Kevin White was 20 years old when he made it his goal to raise $1 million for the National FFA Organization.

Mission accomplished. And then some.

In seven years as executive director of the Oregon FFA Foundation, White helped raise more than $3 million for state programs, enlisting several dozen corporate sponsors to throw their support behind agriculture education.

White stepped down from the position Aug. 31 after accepting a new job with Deschutes County Title. Doug Hoffman will serve as interim executive director while the foundation searches for a full-time replacement.

The Oregon FFA Foundation is the primary funding vehicle for Oregon FFA, which lost state funding in 2011. Oregon FFA had received financial support from the Oregon Department of Education, though budget cuts at the state level prompted FFA to become independently funded, or risk becoming the first state to lose its program.

“When we lost that money, the foundation had to step up and figure out how we’re going to support Oregon FFA,” White said.

The foundation hired White as its first executive director. White is an FFA alum from Anderson, Calif. who served as national FFA secretary in 1992-93. It was then that he decided to put the $1 million target on his bucket list.

“I had been able to get a lot out of FFA in terms of my own personal growth,” White said. “FFA teaches a lot about service. It’s something where you feel compelled to give back.”

White moved to Oregon in 1995 to attend Western Baptist College — now Corban University — in Salem. He then moved to Terrebonne, just north of Bend, where he lives on a small ranch.

During White’s tenure, the Oregon FFA Foundation went from raising around $6,000 per year to $600,000 per year.

“It changed dramatically,” White said. “Obviously, I think we were able to exceed a lot of expectations.”

The FFA Foundation funds a large portion of basically anything that isn’t covered by student dues or registration fees, including staff, programs and the annual state convention. The strategy, White said, is instead of asking for charity, the foundation asks for business sponsors to partner with FFA. As a career-oriented organization, he said the alliance makes sense on both ends.

“Don’t underestimate the potential that the agriculture industry is willing to support FFA,” White said.

Hoffman, who serves as president of the foundation’s board of directors, said he appreciates White’s work and looks forward to continuing the group’s mission as interim executive director.

“We have a great team in place, and we’re well-positioned to continue the important work of funding the programs and activities that benefit thousands of students each year,” Hoffman said.

Kirk Maag, president-elect of the foundation, said they are fortunate to have Hoffman step into the role on a temporary basis. Hoffman was CEO of the Wilco Co-op for more than 20 years before retiring in December 2017.

“Doug has decades of leadership and management experience,” Maag said. “It’s important to have someone with Doug’s experience at the helm.”

The foundation intends to start reviewing applications Sept. 21, and Maag said they hope to hire someone before the end of the year.

“We’re looking for somebody who is a self-starter, and who has a vision of how to best support the Oregon FFA Organization,” he said.

For more information, or to suggest candidates, contact Maag at 541-881-9613 or Elin Miller at 415-613-5251.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Timm Locke relishes a chance to drive around Portland and showcase the latest commercial buildings made with mass timber, a construction material that uses wood beams and panels instead of concrete and steel.

First stop: Albina Yard, a four-story office building that opened in 2016 featuring cross-laminated timber panels from D.R. Johnson, a lumber company south of Roseburg, Ore.

Every piece of cross-laminated timber — or CLT for short — is prefabricated, designed for a specific part of the building, said Locke, director of forest products at the Oregon Forest Resources Institute. That means buildings go up faster, with fewer workers.

Wood is also environmentally superior to steel and concrete, Locke said, because it sequesters carbon and takes less energy to produce.

“There are so many benefits, it doesn’t matter which one you choose to start with,” Locke said.

First developed in Europe, mass timber is now catching on in the U.S., and Oregon is working to position itself as the industry hub, kick-starting rural economies that have traditionally relied on forest products. On Aug. 1, Oregon became the first state to approve language in its building codes allowing for wood-framed buildings up to 18 stories tall.

Albina Yard was the first building to use Oregon-made CLT as a structural element. Other examples of mass timber construction in Portland include Carbon 12, an eight-story condominium building on Northeast Fremont Street. Catty-corner to it across the street is One North, an 85,540-square-foot business complex.

First Tech Federal Credit Union also opened its new headquarters in neighboring Hillsboro last June. At 156,000 square feet, it is the largest mass timber building in the nation.

Locke, who was hired by OFRI in 2015 to help develop markets and supply chain for mass timber, said he believes momentum will only increase as the projects gain wider recognition.

“People like wood. It’s a nice material,” Locke said. “It has a great environmental story, and a great aesthetic.”

