Members of Oregon’s congressional delegation are joining the call to close the so-called “digital divide,” extending high-speed internet access to citizens in rural parts of the U.S.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden joined 16 colleagues from across the country in sending a letter last week to President Donald Trump, requesting at least $40 billion in infrastructure spending for rural broadband development.

“In an increasingly interconnected world and global economy, we must include in our discussion of infrastructure not just roads, bridges and waterways, but also high-speed internet access,” the letter states.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, 39 percent of Americans who live in rural areas, or roughly 23 million people, lack high-speed internet access, versus just 4 percent of Americans in urban areas.

“While the vast majority of Americans have access to high-speed internet service, there is a stark disparity between urban and rural America,” the letter continues. “This digital divide puts many rural Americans at risk of being left out of critical technological advancements and economic gain.”

Oregon’s lone Republican congressman, Greg Walden, has also honed in on the digital divide, leading a hearing on broadband solutions last week in Washington, D.C.

Walden, who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, represents most of rural eastern, central and southern Oregon. He stressed the need to reduce what he described as “unnecessary roadblocks” to siting new broadband in rural areas, saying the environmental review process to build on federal lands is especially burdensome.

“I run into this issue all the time on siting,” Walden said. “We’re trying to get broadband out there, and we’re trying to get three-phased power in some of our communities that have waited three years to get an (environmental impact statement) to get four power poles on BLM land. So I think there is an issue here with siting.”

Closing the digital divide has made headlines early in 2018 after Trump signed a pair of executive orders in January to cut red tape for rural broadband deployment. Both orders are intended to make it easier for private companies to build broadband infrastructure, such as radio towers, on federal property.

A coalition aimed at bridging the digital divide, called Connect Americans Now, also launched in January and is focusing on new technologies to deliver high-speed internet in rural America. Specifically, the group is pressuring the FCC to make TV “white spaces” available as part of the solution.

When asked about TV white spaces, Walden said he thinks they could be harnessed by internet providers, but he wants to make sure they do not interfere with existing users.

“You don’t want to create unintended consequences,” Walden said. Last year, the National Association of Broadcasters opposed TV white space technology under development by Microsoft, saying it would threaten millions of viewers with loss of TV programming.

Both the Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Cattlemen’s Association have joined the Connect Americans Now coalition, saying internet is crucial for farmers and ranchers to use precision farming tools and remain competitive in the market.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s top federal prosecutor will hold a marijuana summit Friday to hear how the state, law enforcement, tribal and industry leaders plan to address a pot surplus that he says has wound up on the black market in other states and is fueling crime.

U.S. Attorney Billy Williams laid out his plans for the unprecedented event in a recent newspaper column , saying Oregon has a “massive marijuana overproduction problem” that is attracting cartels and criminal networks and sparking money laundering, violence and environmental woes.

The column came shortly after Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month rescinded an Obama administration memo that outlined the steps states with legalized cannabis could take to avoid scrutiny under federal law, where marijuana remains illegal.

“In sum, I have significant concerns about the state’s current regulatory framework and the resources allocated to policing marijuana in Oregon,” Williams wrote in The Oregonian, adding the summit and the state’s response to his concerns would “inform our federal enforcement strategy.”

Darwin Roberts, a former federal prosecutor in Seattle who also worked on marijuana issues as a senior official in the Washington Attorney General’s Office, said he wasn’t surprised to see Williams’ concerns. But he added the Justice Department is in a tough spot: If it shuts down states’ marijuana programs, it will drive that activity back to the black market, where neither the feds nor state authorities have the resources to deal with it.

“The Justice Department clearly is unhappy that the states aren’t doing more to stop marijuana activity outside the state legal system,” Roberts said. “I suspect that for DOJ to allow the states to keep making money off legal marijuana, DOJ will want to see a real commitment of state tax dollars to law enforcement efforts against black market growing and trafficking heading out of state.”

There is general agreement that some marijuana from Oregon does wind up in other states where it isn’t legal. Still, it’s hard to say if pot smuggling has gotten worse in Oregon — where illicit pot farmers were thriving long before recreational legalization — or how much of the marijuana leaving the state filters out from the legal side.

In his column, Williams said law enforcement in 16 other states have reported seizing marijuana from Oregon and postal agents have intercepted more than 2,600 pounds of pot in outbound packages and over $1.2 million in associated cash.

Advocates dismiss the idea that legalization has caused a spike in black markets sales. It’s just that now, because it’s legal, it’s much easier to track it back, they said

“When I moved to Oregon in 1979, cannabis was a billion-dollar crop then, so the notion that this is somehow caused by legalization or by the medical program is something that’s misplaced,” said Leland Berger, an attorney who specializes in marijuana cases.

“When it’s intercepted out of state it’s easier to document where it came from, but I’m a little disappointed that it’s viewed as a new and huge problem.”

States that have legalized marijuana for recreational and medical use have taken varying approaches to satisfying federal law enforcement priorities, in an effort to pre-empt raids or even a Justice Department lawsuit that could undermine the newly regulated markets. They’ve also adjusted their approaches as their markets matured.

Oregon voters approved the sale of recreational marijuana in 2014, and it became legal the following year. The state has allowed medical marijuana since 1998.

It now has about 900 licensed recreational growers, with more than 1,100 licenses awaiting approval and no cap on the number of licenses it will grant. Another roughly 25,600 growers in the state produce cannabis for medical marijuana patients. More than 500 retailers are licensed to sell recreational weed, with nearly 250 applications pending.

Washington launched recreational sales in 2014, the same year as Colorado. It started off with relatively low caps on the number of licensed retail marijuana stores and for the size of grow operations. Both measures were designed to prevent an oversupply of cannabis that might make its way into the black market.

As its industry grew, Washington merged its unregulated medical market with the strictly regulated recreational one. It now has more than 500 licensed retailers, though not all are operating, and nearly 1,200 licensed growers.

In Oregon, the medical and recreational marijuana industries still operate separately, although the number of medical pot dispensaries has dropped precipitously as retailers move toward the more lucrative recreational cannabis sales.

Oregon did not cap the number of pot producers, virtually guaranteeing an overproduction problem, said Seth Crawford, a former Oregon State University professor who’s an expert on marijuana economics and cannabis policy. Crawford now runs an industrial hemp seed company.

Coupled with Oregon’s small population — 4 million people total — and its reputation as a prime cannabis-growing location on a par with Northern California, a surplus was predictable here, Crawford said. He estimated Oregon growers produce up to three times the amount of marijuana that the state can absorb legally each year.

“You created this huge industry that has nowhere to put its product,” Crawford said.

“If you were an investor and you had just dropped $4 million into a (marijuana) grow and you had thousands of pounds of flower that was ready to go but you had nowhere to sell it ... if you want any of your money back, the only thing you can do is sell it on the black market,” he said. “It was a system designed for failure.”

