some people split the cost of a box with another family, or share produce.

While her retention rate year-to-year is about 54 percent, Tachenko said she’s had seven customers that have been with her since the beginning.

Kristi Gartland, the wellness coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, said employees have been glad to have Tachenko in the building.

“The idea was to provide fresh, locally grown food for our employees right here,” Gartland said. “This community has had a longstanding concern about not having locally grown food available. A lot of people live far from town, and it’s hard for them to get fresh produce.”

Dallas Bolen is one of Tachenko’s Hermiston customers.

“You get totally different vegetables than you would just buy at the store,” Bolen said. “I’ve tried a lot of things I never would have.”

Bolen buys a half-share, and said it’s more than enough for two people. She added that while the up-front costs seem a bit high, it measures out to about $25 per week.

“It starts adding up, and you spend way more than that at the store,” she said.

Prices vary depending on the size of the box. A full share, which feeds a family, is $700 for 20 weeks, and a half-share is $450. There are several other options as well, including a fruit share and a salad share.

For more information, visit www.valsveggies.com.

It’s a lovely June day and Nora and Mary Hawkins along with employee Laurie Waters are busy processing 40 Cornish cross chickens in preparation for the upcoming Joseph Saturday Market. Another 20 or so capons are being prepared for Portland customers.

This, says Mary Hawkins, is how they like to spend their weekends in Wallowa County. She’s not joking.

“It’s a good workout, and I love that part of it,” said Mary. “That’s been like ‘all on’ what I wanted to do. Every other job I have is a ton of thinking and responding and communicating. This is ‘how fast can I do the same thing over and over again’ –– and I like that. Probably wouldn’t like it for 60 hours a week.”

But the sisters don’t spend 60 hours a week as poultry processors. Like many farmers and ranchers, they have day jobs.

Mary is office manager for Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland, host of the Tamkaliks celebration in Wallowa; Nora is a state-licensed midwife. The sisters spend mornings, nights and weekends on the agricultural business with the help of employees Laurie Waters, Landra Scovlin and Michaela Shane. Raising and processing birds is a six-months-of the-year job.

It’s successful in many ways but not necessarily financially, they contend. The Hawkins Sisters Ranch is a snapshot of the real cost of raising quality meat.

It is one of two Oregon Department of Agriculture small poultry licensed processing facilities in Eastern Oregon, taking advantage of new rules that allow small-enterprise farms that process 20,000 or fewer birds per year to meet sanitary and other rules without having to be USDA inspected. The chickens can only be marketed in Oregon.

Their facility is housed in a new 13x40-foot “Old Hickory Shed” that has been fitted to meet state sanitation requirements. They’re serious about sanitation. Mary will not even touch a turkey chick if she’s been working with chickens or vice versa. The interior of the facility is spotless, even in the midst of processing birds.

The operation is on their father Merel Hawkins’ 300-acre farm on Bear Creek Road in Wallowa. Merel is retired, and most of the land is leased for cattle grazing, so the sisters are getting the use of the little space required for the chicken business free.

In this facility, on this land, the sisters will butcher approximately 6,000 chickens over the next six months.

Other families who bring in birds from their own flocks for processing will have raised 60 percent of those birds. The sisters charge approximately $5 per bird for processing. They sell their own birds for $5 per pound, predominantly to Wallowa County customers who have spoken for them well in advance. Approximately 400 birds are sold to Portland customers through Carman Ranch Direct.

Yet, even with no mortgage and selling chicken at $5 per pound, raising chickens humanely on naturally sourced custom-designed feed doesn’t pencil out.

“On paper it’s ‘Ah, I shouldn’t be doing this.’” Mary said. “The correct choice, on paper, is ‘do not do this.’”

Mary took a business course a few years ago that required rigorous number-crunching and proved that financial reality.

And yet the Hawkins Sisters are still in the chicken business. Their employees earn wages.

“I’ve analyzed, and I think it’s just me being stubborn,” Mary said. “I think: ‘surely there’s a way to raise chickens on a small scale!’ I think I do it because it’s a puzzle (how to make it pay).”

And it’s hard to quit when you’re successful on so many other levels.

“It’s an amazing product that people really want, and there’s a huge demand,” Mary said. “Flavor and texture are wonderful, people remark on it all the time.”

They’ve already met and bested many challenges. First challenge, growing a healthy bird. The Cornish cross bird is the most economical to grow because it has been developed to grow fast and huge.

Other chicken breeds may take up to six months to reach butcher weight and years to reach maturity – the factory-fed Cornish cross can weigh as much as 10 pounds live weight in 56 days and yield a six pound roaster.