Mass timber refers to several construction materials made of wood, including CLT, glue laminated beams, laminated veneer and mass plywood.

CLT, a prominent example, has been described as “plywood on steroids.” It is made by gluing planks of wood in perpendicular layers, creating thick panels that can be used for walls and floors.

The first CLT buildings were constructed in 1993-95 in Germany and Switzerland, and the majority of production remains in Europe. The first U.S. commercial CLT building was completed in 2011 in Whitefish, Mont. D.R. Johnson became the first U.S. company certified by APA — The Engineered Wood Association — to make structural CLT panels in 2015.

A study by Grand View Research, a market research company in San Francisco, anticipates the global CLT market will be worth more than $2 billion by 2025, tied to demand for “green” homes.

The U.S. Senate in June added provisions to its version of the 2018 Farm Bill that would establish a federal research program for mass timber. Originally known as the Timber Innovation Act, the bill was sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and co-sponsored by 19 other senators, including Republicans and Democrats from Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Montana, Minnesota, Maine and Mississippi.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said he wants to see Oregon become the national leader in mass timber, an industry with “enormous potential.”

“We think about the fact that we build these medium high-rise buildings out of concrete and steel,” Merkley said. “If we can open that market effectively to mass timber, then it could be huge.”

Locke describes himself as a “wood guy.” Before joining OFRI, he ran a marketing agency, Pipeline Public Relations, in Portland, serving clients in the construction industry.

Locke is the first director of forest products for OFRI, a position created in 2015 and partially funded by a two-year, $250,000 Wood Innovation Grant from the U.S. Forest Service. He said the job was a perfect fit.

“They wanted to promote Oregon wood products into commercial construction,” Locke said. “That has always made sense to me.”

First, Locke said, there are cost savings on construction and installation with mass timber. He explained how each floor panel at Albina Yard was installed in three hours, whereas with steel and concrete it would have taken twice as big a crew up to a week to do the job.

Then there is the environmental element. Production of CLT emits 26 percent less greenhouse gases than making steel, and 50 percent less than concrete. Carbon 12, the Portland condo building, also stores up to 577 metric tons of carbon dioxide in the wood — equivalent to taking roughly 105 cars off the road for one year.

CLT was initially developed to create a high-end use for lumber. Locke said it could also provide a market for small-diameter trees and the wildfire fuels building up in western forests.

Others, however, have tempered expectations. According to University of Washington and Washington State University researchers, the predicted demand for softwood lumber to manufacture CLT panels is still less than 1 percent of the annual Pacific Northwest timber harvest, making it a boutique industry at best.

Doug Heiken, conservation and restoration coordinator for the environmental group Oregon Wild, described CLT as a side product of the timber industry that would not change its overall carbon footprint. He said there is no guarantee wood for mass timber would come from sustainable forestry practices, and not industrial clear-cuts.

“Mass timber isn’t really that different from any other timber in that way,” Heiken said.

The main limiting factor, Locke said, are the international building codes, which are slowly being adapted to catch up to tall wood buildings.

In April, the International Code Council moved to update codes allowing for wood buildings up to 18 stories, although the proposed changes would not be adopted until 2021 at the earliest.

Oregon took the extraordinary step in August of adopting the recommendations under its Statewide Alternate Method — the first state to do so. Locke said mass timber has passed every required test and is proving to be just as safe as concrete or steel.

Such tests are conducted at the TallWood Design Institute, a collaborative research program of the University of Oregon College of Design and Oregon State University’s College of Forestry and College of Engineering.

Iain Macdonald, associate director of the institute, said 20 to 30 professors are working in research and product development, studying fire performance, building physics, environmental impact and economics.

“Urbanization is going to drive a huge demand for housing around the world,” Macdonald said. “Our role is to do applied research on this, to put together educational programs for stakeholders like architects, structural engineers and construction companies.”

Macdonald acknowledged fears about mass timber, especially regarding fire safety. Fire tests involve roasting panels in a furnace at 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit for up to two hours, and Macdonald said the results so far are promising.

While the surface does char, Macdonald said the interior of the panel remains insulated from the heat. He compared it to throwing a whole log onto a campfire, versus small pieces of kindling.

William Silva, pre-construction manager for Swinerton Builders — the Portland company that built the First Tech’s Hillsboro headquarters — said that as product testing and building codes come together fellow builders should get over their fears.