Oregon has begun taking steps to address diversion to the black market. The state will soon require medical marijuana growers to adopt a seed-to-sale tracking system that it uses for recreational marijuana. It is also allowing medical growers to sell some of their surplus to wholesalers for sale in recreational dispensaries as medical pot shops dry up.

At a recent meeting of a medical marijuana advisory commission, members identified the pot surplus leaving Oregon as its No. 1 priority. Lawmakers are also taking the issue seriously: A bill last year to allow the governor to enter into sales compacts with other marijuana states didn’t make it to a vote, but there is interest in reviving the idea.

Those in the industry in Oregon are cautiously optimistic about the summit.

“It’s a brand-new industry operating legally under state law and illegally under federal law — and that’s hard to balance. That’s one of the purposes of this summit. Let’s talk about it,” said Anthony Taylor, president of Compassionate Oregon, which advocates for medical marijuana patients.

“I think everybody realizes it’s a discussion that needs to happen.”

Associated Press writer Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.

After 83 years at its original West Salem location, Oregon Fruit Products has found a new home.

The company plans to move its headquarters and processing plant by the end of the year, though it won’t be going far. CEO Chris Sarles announced a deal Thursday to buy the former NORPAC canning facility in southeast Salem, near the city’s airport.

“We were pleased to share with our team that the company roots would remain firmly planted in Salem,” Sarles said in a statement. “We are looking forward to growing our business and employment in the city where we were established.”

Oregon Fruit Products was founded in 1935 by Max Gehlar. Today, the company sells a variety of canned, frozen and processed fruit including cherries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.

In recent years, Oregon Fruit has also expanded its fruit for fermentation business aimed at breweries and cider mills. With expansion has come the need to increase production capacity, Sarles said.

“We continue to grow very nicely,” Sarles told the Capital Press. “We’ve had some year-over-year growth that has pushed us to a place where we’ve had to both update our equipment, as well as give us some breathing room.”

Sarles, who was hired in 2014, said the company spent several years looking for a new facility either in Salem or elsewhere. In July 2017, NORPAC Foods sold its canning business to Seneca Foods Corp., which presented an opportunity for Oregon Fruit to take over the old vegetable canning plant on 22nd Street Southeast.

Working with the Salem City Council, Mayor Chuck Bennett and the nonprofit Strategic Economic Development Corp., Sarles said they were able to buy the 26-acre property. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

“Everyone worked well together,” Sarles together. “To stay in Salem and keep our team in place is just great. We’re very excited.”

Oregon Fruit has 85 full-time employees, plus roughly 100 seasonal workers during harvest season.

Renovation of the old NORPAC cannery will begin right away, and Sarles said company managers hope to finish moving operations by November or December. At 165,000 square feet, the building is larger than they need, but will allow them to grow into the space.

“We’re continuing to make significant investments in the building to really make it an updated facility over there,” he said.

Oregon Fruit remained in the Gehlar family for three generations before selling to Ed and Cyndy Maletis in 2011. Ed Maletis and his family also own several other Oregon-based businesses, including Portland Bottling Co. and HealthCo Information Systems.

Maletis said his goal is to preserve the legacy of Oregon Fruit as a local, family-owned business.

“With more room to expand, we are eager to start this next chapter and build on its 83-year history as a growing, successful Oregon company,” he said.

Wheat industry representatives will consider their options next week in Washington, D.C., after the remaining 11 countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership decided to move ahead without the U.S.

The move could cost U.S. wheat growers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales annually in the years ahead.

Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission, expects the trade deal will “clearly be a topic” at the annual winter meetings for the National Association of Wheat Growers and U.S. Wheat Associates.

NAWG’s National Wheat Foundation will hold an educational event Feb. 8 on Capitol Hill. Wheat industry representatives will speak with members of Congress about the “absolute importance” of the Japan and Vietnam markets, and all of the others involved in the trade deal, Squires said.

President Donald Trump withdrew from the TPP in January 2017, saying he believed U.S. manufacturers were short-changed in the deal. Representatives of U.S. agriculture felt TPP was a good deal for them and offered better access and lower tariffs in Asian and other Pacific Rim markets.

Trump recently said he would consider re-entering TPP if it represented a better deal for the U.S., according to The Associated Press. Squires hopes that’s a recognition of the value of the trade relationships with countries in TPP.

In addition to Japan and Vietnam, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Brunei are parties to TPP.

Steve Mercer, U.S. Wheat vice president of communications, said continuation of the deal showed that “decisions have consequences.”

“The potential harm that we saw when withdrawal was announced a year ago is now really a looming reality for wheat farmers,” Mercer said.

Mexico, a member of TPP, was the largest customer for U.S. wheat farmers last year. Japan has consistently been the largest and most loyal buyer of the soft white, club wheat, spring wheat and hard red winter wheat primarily grown in the Northwest, Mercer said.

Upwards of 90 percent of the wheat grown in the Northwest is exported, most of it to Japan and other Asian nations.

Sources in the Japanese milling industry estimate the situation could eventually reduce U.S. wheat import volumes by more than half, representing a loss at the farm gate of $450 million per year at current prices, Mercer said.

“It may not diminish the amount of soft white or Western white that they import too much because they can’t really get it from other places,” he said. “But the chilling effect of that on prices in general is going to affect every wheat farmer.”

Mercer said the industry will push for renewed renegotiations on a bilateral agreement with Japan, and work with Japanese flour millers.

“The difference in cost to the millers probably will overcome the goodwill and loyalty that have been built up over the years,” Mercer said, noting the U.S. wheat industry has worked for 70 years to develop the Japanese market. “That’s a real concern.”

U.S. Wheat will work to help millers express their concerns to the Japanese government, Mercer said.

The discounting of effective tariffs on Canadian and Australian wheat sold to Japan under the new TPP deal would gradually be applied over nine years. The effective tariff on U.S. wheat would not change, Mercer said.

The remaining countries in TPP are slated to sign the deal in March.

“We won’t have a huge hit right away, but it certainly will begin having an impact,” Mercer said.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — County officials say the current dry and warm winter could lead to severe drought conditions, which would cause an economic blow to farmers and ranchers in southern Oregon.

The Herald and News reports Klamath County commissioners on Wednesday discussed the option of declaring a drought emergency to begin the process in acquiring access to state and federal resources.

Commissioner Donnie Boyd says the agricultural community could see a 50 percent drop in revenue if drought conditions similar to what occurred in 2001 are replicated.

Commissioner Derrick DeGroot says agriculture has a direct economic impact of about $300 million each year in Klamath County and an indirect impact of nearly $1 billion.

Brian Allen is up to his elbows in cold, black water. He’s hanging over the side of a small boat, trying to pull in a tangle of ropes.