Feeding a fast-growing chicken up to that weight that quickly can lead to a high mortality rate. Birds can die of heart failure, leg deformities from too much weight to leg strength, infections from lying down full-time. The butchered bird can have an enlarged heart and a flaccid pale liver that must be discarded.

The Hawkins Sisters have solved these problems through their growing and feeding philosophy. They feed their own custom blend with no corn or soy, and they don’t confine and overfeed to make what Mary calls a “Frankenstein Bird.”

Their chickens are vigorous, docile and seem happy. The sisters reckon the average weight of their eight- to 10-week old bird, when processed, is about four pounds.

Right now, the third week of June, there are 325 new arrivals in the Hawkins brooder barn. The chick brooder space is a large, clean and roomy shed with both fresh air and six warming lamps. The sisters will order a new batch of chicks every four weeks through September.

A few hundred feet away in the hay pasture are the “outdoor” growing houses; homemade arched chicken structures that allow the growing birds plenty of protected space but provide freedom to come and go into the attached grassy yard. Although not free range, they have access to grass and bugs and are fed the Hawkins locally grown custom blend feed.

The operation will go dormant by Thanksgiving. The turkeys, a new endeavor, are expected to yield a few dollars over the financial break-even point.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A proposal in Congress to ease the U.S. ban on marijuana could encourage more banks to do business with cannabis companies, but it appears to fall short of a cure-all for an industry that must operate mainly as a cash business in a credit card world.

Marijuana is legal in some form in about 30 states, but companies that grow or sell it often are locked out at banks. Their money isn’t wanted because the drug is illegal under federal law and transactions tied to pot proceeds could expose financial institutions to money-laundering charges.

The bipartisan measure — which received tentative support from President Donald Trump — would ensure states have the right to determine the best approach to marijuana, without federal interference. It also includes language intended to address the banking gap caused by the federal ban.

The legislation has been praised as a strong step, but “standing alone, it’s likely not a silver bullet for the banking problem,” said California pot industry attorney Nicole Howell Neubert, a member of a state task force that studied the banking stalemate.

“Most financial institutions will be looking for even more affirmative direction from (Washington) to feel comfortable with banking cannabis companies,” she said in a statement.

The shortage of banking services has been a major obstacle to the industry, often forcing businesses to conduct sales and pay vendors and taxes in cash, sometimes in vast amounts that can become targets for criminals.

The number of financial institutions working with marijuana companies has been growing, but it’s still a small fraction overall.

The Mountain West Credit Union Association and the Maine Credit Union League said in a joint statement that the legislation would “provide the certainty we need ... to service this growing industry.”

The measure, which faces an uncertain future in Congress, does not legalize marijuana nationally. But it takes steps to allow banks to handle marijuana funds without the risk of federal prosecution.

For example, it says money from marijuana businesses in states where the drug is legal would no longer be considered illegal proceeds, and it would allow banks to accept those funds without breaking money-laundering laws.

Even then, risk remains as banks face a range of compliance rules by accepting marijuana-linked money. The Bank Secrecy Act requires that banks know their customers well enough to ensure they are not engaging in money laundering, said Julie A. Hill, a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law.

“This likely means that a bank accepting marijuana money would have to do enough research to know that their customers are complying with state law regarding the sale of marijuana,” Hill said. “The bank would likely have to confirm that the marijuana is not sold to minors or sold for transport to states where it is illegal.”

Banks could face penalties if they don’t meet such requirements.

They also are urged to watch for warning signs of possible illegal activity, such as financial statements provided by a business not squaring with account activity.

Because the cost of doing such research would be high, some banks might choose to stay away from marijuana money, Hill said in an email.

If the legislation passes, it’s likely marijuana will stay illegal in some conservative-leaning states, such as South Dakota and Kansas. Some banks in those states might then be uneasy about handling marijuana dollars coming from places where the drug is legal.

“I don’t imagine the ... financial institution would take that risk to take in funds from a business considered illegal in that state,” said Beth Mills of the Western Bankers Association.

Another uncertainty that could give banks pause: The conflict between Trump, who signaled his support for the legislation, and his own Justice Department.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions staunchly opposes marijuana and lifted an Obama administration policy in order to allow federal prosecutors to more aggressively pursue cases in states that have legalized marijuana.

Colorado tried to set up a credit union in 2015 to serve the pot industry but the Federal Reserve blocked it. In Oregon, the state Department of Revenue built a fortress-like office for dropping off and counting cash.