“It’s become more than just a progressive concept,” Silva said. “I see a lot of developers looking at this as a value proposition.”

Not everything has gone smoothly for mass timber development in Oregon.

Just outside Macdonald’s office at the OSU College of Forestry in Corvallis, work is underway on the new Oregon Forest Science Complex that will house the College of Forestry, TallWood Design Institute and replace Peavy Hall on campus.

The project is supposed to be a showcase building for the materials, but was hampered earlier this year by a costly and potentially dangerous setback. On March 14, two of seven layers in a third-story CLT panel measuring 30 feet long by 4 feet wide, weighing a half-ton, delaminated and fell 14 feet onto the second floor below. Panels for Peavy Hall were manufactured by D.R. Johnson.

Nobody was hurt, but the incident did bring construction to a halt while officials investigated what went wrong. Evaluations were conducted by the general contractor, Andersen Construction, as well as D.R. Johnson and APA — The Engineered Wood Association. OSU also hired KPFF Consulting Engineers of Portland as an independent consultant.

They determined D.R. Johnson employees erred when they pre-heated lumber in stacks outside during a period of cold weather before gluing them together into CLT. This caused premature curing of the adhesive, weakening the bond.

Valerie Johnson, president of D.R. Johnson Wood Innovations, said the incident was the product of a “well-intentioned, but unfortunate” change in the manufacturing process. She added the company has added quality control measures, and built a climate-controlled glue layup room in its facility to ensure delamination does not happen again.

“We are confident we have rectified the problem permanently and have an even better production process as a result,” Johnson said.

Andersen Construction authorized D.R. Johnson to resume making panels for Peavy Hall, and construction resumed in July.

In its project specifications, OSU stipulates that CLT components for Peavy must be manufactured within 300 miles of Corvallis. D.R. Johnson is the only certified CLT fabricator that meets the requirement.

OSU spokesman Steve Clark said engineers are still determining how many panels already installed at the complex may need to be replaced. The project is divided into three zones, with Zone 3 needing 45 of 71 panels replaced. Analyses are not yet competed for Zones 1 and 2.

“Ultimately there is some expense and delay,” Clark said. The 95,000-square-foot complex is now expected to open by January 2020. The total cost is now $79 million, of which $30 million comes from state bonds, $38 million in donations and $11 million in university funding.

Despite the problem, supporters of CLT do not appear to be fazed. Clark said the university remains “very committed and confident” in the future of CLT. Locke described it as a “blip” in the process. Macdonald said it was an anomaly.

“We really have not heard about this happening on a CLT project around the world,” Macdonald said. “It’s good that this deviation in the manufacturing process was caught. We’re not concerned about the long-term impact.”

Set in the forested canyon near Lyons, Ore., Freres Lumber Co. has pioneered a new form of mass timber to sustain its business and 470 employees.

The company, founded in 1922, debuted its new mass plywood factory in December 2017, a sparkling $40 million, four-acre facility that manufactures panels using veneer lumber up to 12 feet wide, 48 feet long and 24 inches thick.

Tyler Freres, co-owner and vice president of sales, said the company received patents for its mass plywood panels earlier this year. He believes mass plywood is a more efficient product than CLT, using 20 percent less wood while holding up in every facet of construction.

“This is a truly unique facility,” Freres said. “We had to design all the processes ourselves.”

Freres, who lives in nearby Stayton, said the prosperity of local schools and communities is tied to the success of the timber industry. Mass timber can be a lifeline, he said, though it will require a more productive approach to thinning federal forests to boost volume.

In the 1970s, Oregon’s timber harvest totaled more than 8 million board-feet, according to the state Office of Economic Analysis. Today, the timber harvest has dropped by more than half that amount, and logging on federal lands is down nearly 90 percent.

“It’s been an absolute disaster, losing timber,” Freres said.

Freres said mass plywood will be key to supporting his family’s business for another 100 years. He said the company receives many inquiries from builders interested in mass plywood.

“The potential is almost limitless,” he said.

New facility set to open Sept.24

By Aliya Hall

Capital Press

Salem, Ore. — Massachusetts-based Griffin Greenhouse Supplies Inc. is making the move to the West Coast, opening a location in Salem, Ore., this month.

The distribution center is expected to open Sept. 24, and is bringing hard goods and retail products to match their broker presence for West Coast growers.

“Our sales presence in Oregon for a long time was through brokerage. We have a solid customer base and representation,” Tracey Gorrell, marketing communications lead for Griffin, said. “It was a natural fit to bring the next branch to where we already have that customer base and presence.”