They’re heavy and being dragged sideways by the current. He strains against them.

Allen is a researcher with the Puget Sound Restoration Fund. He’s working within a 2.5 acre plot of open water near the mouth of Hood Canal, west of Seattle.  The area is roped off on two ends, and inside dozens of buoys bob in the low chop.

Below the surface, there are 60-foot grow lines covered in yellow sugar kelp.

Allen untangles a line and hooks it onto a manual winch at the back of the boat. He starts cranking the kelp to the surface.

“Here’s good looking plant,” he says, grabbing one of the 6 foot blades of kelp. “I use the term plant loosely, they are not plants. They’re protists related to slime molds and amoebas.”

But like trees, bushes and other plants, kelp makes energy through photosynthesis: carbon dioxide in, oxygen out.

And this exchange of gasses is what scientists are trying to understand and harness in an effort to adapt to a major and troubling shift in ocean chemistry happening around the world.

The world’s oceans are giant carbon sponges. They suck up about a quarter of the carbon dioxide we pump into the air.  And for the past century, people have been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at unprecedented rates.

On land, the carbon is causing climate change.  But in the ocean,  it’s changing ocean chemistry – causing seawater to become more acidic.

That’s no good for all kinds of sea life, especially those with shells.

The oceans off Oregon and Washington are ground zero for ocean acidification, and Northwest scientists have been at the forefront of a new line of research.  They’re testing whether marine plants can help shellfish, and the more than $200 million industry built around them, cope with these changes.

Betsy Peabody of Puget Sound Restoration Fund helped organize the research on Hood Canal.  Federal, state and university researchers are running tests at the kelp farm. They’re looking at changes in pH, how much carbon is being taken out of the water, and how tiny marine snails called pteropods (important creatures at the bottom of the ocean food chain) are responding.

There’s also potential practical applications because being surrounded by low-carbon seawater makes it easier for shellfish to grow. 

“You could create, in theory, a kind of seaweed filter, you know curtain, around where you’re growing shellfish. So that as water is circulating through that system, seaweed is pulling CO2 out of that water,” Peabody says.

The kelp project is happening in part because Washington state prioritized this kind of ocean acidification research back in 2012. Oregon’s committee appointed to work on the issue met for the first time this year and have yet to set priorities.

But researchers in the state are already looking at another marine plant that’s showing promise.

Oregon State University scientist Caitlin Magel sifts through a muddy clump of leaves and roots in the shallow water of a tide flat in Netarts Bay on Oregon’s North Coast.  She’s surrounded by a long, thin bed of sea grass.

 “It’s the native eelgrass to the Pacific Northwest,” she says of the bright green grass, lying flat on the mud at low tide.

The seagrass uses photosynthesis like kelp. But unlike sugar kelp it persists from year to year and also has roots.

“They have this below-ground carbon storage that can lead to long-term sequestration of carbon,” she says.

Magel is trying to get a handle on just how much carbon these shallow eelgrass beds are pulling out of the water.  She’s taking samples from several bays along Oregon and Washington to see how this differs in each location.

Other scientists are seeing reductions in ocean acidification immediately around seagrass beds, especially during the day when the plants are actively using photosynthesis to grow.

“It could be grown in and amongst, for instance, an oyster aquaculture bed,” Magel says. “Or in the case of a shellfish hatchery, they could pinpoint where they’re drawing their water, so that they’re drawing from within an eel grass bed.”

There is still a lot that is unknown about the potential of kelp and sea grass to provide relief for ocean acidification. There’s healthy skepticism that marine plants can make a difference on a broad scale, because the ocean is huge and plants mainly grow in coastal areas.  And like terrestrial forests, there’s no way kelp and eel grass can keep up with the rate of human carbon emissions.

But the target of much of this early science in the Northwest is shellfish production. And by focusing on smaller-scale benefits, the research is creating a path coastal communities can follow to adapt to the changes that are happening outside their doors.

The U.S. wine industry continues to experience a meteoric rise in direct-to-consumer sales, with Oregon wineries seeing the sharpest increase of all in 2017.

That’s according to an annual report by Wines & Vines magazine and Sovos, a company that makes tax compliance and regulatory reporting software. Together, they have tracked growth in the direct-to-consumer channel since 2010.

Wineries shipped more than 5.78 million cases direct-to-consumer in 2017, valued at $2.69 billion. Both figures show roughly 15 percent annual growth in the sector, outpacing the six-year average of 11 and 12 percent, respectively.

Oregon led all wine-producing regions with a 31 percent gain in direct-to-consumer sales, followed by Washington at 26 percent and Sonoma County, California at 25 percent. Napa County, Calif., remained the leader both in volume and value of direct-to-consumer sales, even after the devastating wildfires that struck the region during harvest in October — the busiest time for tourists.

In Oregon, direct-to-consumer wine shipments have increased 214 percent since 2012, with Pinot noir driving more than half of that volume. The average price per bottle also increased by 2.8 percent, to $39.16.

“Oregon is clearly having its day,” the report states. “Due to larger than average harvests in 2013-2015, along with increased attention from investors, the trade, media and consumers, Oregon’s sales and shipments are flourishing.”

Sally Murdoch, spokeswoman for the Oregon Wine Board, said the news is encouraging to Oregon winemakers.

“This represents a lot of hard work on the part of our producers in an extremely competitive and challenging market,” Murdoch said. “It also shows a lot of successful engagement with consumers with a very sharp focus on what consumers want in the high-end wine sector.”

The Oregon Wine Board’s figures show a similar increase in direct-to-consumer sales, which rose by 63,536 cases in 2016 over 2015. Murdoch said tasting rooms are largely responsible for those increases.

“People really want to get in there, see the people who make the wine and buy,” she said. “It’s very tactile.”

Other details in the 2018 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Report:

• Direct-to-consumer wine shipping is on pace to top $3 billion in 2018.

• Direct-to-consumer now reflects 10 percent of off-site domestic retail for the wine industry.

• The fall season (September, October and November) represented 35 percent of direct-to-consumer volume for wineries.

• Small wineries (5,000 to 49,999 cases) and very small wineries (1,000 to 4,999 cases) account for 70 percent of direct-to-consumer wine value, though medium-size wineries (50,000 to 499,999 cases) saw the most growth in 2017 both in value and volume.

• Cabernet Sauvignon led all varieties in direct-to-consumer sales, at 29 percent.

Authorities in Oregon say a 58-year-old wildlife trapper caught a juvenile female wolf late last year in rural Union County, then illegally shot and killed the animal.

David Sanders Jr., of Elgin, Ore., was arraigned Jan. 23 in Union County Circuit Court on charges of unlawfully taking wildlife — a “special status game animal” — and using unbranded traps, both misdemeanor offenses. A plea hearing is scheduled for March 27.