Some pot businesses have tried to open bank accounts by setting up management companies or nonprofit organizations with ambiguous names — basically, by misleading the banks. But those accounts can be shut down if a bank realizes where the money is coming from.

Other proposals in Congress also are intended to open the way for more banks to handle marijuana dollars, but it’s not clear if any have enough support to reach Trump’s desk.

After a House committee rejected one such measure Wednesday, Kevin Sabet, head of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a nonpartisan group opposed to marijuana legalization, said it would have “opened up direct access to Wall Street investment into the sales and marketing of pot candies, cookies and ice creams.”

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The federal government is considering another attempt to drop legal protections for gray wolves across the lower 48 states, reopening a lengthy battle over the predator species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday told The Associated Press it has begun a science-based review of the status of the wolf, which presently is covered by the Endangered Species Act in most of the nation and cannot be killed unless threatening human life.

If the agency decides to begin the process of removing of the wolf from the endangered species list, it will publish a proposal by the end of the year.

“Any proposal will follow a robust, transparent and open public process that will provide opportunity for public comment,” the service said in a statement to the AP.

The government first proposed revoking the wolf’s protected status in 2013, but backed off after federal courts struck down its plan for “delisting” the species in the western Great Lakes region.

Long despised by farmers and ranchers, wolves were shot, trapped and poisoned out of existence in most of the U.S. by the mid-20th century. Since securing protection in the 1970s, they have bounced back in parts of the country.

They total about 3,800 in the western Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Other established populations are in the Northern Rockies, where they are no longer listed as endangered, and the Pacific Northwest.

Federal regulators contend they’ve recovered sufficiently for their designation as endangered to be removed and management responsibilities handed over to the states. Environmental groups say it’s too early for that, as wolves still haven’t returned to most of their historical range.

“Time and again the courts have told the service that wolves need further recovery before their protections can be removed,” said Collette Adkins, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “But the agency is dead set on appeasing special interests who want to kill these amazing animals.”

Members of Congress have tried numerous times to strip wolves of legal protection. Another bill to do so is pending in the U.S. House.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday argues the Oregon Department of Forestry’s logging practices are hurting protected coho salmon and violating the Endangered Species Act.

Five conservation and fishing groups are making the case in U.S. District Court that logging on steep slopes and road-building in the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests of northwest Oregon are damaging salmon habitat by causing landslides and erosion.

Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity said dumping harmful sediment onto coho spawning grounds is a violation of the Endangered Species Act because the state doesn’t have a Habitat Conservation Plan for the fish.

“Oregon Department of Forestry has been promising they’re going to do more to take care of streams and coho salmon for a long time, and they’ve just really not come through,” he said. “They continue to do a lot of logging on steep steep, landslide-prone slopes that lead to serious sediment problems in streams for coho salmon.”

The state started working on a Habitat Conservation Plan for threatened coastal coho in the late 1990s, but the plan was never finished.

The five groups — including the Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources and Cascadia Wildlands — are asking the court to prohibit certain logging practices until the state has a protection plan.

“We’re not saying they have to stop all logging,” Greenwald said. “They need to fix their road system and they need to scale back their logging on steep slopes.”

Logging on the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests is a key source of funding for area counties. Some counties have sued the state for not logging enough and denying them millions of dollars in revenue.

The Oregon Department of Forestry did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The latest federal recovery plan for coastal coho lists habitat loss and degradation as a key factor in rebuilding their population, which has dwindled to less than 100,000 fish in recent years.

A subsidiary of the Tillamook County Creamery Association has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop accepting milk from a troubled Oregon dairy in bankruptcy proceedings.

Lost Valley Farm of Boardman, Ore., began supplying Columbia River Processing, the subsidary, when the dairy opened last year. It has since run into serious regulatory and financial problems.

The company’s owner, Greg te Velde, owes about $67 million to Rabobank, a major agricultural lender that sought to foreclose on Lost Valley Farm’s cattle herd.

A liquidation auction of the cattle was halted in April by te Velde’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which protects the company from actions by creditors while it’s restructuring.

However, the dairy’s ability to sell milk to Columbia River Processing has been a major point of contention in the bankruptcy proceedings, with the Tillamook cooperative vowing to stop accepting deliveries at the end of May.

Tillamook CEO Patrick Criteser argued that his company has terminated its contract with Lost Valley Farm, but te Velde maintains the contract is valid and threatened to sue.

Columbia River Processing has filed an adversary case — a complaint related to the bankruptcy proceedings — asking a bankruptcy judge to declare that the contract was terminated before the Chapter 11 case was filed.