Gorrell said the company is primarily known as an ornamental crop broker by the Pacific Northwest customer base, but the distribution center will provide access to the retail side, with which customers may be unfamiliar.

“Now they have access to supplies, equipment and retail products they couldn’t previously get,” she said. “They have access to things like poly film and containers, production supplies that are needed to produce ornamental products.”

For nursery retailers, the center will also sell gift and holiday supplies, as well as bird baths.

“The things we’re bringing to the West Coast are more than just plant material,” Gorrell said.

The company is leasing the 24,000 square-foot facility at 3315 Aumsville Highway SE in Salem, which will become Griffin’s 16th branch location, according to the company.

The new Oregon warehouse’s product mix will support both greenhouse growers and nursery owners.

“We understand (nurseries) are a significant segment in the Pacific Northwest,” Gorrell said.

Griffin will also supply specific items and vendors to cater to the needs and preferences of Pacific Northwest growers, such as HC Companies, T.O. Plastics, Premier Tech Horticulture, JR Peters, Syngenta and Lumite.

Gorrell anticipates the Salem branch will house around 1,500 different products when fully stocked.

Griffin has been a family owned business based in Tewksbury, Mass., for 71 years, specializing in greenhouse and nursery production and independent garden centers. In 2012, Griffin acquired Syngenta Horticultural Services that focused on national ornamental brokerage, distributing live goods such as seed, cuttings and young plants. As a national broker and distributor, the company’s annual sales exceed $200 million.

“The Oregon distribution center fulfills our longtime goal of achieving coast-to-coast coverage with all parts of our product offer,” said Craig Hyslip, chief operating officer at Griffin, in a press release.

The Salem location follows Griffin’s opening of an Aurora, Colo., facility in early 2017. The company also has locations in Connecticut, Illinois, Georgia, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia.

“We’re looking forward to being a more full service resource to our existing customers, and hoping it will open new doors to customers we haven’t been able to adequately serve,” Gorrell said. “We’re interested in end-to-end solutions with this expansion, and we’re hoping to be a more valuable partner to the accounts in the Northwest.”

SALEM — The Oregon Department of Agriculture is considering whether to put all of its laboratories under one roof.

The agency wants to fund a study on whether combining the facilities is feasible, and will likely seek the money for that analysis in the 2019 session.

ODA maintains five testing and inspection facilities: an animal health lab at ODA headquarters in Salem, a plant pathology lab, an insect testing program, a weights and measures lab, and the department’s first and largest lab, the Food Innovation Center in Portland.

Lauren Henderson, the department’s assistant director, says testing has become more complicated and more rigid since the Food Innovation Center opened in 1999.

For example, the state now requires that legal cannabis products be tested for certain contaminants, including pesticides.

While certified private labs perform the required testing, if those labs find a certain contaminant outside the allowable range in a cannabis sample, ODA investigates.

“Times have changed and the complexities have changed, and cannabis was just one more piece of work that, in the current space and the footprint we have, if we try to add that, it’s just going to be harder to do because we frankly don’t have the room to add any more equipment really up in the Portland area,” Henderson said. “So we want to look at a bigger footprint to put all of our labs.”

Centralizing the labs could mean certain processes could be more efficient, and it may require fewer administrative staff like receptionists or managers, Henderson said.

Henderson says they want to request about $200,000 for the feasibility study, which is expected to take 10 to 12 months, in the state’s next two-year budget, which begins in mid-2019.

It was a tale of two meetings Thursday in The Dalles as traditional adversaries sat down to find common ground within the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, now three years past due for an update.

Around the table, members of farming, ranching, environmental and hunting organizations laid out their objectives for the plan, which will guide wolf recovery across the state for the next five years.

Conversations were heated at times — especially while discussing the prospect of hunting wolves — but the group eventually reached some areas of compromise, and agreed to schedule a second meeting.

Deb Nudelman, a mediator with Kearns & West in Portland, was hired by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife to facilitate the talks. ODFW staff members, including Director Curt Melcher, were also on hand to listen.

Joining the work group were Todd Nash, with the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association; Mary Anne Cooper, with the Oregon Farm Bureau; Rob Klavins, with Oregon Wild; Nick Cady, with Cascadia Wildlands; Jim Akenson, with the Oregon Hunters Association; Dave Wiley, with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; Amaroq Weiss, with the Center for Biological Diversity; Quinn Read, with Defenders of Wildlife; and Amira Streeter, natural resources policy adviser to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown.