Sanders did not immediately return a call from the Capital Press seeking comment.

According to information released Wednesday, the case dates back to Dec. 18, 2017, when an Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife trooper was inspecting a trap line near Elgin and spotted a dead wolf next to one of the foothold traps.

Upon further investigation, the trooper determined the 63-pound wolf had “more than likely” been shot after being caught. X-rays and a necropsy revealed a small-caliber bullet in the wolf’s spinal column.

Sanders was interviewed by state police, and admitted to killing the wolf after finding it in one of his traps, according to the investigators. The trap was also not marked or branded with his information, as required by law.

Based on its location, the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife believes the wolf was the offspring of a new breeding pair in the Mt. Emily Wildlife Management Unit, born in April. The department is awaiting DNA results to confirm the wolf’s identity.

Four wolves are known to have been inadvertently caught by licensed trappers since the species began returning to Oregon. In all previous cases, the trappers contacted ODFW and wildlife biologists were able to respond, collar and safely release the animal.

Wolves were removed from the state endangered species list in Eastern Oregon, though it remains illegal to shoot them except in specific cases, such as if a rancher finds a wolf attacking livestock or in defense of human life.

Another gray wolf was poached in November 2017 in Wallowa County, in addition to several reported incidents in southwest Oregon, where the species remains federally protected.

After just five months on the job, Geoff Horning is stepping down as CEO of Oregon Hazelnut Industries.

Horning, who was hired Sept. 1, 2017, will instead go into private business and is in the final stages of acquiring a full-service association management company based in Portland.

Horning declined to name the company until the deal is completed. He said it was an opportunity he simply could not turn down.

“This is a game-changer for my family’s future,” said Horning, a native Oregonian and graduate of Linfield College.

Prior to joining hazelnut industries, Horning managed trade shows and publications for the Oregon Association of Nurseries. He also spent 11 years directing Oregon Aglink, a nonprofit organization that promotes Oregon agriculture and seeks to bridge the urban-rural divide.

Horning said the hazelnut business is entering an exciting time in Oregon, and experiencing unprecedented growth.

“My only regret is that I didn’t get a chance to put my mark on an industry that I think is to explode and be amazing over the next 20 years,” he said.

The Oregon Hazelnut Industry offices are located in Aurora, Ore., including the Hazelnut Marketing Board, the Oregon Hazelnut Commission, the Nut Growers Society of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, and the Associated Oregon Hazelnut Industries.

Former CEO Polly Owen intended to retire when Horning arrived, though she stayed on to help with the transition. She said it is too early to know if they will hire a new replacement.

In the meantime, Owen said the industry is not going to slow down in the least.

“We wish (Horning) well, and we are ready to keep going,” Owen said.

Oregon hazelnut growers have more than doubled their acres over the last seven years, Owen said, thanks in part to research and development of new disease-resistant varieties. The added volume has helped Oregon hazelnuts to be more competitive in the global market.

The overwhelming majority of all U.S. hazelnuts — 99.9 percent, according to Owen — are grown in Oregon.

“We are extremely excited in the industry, and looking forward to having more crop,” she said.

Environmentalists claim Oregon lawmakers wrongly pre-empted the court system by deciding that wolves were properly delisted as an endangered species.

The controversy stems from the 2015 decision by Oregon’s wildlife regulators to remove wolves from the state’s version of the Endangered Species Act list.

Under federal law, wolves were delisted in Eastern Oregon but remain protected in the rest of the state.

Three environmental groups — Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity and Oregon Wild — filed a lawsuit claiming the state’s delisting decision unlawfully failed to rely on the best available science.

Fearing that protracted litigation would interfere with an update of Oregon’s plan for managing wolves, lawmakers passed a bill in 2016 ratifying the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission’s delisting decision.

During Jan. 31 oral arguments before the Oregon Court of Appeals, the plaintiffs claimed the Oregon Legislature’s ratification was merely an advisory opinion and doesn’t have a binding legal effect.

Even if lawmakers intended to legally confirm that wolves were delisted, their bill unconstitutionally infringes on the court system’s authority, according to the plaintiffs.

Under the “separation of powers” enshrined in Oregon’s Constitution, the legislative branch of government cannot “unduly burden” the duties of the judicial branch.

In this case, Oregon lawmakers wrongly usurped the court system’s job of deciding whether wolves were delisted in compliance with the state’s Endangered Species Act, the environmentalists argue.

Similarly, the Legislature can repeal a criminal statute, or change the definition of a crime, said Daniel Kruse, the plaintiffs’ attorney. Lawmakers cannot, however, decide that an individual person hasn’t violated the terms of an existing criminal statute, he said.

“That is a judicial function,” Kruse said. “That is the role of the courts.”

Passage of the bill “blurs those boundaries,” Kruse said. “As judges, I hope you would value that distinction.”

The bill ratifying the wolf decision did not effectively create or change the law, he said. “It doesn’t create a legal standard to be reviewed or applied.”

Attorneys representing Oregon countered that lawmakers mooted any debate over the legality of the wolf delisting when they agreed the decision satisfying the state’s Endangered Species Act.

While the decision was delegated to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, that doesn’t limit the power of Oregon lawmakers to remove wolves from the list, according to the state government.

When questioning Carson Whitehead, an attorney for the state government, the Oregon Court of Appeals judges focused on conflicting testimony about the ratification bill during the 2016 legislative session.

The legislative history shows that some lawmakers were led to believe the bill would have a binding effect, while others were told it would not preclude judicial review, said Judge Rex Armstrong.

Carson replied that any ambiguity in the legislative history can be resolved by looking at the statute’s text, which clearly states the delisting decision satisfied the elements of Oregon’s Endangered Species Act.

Lawmakers did not outright remove wolves from the list, as they wanted to leave future options open, Carson said. “If the wolves need to be relisted in the future, the commission can do that.”

Apart from claiming that lawmakers have wrested control from judges, the environmental plaintiffs say the underlying delisting decision was flawed.

Wolves are still in danger of becoming extinct across much of their range in Oregon, as the species only occupies about 12 percent of its suitable habitat statewide, the plaintiffs argue.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission based the delisting on information that wasn’t properly vetted by scientists while ignoring arguments against delisting from wolf experts, according to environmentalists.

In defending the decision, the state government argued the chances of wolves becoming extinct in Oregon over the next 50 years were less than 1 percent.

Although wolves don’t inhabit the entirety of their range, their territory and population is expanding and the animals traverse large portions of the state, the state government said.

When delisting the species, the commission wasn’t required to consider only evidence that’s been peer-reviewed by scientists, according to Oregon’s government.

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, Oregon Farm Bureau and Wallowa County, which intervened in the case as defendants, argued that wolves were properly delisted because they’re a non-native subspecies from Canada.