The company submitted a letter terminating its contract with te Velde in late February, citing the dairy’s failure to pay debts and the appointment of a receiver to oversee its operations.

Reputational damage to the Tillamook cooperative and high bacteria levels in Lost Valley Farm’s milk have also been cited by CRP in ending the milk-buying agreement.

When Columbia River Processing offered to negotiated a reinstatement of the contract, te Velde did not respond, according to the complaint.

If the judge isn’t willing to declare the contract invalid or allow CRP to terminate the agreement, the complaint seeks a judgment that would cause the dairy to its lose bankruptcy protections for any further contract violations.

The issue of CRP’s continued acceptance of milk is key to Lost Valley Farm’s ability to restructure and remain operational.

Rabobank cited the impending end of milk sales to CRP as a reason to lift the dairy’s bankruptcy protections, which would allow the cattle auction to move forward.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Fredrick Clement denied that request during a hearing last month, but may revisit the matter.

“Frankly, I think this issue is going to resolve itself one way or the other,” he said. “If Columbia River refuses to accept milk and the debtor is unable to force them to do so, undoubtedly this issue will ... rise to the top of the matters under consideration and will be addressed again by this court.”

The other major factor affecting Lost Valley Farm is its settlement of a lawsuit with Oregon farm regulators over improper wastewater disposal.

In court documents, te Velde acknowledged he was facing a contempt hearing because ODA claimed the dairy was out of compliance with the deal.

The judge declined to lift the dairy’s bankruptcy protections on these grounds, though he could reconsider if the ODA actually shuts down its operations.

“My guess is the Oregon Department of Agriculture has its remedies without seeking stay relief,” Clement said.

Oregon hazelnut growers hope their shared affinity for agriculture with a top Chinese diplomat will create some goodwill in high-stakes trade negotiations.

Luo Linquan, China’s consul general in San Francisco, met June 8 with about 15 farmers in Silverton, Ore., to learn about the hazelnut industry and how it’s affected by turbulent trade relations between the U.S. and China.

“The farmers who were there really made a connection with the consul general because he grew up on a farm,” said Larry George, president of hazelnut processor George Packing. “He realized he had a lot of connection with them and told his story of growing up on a farm.”

Linquan heads one of five Consulate General offices in the U.S. His diplomatic jurisdiction includes Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Nevada and Alaska.

At a time of trade tensions between the two countries, the meeting will hopefully prove to be a “huge coup” in putting a human face to the local hazelnut industry, George said.

“It’s really important to have someone who has visited with growers directly,” said George. “He is a very high-ranking official who is involved in these discussions with Beijing.”

Even before the recent strain in trade relations between the U.S. and China, Oregon hazelnut farmers weren’t in a competitive position to export directly to that country. China imposed a 25 percent tariff on in-shell hazelnuts from the U.S. as well as a 14.5 percent value-added tax.

To compare, in-shell U.S. pistachios are subject to a 5 percent tariff and in-shell hazelnuts from Chile face no tariff.

As a result, the domestic hazelnut industry has long shipped the crop to Hong Kong and other neighboring countries, such as Vietnam, where it’s trans-shipped to China.

In April, China raised the tariff on in-shell U.S. hazelnuts by 15 percentage points in addition to raising duties on other agricultural goods from the U.S.

The change prompted more U.S. exporters to attempt trans-shipments into China rather than selling directly into that market, bringing increased scrutiny from Chinese officials who want to prevent products from side-stepping its tax structure.

The effect is a smaller export pipeline for Oregon hazelnuts, roughly half of which are exported, George said.

“Long term, this conversation had to happen, but short term, it could have a very negative impact on the 2018 crop,” he said.

Before the recent tariff hike, the hazelnut industry had no direct contact with the Chinese government, said Terry Ross, executive director of the Hazelnut Industry Bargaining Association.

Since the increase, hazelnut industry representatives have attended a meeting at the Consulate General’s office in San Francisco and Ross has been invited to speak at the China International Tree Nut Conference in August.

“The Chinese government is engaged, the U.S. government is engaged and we hope something will come to fruition prior to harvest,” said Ross. “It’s been a blessing in disguise at this point.”

Removing the steep tariffs on Oregon hazelnuts would allow them to be shipped directly to China, but any change must occur fairly soon to avoid depressing the market for 2018’s crop.

Hazelnut consumption peaks during the Chinese New Year in early 2019, but the crop must be shipped by October or November of this year to make the market, said George, who has recently traveled to Washington, D.C., twice to meet with the Trump administration about the issue.

“Those markets are time-sensitive,” he said. “The problem is trade issues move slowly but the crop doesn’t change its speed.”