“I think it’s a great group,” Nudelman said. “Groups like this don’t come together if it’s easy. They come together because it’s hard.”

This is not the first time opponents have met face-to-face to talk about wolves. The Oregon Wolf Plan was first written by ODFW in 2005, and last updated in 2010. Environmental groups sued the department in 2011 to halt killing wolves that had preyed on livestock under Phase I of the plan, which resulted in a settlement in 2013 emphasizing non-lethal deterrents.

Since then, the Oregon wolf population has grown to a minimum of 124 animals, and the plan has progressed to Phase III in Eastern Oregon, allowing greater flexibility for ranchers and wildlife managers to consider killing so-called “chronic depredators.” Wolves remain protected under the federal Endangered Species Act west of highways 395, 78 and 95.

ODFW was supposed to update the Wolf Plan again in 2015. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission decided to postpone its vote indefinitely in January so the agency could build a broader consensus among stakeholders.

Thursday’s work group got the process started, though it nearly faltered out of the gate. After identifying numerous issues, the group attempted to debate the merits of killing wolves that repeatedly prey on livestock, which led to an uneasy dialogue that had Nudelman openly questioning whether to proceed.

Akenson, conservation director for the Oregon Hunters Association, said he believes hunting needs to be included in management of wolves.

“The bottom line is, hunters need to be part of the process,” Akenson said. “It’s a real need.”

Nash, a Wallowa County commissioner and longtime rancher, said livestock producers never wanted to kill wolves in the first place, but are in a predicament now where they must protect their livelihood.

“There isn’t a class of livestock out there that is safe anymore,” he said. “Lethal take in the remote areas where we run (livestock) is sometimes the only conclusion we can come to.”

Klavins, northeast Oregon field coordinator for Oregon Wild, fired back at the notion of hunting wolves. Adding hunting into the Wolf Plan would be troublesome, he said, and might actually backfire when it comes to protecting livestock. He referred to research that suggests killing wolves actually increases the odds of future attacks, because it disrupts the social structure of packs.

“We’re not trashing hunting,” Klavins said. “We are expressing serious concerns about (wolf) hunting.”

Weiss, the West Coast wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, said hunting wolves in the lower 48 states is not being done for subsistence, and decried it as a “waste of wildlife.”

Having reached an impasse, the group shifted gears to focus on collaring wolves with GPS tracking collars, and using the data to alert ranchers when wolves are in the area.

The cattlemen’s association has called for making sure at least one wolf from every pack in the state is wearing a collar. But Roblyn Brown, wolf program coordinator for ODFW, said it is nearly impossible for staff to find and safely collar certain wolves in densely forested habitat. ODFW also estimates collaring costs about $2,000 to $7,000 per wolf, with an average lifespan of 18 months per collar.

“It’s just a tough thing to do,” Brown said.

Nash said ranchers need to know where wolves are moving to make the most effective use of range riders and other non-lethal deterrents. Rather than provide specific GPS points of where wolves have been, Brown said it may be more effective to use the data as a whole, coloring a picture of where wolf activity is most active — what wildlife officials call the “blue blob.”

Despite concerns about whether the data would be used to poach wolves, Klavins said GPS collars may be one area where environmental groups may be willing to make a compromise.

With that bit of progress, the work group decided it would be worth it to meet again on Sept. 21 in Redmond.

Derek Broman, state carnivore biologist for ODFW, said the tentative plan is to go back before the Fish and Wildlife Commission in October to receive further direction.

“We know there’s not going to be unanimous decisions,” Broman said. “That’s ultimately why this process is so valuable.”

Melcher, the ODFW director, said he is an “eternal optimist,” and believes the collaboration will prove to be a positive investment.

“We’re writing the checks, and we’re happy to keep doing it,” Melcher said.

Drought intensified in Oregon and Washington over the previous week, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported Thursday.

The percentage of Oregon gripped in “extreme drought” more than tripled to nearly 22 percent. In Washington, the percentage of the state in “severe drought” nearly tripled to 17 percent from 6.

A drier than normal winter and a warm and dry summer have caused problems in much of the West, according to a statement from the Drought Monitor.

“This was most notable in Oregon, where the combination of a poor winter snowpack and a hot and dry summer have produced widespread poor pasture and range conditions and very low stream flows and livestock ponds, and required water hauling, supplemental hay and delayed forest harvesting, along with reduced livestock herds,” according to the statement.