“Our argument is the delisting was proper because the wolf should never have been listed in the first place,” said Caleb Trotter, attorney for the intervenors.

Looking to gain a handle on the state’s largest-ever Japanese beetle outbreak, the Oregon Department of Agriculture has proposed doubling its treatment area around the Cedar Mill and Bethany neighborhoods in unincorporated Washington County.

ODA will host a pair of public meetings in February to discuss the effort, which would include applying a granular insecticide over 1,900 acres beginning in April and finishing at the end of May.

The Japanese beetle is a voracious pest that feeds on a variety of plants and crops, including grapes, berries and orchard fruit. ODA estimates the beetles would cost Oregon agriculture $43 million per year if they became established and dispersed throughout the state.

Clint Burfitt, insect pest program manager for the department, said Japanese beetles have historically arrived in Oregon from infected states via air cargo at Portland International Airport. That is where officials concentrated most of their attention.

However, with budget cuts to the Japanese beetle monitoring program, Burfitt said they left their flank unguarded. In 2016, ODA detected 369 beetles in Cedar Mill and Bethany, adjacent to Northwest Portland. Burfitt does not know where exactly the beetles came from, but suspects it may have been from potted plants brought in by a homeowner.

It was, at the time, the most beetles found during a single field season in Oregon.

In 2017, ODA kicked off a five-year project to wipe out the beetles, treating 2,121 homes on roughly 1,000 acres. Yard debris was quarantined and disposed of separately to prevent the insects from getting loose.

Still, the department detected more than 23,000 beetles later that summer, including 750 — about 3 percent — outside the treatment area.

“We were anticipating thousands of beetles, not tens of thousands of beetles,” Burfitt said.

Increased monitoring statewide also led to the discovery of 11 Japanese beetles 175 miles south in Douglas County, including Oakland and Green. Another 11 beetles were found at the Portland airport and five at Swan Island in Portland.

Heading into year two of the eradication project, ODA would expand treatment to 1,900 acres around Cedar Mill and Bethany, 150 acres at the Portland airport and 34 acres in Douglas County. Officials would place traps at Swan Island, but are not planning any treatment of the area.

It will take ODA about six weeks to apply the product known as Acelepryn on all grass and ornamental plant beds in the treatment area. Applications are free for property owners, though they need to give permission for ODA to enter their properties. The department is hoping for 100 percent cooperation.

Meetings about the proposed 2018 project will be Tuesday, Feb. 6, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Sunset High School, 13840 NW Cornell Road, Portland, and Tuesday, Feb. 13, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Leedy Grange, 835 NW Saltzman Road, Portland. Experts including ODA staff, public health officials and partner agencies will be on hand to answer questions and address concerns.

A final decision on the 2018 project is expected by March.

Online

www.japanesebeetlepdx.info

SALEM — Long before the misadventures of Hollywood big shots made the headlines, sexual harassment claims were a problem in agriculture, according to attorney Tim Bernasek.

While the cases haven’t attracted as much publicity as the allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein or actor Kevin Spacey, the federal government recently filed sexual harassment lawsuits against three farms, he said.

In another case, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won a jury verdict of more than $17 million on behalf on several female farmworkers in Florida who claimed they were fired for opposing sexual misconduct, Bernasek said.

“Folks, we need to be ready. These issues are serious,” he told farmers during the Jan. 26 Ag Summit in Salem, Ore., an annual event organized by the Dunn Carney law firm.

While sexual harassment claims are often brought by women, same-sex complaints by male workers have also been reported, he said.

Sexual harassment claims against companies often have common themes: An employee’s sense of being trapped and isolated, not knowing who to ask for help and a fear of retaliation, among others, Bernasek said.

Farmers don’t necessarily have a way to avoid sexual harassment claims entirely, but they can adopt strategies to prevent them from escalating, he said.

Companies must be upfront with a “zero tolerance” policy for any harassment or discrimination, which should be visibly posted on bulletin boards for workers, Bernasek said.

Ideally, employers should strive to prohibit intimate relationships between supervisors and workers — or even between workers altogether — but this isn’t realistic in agriculture, where migrant workers are often from the same families, he said.

Sexual harassment policies should provide employees with a designated person to receive complaints who is not a supervisor, since supervisors are often the alleged source of the problem, Bernasek said.

The policies should also be drilled into the owners and managers of the company, as well as the supervisors.

“You have to do repeated trainings on this issue,” he said.

There are several grounds for opening a sexual harassment investigation, including hearing complaints or rumors, witnessing problem behavior, or receiving an inquiry from a government labor regulator, said Melina Mendoza, a human resources consultant.

Such inquiries should focus on the facts — what occurred, when, where and who else witnessed it — rather than opinions, Mendoza said.

“Be open-minded about what’s being conveyed to you,” she said.

Growers should be prepared for sexual harassment problems to arise during the most inconvenient times, said Bernasek. “Don’t shrug it off. Listen.”

When interviewing a worker who reports sexual harassment, the employer must disclose that accusations cannot remain confidential, said Mendoza. In some cases, it’s better to hire an attorney or another outside party to conduct investigations.

If a farmer agreed to keep quiet about an allegation, the company could later be accused of willfully failing to take action, she said.

“You need to let that employee know, ‘I cannot just do nothing about it,’” Mendoza said. “You must act. You don’t have a choice to just listen.”

For this reason, it’s important the employer communicate the company’s anti-retaliation policy and follow through on it, Bernasek said.

An employee alleging sexual harassment should be separated from the accused perpetrator, but the worker needs to understand why the change is occurring, he said.

“Creative lawyers on the other side have made this into retaliation,” Bernasek said.

The subject of retaliation is sensitive, since it’s not limited to severe measures, such as a demotion or termination, he said.

Reassignments to less desirable tasks, exclusion from activities and a lack of communication can also be seen as vindictive, Bernasek said. Dealing with sexual harassment is tricky, since a “farm is not a convent,” and some coarse language will inevitably be used, he said.

Even so, supervisors need to avoid creating a problematic culture by telling the crudest jokes and using the coarsest language, Bernasek said.

The reality of employing workers is that sexual harassment claims will arise, so farmers need to use their best judgment, he said. “There is no free pass in any of this. It’s risk management.”

Naked barley is turning heads among researchers as a sexy choice for organic farmers looking to access a variety of different markets, including food, beer and animal feed.

While most commonly grown barleys have indigestible outer-layer hulls stuck onto the grain, naked barley is the result of a mutation that naturally strips the hull away, leaving seeds exposed.

Oregon State University is now leading a three-year, five state project to test new varieties of naked barley, with $2 million in funding from the USDA Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative. Partners include Washington State University representing the Pacific Northwest, the universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin-Madison representing the Midwest, and Cornell University representing the Northeast.

Pat Hayes, a barley breeder and professor of crop and soil science at OSU, said naked barleys have been around for almost 10,000 years, though they have not gained much traction in the U.S.

“We are all united in the goal to provide organic gardeners, growers, processors and consumers with an alternative crop, food and raw material that will be economically rewarding and sustainable,” Hayes said.

Barley used to a much larger part of Oregon grain production, Hayes explained, though almost all of it went to the animal feed markets, where low prices made it a money-losing proposition.

By removing the seed hulls, barley can be used in a number of foods like porridges and baked goods. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also linked whole grain barley to reduced risk of heart disease.

The difficulty, Hayes said, is that removing the hull must be done by machinery, and can also grind away the bran, which results in pearled barley losing its whole grain status. That is not an issue, however, with naked barley.

“If you want to be marketing barley as a whole grain, the way to do that is to have a naked barley where you don’t have to grind the hull off the grain,” Hayes said.

Barley hulls do have an advantage in the beer world, acting as a natural filter during the initial phases of brewing, though Hayes said that can be overcome with a technology known as mash filtration. A number of Oregon breweries now use mash filters, he said, which are actually more efficient and deliver more gallons of beer per pound of barley.

Recently, OSU developed the first fall-planted variety of naked barley specifically for the Northwest — appropriately named “Buck.” Hayes said the university partnered with Breakside Brewery in Portland last December to brew an experimental beer named Buck Naked Golden Ale, which quickly sold out.

With potentially more markets open to naked barley, Hayes said growers may find the crop an appealing option, especially among wheat farmers looking for a viable rotation crop.

“You use exactly the same machinery (for barley) as you use for wheat,” he said. “We’re such a productive state that not only can we first meet our local demands, but we need to keep an eye on those export markets.”

Growers interested in learning more about naked barley are encouraged to attend OSU’s annual barley field day, scheduled for June 1 in Corvallis.

SALEM, Ore. — Stephanie Breazile was chosen the 2018 Oregon Dairy Princess-Ambassador at the 59th annual coronation and banquet at the Salem Convention Center on Jan. 27.

She was chosen from a field of five finalists at the Salem event that included Megan Sprute of Washington County, Jessica Monroe of Yamhill County, Rachel Jenck of Tillamook County and Donata Doornenbal of Marion County.

Breazile is a 2015 graduate of Hillsboro High School and is in her second year as a student in the agricultural sciences program at Oregon State University. She hopes to become a high school agriculture teacher when she graduates, and said her new title “will allow me to share my knowledge of the dairy industry throughout Oregon.”

She was active in Hillsboro High School’s FFA program, holding several leadership positions, including president. At OSU, she is an active member of Sigma Alpha Professional Agricultural Sorority.

Sprute, a 2013 Banks High School graduate, was chosen First Alternate. She is studying natural resources at Oregon State University, volunteers with Young Life and works part-time at a veterinary clinic near Portland.

Jessica Monroe was chosen by the other contestants at the ceremony as Miss Congeniality. She grew up in Sheridan, where she was homeschooled, and represents Yamhill County in the Dairy Princess-Ambassador program. She now attends Chemeketa Community College.

The Oregon Dairy Women’s Dairy Princess-Ambassador Program has been promoting the dairy industry since 1959 in collaboration with the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association and the Oregon Dairy Nutrition Council. Each year, the program centers contestants on a theme, which for 2018 was “Milk Takes You to the Top.”

Breazile will spend the next year traveling the state making presentations at fairs, town meetings and public events touting the state’s dairy industry. At the end of her year, she will receive monetary awards that in past years have exceeded $17,000.

SALEM — State legislation to require massive polluters to pay for their carbon emissions is unlikely to move forward this year, legislative leaders said Monday.

House Democrats lack enough votes to pass the “cap and invest” bill in the in House of Representatives, said House Republican Leader Mike McLane of Powell Butte.

Oregon Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, echoed doubt about the proposal’s prospects in 2018.

“It’s an issue that needs to be dealt with. My personal opinion is that we most likely will not be able to get over the finish line,” said Burdick, who supports the proposal.

But House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, said she has not given up on enacting a cap and invest program during the Legislature’s 35-day session, Feb. 5 to March 11.

“I continue to believe there is room for negotiation, and all I would say is like the New England Patriots, if we get on the field during a snowstorm, we are going to work hard on the field and we are going to get that ball … across the goal line,” Kotek said.

Gov. Kate Brown said she would like to see lawmakers move “as quickly as possible on legislation that reduces carbon emissions.”

“The reason why I think that is important … is that we are seeing the impacts of climate change on a regular basis,” she said.

The lawmakers made the comments during The Associated Press’s legislative preview at the Oregon State Capitol Monday when lawmakers announce their priorities for the upcoming session.

The cap and invest legislation, introduced by Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, and Rep. Ken Helm, D-Beaverton, would charge Oregon industries for emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and use the revenue to invest in projects meant to slow climate change.

The legislation reemerged this year after stalling last session and after several years of work on the proposal. House Democratic leadership had identified the legislation as a top priority for the 2018 policymaking session, but critics argue the bill is more appropriate for the Legislature’s five-month-long session in 2019, when there would be more time for refinement.

Oregon farm organizations have been critical of the proposal.

Modeled after a program in California, Oregon’s so-called “Clean Energy Jobs” bill would set a cap of less than 25,000 tons of CO2 per year for each company, beginning in 2021.

An estimated 100 Oregon companies that emit more than that amount would be required to buy market-priced allowances for the excess. The “price” on emissions is designed to encourage businesses to adopt technologies and practices that reduce their carbon footprint. The allowances would be sold at a North American auction and generate revenue that would be invested in green-energy and environmentally friendly agriculture projects.

The program would eventually generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that would be invested in projects that slow climate change, Dembrow said. The exact cost of the program has yet to be calculated, but previous estimates pegged revenue at about $700 million per year.

Carbon trading markets are gaining momentum around the globe. Washington recently proposed a state cap and invest program. China has plans to launch a carbon market later this year that would account for about a quarter of that country’s industrial emissions, according to E & E News, a Washington, D.C., environment and energy publication.

No cap and trade system in the world has resulted in significant emissions reductions, in part because caps still remain relatively high and businesses haven’t had to pay out a lot of money, according to E & E News. But the programs have “served as political consensus builders that have gotten industry accustomed to climate policies,” E & E News’s Debra Kahn wrote in December.

KENNEWICK, Wash. — Expansion in the processing industry will create new dynamics for Washington and Oregon potato production, the leader of Washington’s potato commission says.

“We have incredible growing demand in Asia; we still have growing demand here domestically, and we’ve got to keep up with that,” said Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission. “We’ve had international customers on quotas for several years now; we just have not been able to get them enough frozen potato products overseas.”

Voigt gave an update during the annual conference for farmers from both states.

Solutions include increasing water to dryland farming in the Columbia Basin Project and increasing yields, which have been relatively flat in the past decade.

Washington potato yields average around 600 hundredweight per acre, or 30 tons per acre. The industry would like to average 40 tons per acre in the next 20 years, Voigt said.

The commission plans to focus on school meals, Voigt said. Currently, potatoes are on the menu 2.5 times a month for breakfast and lunch.

“There’s an opportunity there for real growth,” he said.

The commission will work with the Washington State School Nutrition Association to demonstrate affordable ways to deliver nutrition through potatoes, Voigt said. They will also provide national research showing that students who have potatoes for breakfast have improved cognitive skills.

The commission is working with Potatoes USA to connect potatoes with athletes, including information from people who use spuds in their training programs. The organizations are looking to create a Team Potato for trade shows, sponsoring athletes, Voigt said.

Priorities include improving research infrastructure in Pullman and Othello, and working with Washington State University and USDA Agricultural Research Service to fill key positions left open by researcher retirements, Voigt said.

Several commission members spoke in Olympia against four state bills proposed to restrict pesticide applications. Farmers would have to give four business days notice before applying pesticides, he said.

“Heaven (forbid) you find late blight on Thursday, because you’re going to have to wait Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and finally be able to spray on Wednesday,” Voigt said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Bill Brewer, president and CEO of the Oregon Potato Commission, said the state and national organizations work together to address problems and accomplish goals for the better of the industry.

Brewer announced the commission’s annual Goodness Unearthed awards. The best Russet was the Russet Burbank entered by Lane Farms of LaGrande. Chin Farms of Klamath Falls received the best yellow potato for the Yellow Natascha and the best red potato for the Red Jewell. Best specialty potato went to the Blushing Belle from Macy Farms in Culver.

KENNEWICK, Wash. — When Alexis Taylor became director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, she set a goal of visiting all 36 counties in the state in her first year.

She marked her one-year anniversary Jan. 23 and visited her final county two weeks before.

“I was just new enough and probably naive enough to take that on when I first started,” she said, speaking at the Washington-Oregon Potato Conference in Kennewick, Wash. “It was a big investment of time, but a really great one.”

In her first year, Taylor visited more than 40 farms and ranches, held more than 11 roundtable discussions, toured 23 businesses and 15 natural resource projects and spoke to “countless” county and state agricultural meetings.

The No. 1 topic she heard about was the next generation, including children taking over a family farm or ranch or a beginning farmer or rancher accessing land or capital. She also heard about labor, immigration and workforce challenges and the disconnect between rural and urban Oregon.

“Farming and ranching is the second-largest sector in the state, and many did not feel that’s really acknowledged, particularly by a lot of the urban sectors of the state,” she said.

ODA will also work to boost awareness of agricultural career opportunities among Oregon’s youth. Currently, the number of graduates fill only about 61 percent of the job opportunities available each year, she said.

“Yes, we need farmers and ranchers, but we also need scientists, journalists, people with a whole host of different types of backgrounds thinking that they’re going into agriculture today,” she said. “I grew up outside a town of 300 people in Iowa. I did not know at that time that I could work in agriculture and have a career that took me all over the world.”

Before joining ODA, Taylor was USDA undersecretary for farm and foreign agriculture services. She visited nearly 30 countries during that time, she said.

“There are lots of exciting opportunities and we need young people to really connect with that, whether they grew up on a farm or grew up in Portland,” she said.

Taylor said the department’s mission is to help farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses find local, domestic and international markets for their products. More than 225 commodities are grown in Oregon.

“ODA is pretty unique in Oregon state government, where we regulate but we also promote for an industry,” she said. “This can sometimes cause tension, but I actually think that tension is really important and makes us a better regulator for our farmers and ranchers. What might make sense in the four walls of my office, with my staff, might not make sense from a common-sense, on-the-ground perspective.”

California-based Munger Bros. denies allegations that foreign workers were mistreated at its blueberry farm in Sumas, Wash,, and vows to fight a class-action lawsuit filed Jan. 25 in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The suit claims that Mexican nationals last summer at Sarbanand Farms, owned by Munger, were underfed and overworked and that about 60 of them were illegally fired after staging a one-day strike in response to a worker’s death.

“The companies (Munger and Sarbanand) will vigorously fight the allegations in the complaint, which will be shown to be untrue and without merit,” according to a Munger statement.

The lawsuit stems from events last August at Sarbanand, including the death of farmworker Honesto Ibarra. He was taken away by ambulance Aug. 2 and died four days later at a Seattle hospital. Some workers refused to pick Aug. 4 and were fired the next day.

Labor activists alleged an ailing Ibarra was ordered back to work, though the company said it learned from a relative that Ibarra was diabetic and immediately called the ambulance.

The Washington Department of Labor and Industries will complete an investigation in early February into workplace conditions at the farm, department spokesman Tim Church said Friday. A separate probe into whether the farm followed employment laws is also underway, but the department does not have a deadline for finishing it, he said.

The lawsuit was filed by Columbia Legal Services and a Seattle law firm, Schroeter Goldmark & Bender. It names workers Barbano Rosas and Guadalupe Tapia as lead plaintiffs, but seeks unspecified monetary damages for about 600 H-2A workers recruited to pick last summer at Sarbanand. The suit also names CSI Visa Processing, a Mexico-based labor contractor, as a defendant. Efforts to contact CSI were unsuccessful.

Munger Bros., based in Delano, Calif., calls itself North America’s largest fresh blueberry producer, with more than 3,000 acres in Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia and Mexico.

Columbia Legal Services attorney Joe Morrison said Friday that the lawsuit doesn’t depend on the circumstances of Ibarra’s death, but rather how workers were treated before and after his death.

“We’re hoping that people get put on notice that you may be able to use the program, but you have to play within the lines,” he said.

The lawsuit alleges that a farm manager told workers they had to pick unless they were on their “deathbed.”

The suit also claims the workers weren’t fed enough, with food running out at some meals. The suit further claims the company violated Washington labor law by firing the striking workers.

Munger, in its statement, said the company takes seriously its responsibility to see to the wellbeing of workers.

“The facts are that operations at the Sarbanand farm in Washington are exemplary. They include modern housing, dining and worker facilities for the H-2A workers. All employees are treated well and are paid well,” the company said.

The company said last summer that by refusing to pick, the workers were violating their H-2A contracts.

Farms are allowed to hire foreign seasonal workers if they can’t find enough domestic workers.

At a press conference Thursday in Seattle, Morrison leveled general criticism against the H-2A program.

“As a matter of public policy, you cannot import thousands and thousands of workers from foreign countries, exclude them from the protection of key labor laws, and expect everything to work out fine,” Morrison said.

Farms must provide housing, transportation and other benefits, such as workers compensation insurance, to H-2A workers. The U.S. Labor Department sets minimum wages for H-2A workers at a higher level than Washington’s minimum wage.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has called for replacing what it calls a “cumbersome” H-2A program with one that gives foreign workers more freedom to choose employers.

JOSEPH, Ore. — Wallowa County is well known for its bronze art and dramatic scenery, but agriculture remains its economic base. In February the county’s literary nonprofit, Fishtrap, presents a weekend of conversations entitled, Winter Fishtrap: The New Agrarians.

Held at the Joseph Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph Feb. 16 through 18, Fishtrap will host regional and local organizations as well as community members to discuss today’s farming challenges from succession planning to the culture of agriculture at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph.

Mike Midlo, Fishtrap’s program manager, said the New Agrarians schedule sets the problems, provides a structured conversation and looks for solutions and a list of action items.

“We chose the subject of agrarians because we know there are people really struggling to make it here and elsewhere,” Midlo said. “If agriculture is important to us as citizens of the West, we want to know what we can do to help farmers succeed.”

The panel discussions and breakout sessions will be interactive and inclusive, Midlo said, giving everyone a voice to come to a greater understanding.

“Whether you are a young farmer or part of the older generation we want to know what the real world solutions are.”

Kate Greenberg, Western program director for the National Young Farmer’s Coalition, will deliver the opening address on Friday night as well as facilitate breakout sessions and moderate panel discussions over the course of the weekend. Joining her is Nellie McAdams, farm preservation program director for Rogue Farm Corps, as well as Kathleen Ackley of the Wallowa Land Trust and Sara Miller and Kristy Athens with Northeast Oregon Economic Development District.

Oregon policy makers will also be on hand to discuss agricultural perspectives from tilling the ground to proposing legislation like Mike Hayward, former chairman of the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners, Brett Brownscombe of Portland State’s National Policy Consensus Center and John Williams, Wallowa County’s Oregon State University Extension agent.

To develop the weekend’s list of events Midlo said a committee of community members was asked, “What is important for people living in Wallowa County and the greater West?”

“We wanted to look at what are the barriers to becoming a farmer today,” Midlo said.

Instead of “how-to” workshops, Midlo said Fishtrap brought together a group of people with diverse voices to talk about something that is commonly important. The theme became The New Agrarians with so many concerns arising about land succession and an aging workforce.

Diminishing farmland and farmers are growing concerns in Oregon. When there is no one to take over the family farm or ranch, producers face tough choices like selling land to be converted into housing developments, driving up land prices and making land too expensive to farm. Zoning laws also impact land use in communities where agriculture is still a primary business.

“Stats show something like 60 percent of farm land is going to change hands in the next 20 years and most farmers are over 60 years old,” Midlo said.

Since 1988 Fishtrap has hosted writing workshops, classes and lectures. While the organization is best known outside Wallowa County for its weeklong event, Summer Fishtrap, held in July at a camp just south of the shores of Wallowa Lake, most of the organization’s offerings are geared to locals.

Winter Fishtrap, Midlo said, is designed to be accessible to a lot of the county’s workforce, farmers, ranchers, forest workers and wildland firefighters who are not available in the summer months and to meet people where they are — whether a producer, a consumer or a policy maker.

“What we are good at is pulling people together; bringing together diverse voices about something that is commonly important,” Midlo said.

When advocates of providing high-speed broadband to all corners of America talk about the “digital divide,” they are talking about places like Gilliam County, Ore.

From the waterfront along the Columbia River in Arlington to the rolling wheat fields surrounding Condon, the county spans 1,200 square miles and roughly 2,000 feet of elevation gain. Many homesteads and farms are tucked away at the bottom of steep canyons, where wireless internet struggles to penetrate.

That creates a challenge for elderly residents who rely on the convenience of telemedicine, and farmers who would like to fit their tractors with GPS steering, said Gilliam County Judge Steve Shaffer. Shaffer spoke Jan. 25 at a community forum in Salem hosted by Connect Americans Now, a coalition dedicated to eliminating the digital divide by 2022.

Specifically, the group has homed in on using what are known as TV white spaces to deliver rural broadband.

“This is a technology that we think will really work for us,” Shaffer said.

TV white space refers to unused television channels on the broadcast spectrum that act as a buffer to avoid interference between active channels. The broadcast spectrum ranges from low-frequency bands like AM radio, which can travel great distances at low data volume, to high-frequency bands like Wi-Fi, which travel shorter distances at much higher volume.

Joe Conradi, national outreach director for Connect Americans Now, said TV white space is the sweet spot between the two, able to reach long enough distances at enough volume for rural broadband.

What the market needs, Conradi said, is regulatory certainty from the Federal Communications Commission. Connect Americans Now launched Jan. 2 and is urging the FCC to leave at least three TV white space channels open in every market, luring much-needed investment to communities like Gilliam County and its population of 1,900.

Fiber will always be the gold standard for internet, Conradi said, but he estimated it would cost $60 billion-$80 billion to bridge the digital divide using fiber alone. That’s why a combination of technologies, including TV white space, is a key part of the strategy, he said.

“The most important thing is we need to put pressure on the FCC,” Conradi said.

More than 34 million Americans, including 23.4 million in rural areas, are without access to reliable broadband, according to Connect Americans Now. Microsoft, through its Rural Airband Initiative, is now working toward a device to turn TV white space into rural broadband, though it has drawn some opposition from the National Association of Broadcasters.

In July 2017, the NAB issued a statement that the proposal “threatens millions of viewers with loss of lifeline broadcast TV programming,” and that Microsoft’s white space technology has been a “well-documented, unmitigated failure.”

Conradi said the coalition has gained some allies in Congress, and has had “great conversations” with U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who represents rural eastern and central Oregon. Earlier this year, Walden issued a statement praising two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump aimed at improving rural broadband service.

“Too many rural communities in Oregon lack the broadband access they need to join the 21st century economy,” Walden said. “I hear this all too frequently from my constituents.”

Several Oregon cities and counties have already signed on to Connect Americans Now, as well as the Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Cattlemen’s Association. OCA spokeswoman Mary Jo Foley-Birrenkott discussed how the internet has become increasingly important for farmers and ranchers to access real-time commodity markets, weather reports and precision agriculture tools.

“Agriculture is the lifeblood of these rural areas,” Foley-Birrenkott said. “Any way they can become more efficient and build those business plans helps facilitate the survival of those towns.”

Apart from farming, Conradi said broadband is crucial for small businesses, schools and health care in small-town America.

“Some of these communities really face extinction within the next 10 years if they don’t get on the right side of this digital divide,” he said.