The Drought Monitor is a partnership between the USDA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The four categories of drought in order of severity are moderate, severe, extreme and exceptional.

Oregon and Washington have both had dry and warm summers. Drought conditions are more widespread and severe in Oregon because Washington had a wetter winter, according to the Drought Monitor.

The portion of Oregon in some stage of drought remained steady at 93 percent, but more areas on both sides of the state went from severe to extreme drought.

Ranchers in southwestern Oregon reported there was not enough water in creeks to run irrigation pumps and that livestock was moved off pastures because of low springs and ponds, the USDA reported in a weekly crop report.

Milder temperatures eased some of the drought stress. The cooler but still dry weather benefited ripening wine grapes and tree fruit, according to USDA.

More than half of Washington fell into some stage of drought for the first time this year. The percentage of the state in drought increased to 54 percent from 46 percent. All of Western Washington is in drought. Drought is most severe in the South Puget Sound area and southwest Washington. The entire state is at least “abnormally dry.”

“Those who have irrigation have been running day and night. Those without have stressed crops with reduced yield,” according to USDA’s crop report for Washington.

Drought conditions are less severe in Idaho and California and were little changed from the week before.

Some 30 percent of Idaho is some stage of drought, mostly modest drought. Some 48 percent of California is in drought, again mostly moderate drought.

NOAA reported Thursday that this year’s meteorological summer, June through August, in the U.S. was the fourth hottest on record, tying 1934. Records date back 124 years. The summer was the 20th wettest. The Great Plains and East Coast had above-average rainfall, according to NOAA.

Oregon had its ninth warmest and 24th driest meteorological summer, while Washington had its 13th warmest and 11th driest.

Help is on the way for farmers and ranchers in north-central Oregon who lost tens of thousands of acres of cropland in a series of large wildfires that swept through the region earlier this summer.

The USDA on Wednesday approved emergency grazing for affected ranchers on Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, land through Sept. 30. Officials with the Risk Management Agency will also allow summer fallow wheat growers to plant cover crops in burned areas to prevent soil erosion, without affecting their crop insurance.

The relief comes at the behest of Oregon congressional leaders, including Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and Republican Rep. Greg Walden, whose district covers Wasco and Sherman counties where the fires raged in July and August.

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the measures in a letter sent to Walden on Sept. 5. Perdue said the agency is compiling reported losses to determine if they will declare a federal disaster statewide.

According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland, Oregon has experienced 1,680 fires burning 762,959 acres in 2018. The 10-year average from 2006 to 2017 is 2,400 fires burning 733,019 acres, meaning this year’s fires are fewer, but larger on average, than they were over the past decade.

In a statement, Walden said fires have not only impact forests and choked communities with smoke, but also devastated farmers and ranchers — especially in Wasco and Sherman counties, where some producers lost some or nearly all of their crops.

“I applaud Secretary Perdue’s prompt approval of my request to get our farmers and ranchers the assistance they need to get back on their feet after these fires,” Walden said.

Large fires in the region include the Substation fire, which started July 17 and torched 78,425 acres. The Natural Resources Conservation Service estimates the fire impacted 31,000 acres of cropland and standing wheat over 86 farms in both Wasco and Sherman counties. One farmer, 64-year-old John Ruby of Wasco County, also died while fighting the fire, digging a firebreak to protect his neighbor’s property.

The Long Hollow fire started just nine days later, consuming another 33,451 acres south of Dufur. Finally, the South Valley fire started Aug. 1, adding another 20,026 acres. All three fires were either confirmed or likely human-caused.

A major concern now is preventing soil erosion on the blackened landscape. Farmers were encouraged to plant cover crops, but since wheat is normally grown in a summer fallow rotation, producers worried it would put them under “continuous production” under their crop insurance.

Perdue said the Risk Management Agency, which regulates crop insurance, will make changes to accommodate growing cover crops on affected acres for the 2020 crop year.

Additionally, ranchers who lost rangeland for their livestock will have the ability to graze animals on land enrolled in CRP, a program where the federal government pays farmers to take environmentally sensitive land out of agricultural production for 10-15 years.

Both Sens. Wyden and Merkley released statements saying they will continue to work toward helping farmers and ranchers recover from fires. The Oregon Farm Bureau thanked the senators in its statement, adding, “The ability to plant cover crop and still be compliant with farm bill programs is critical.”

Wes Jennings, farm program chief for the USDA Farm Service Agency in Oregon, encouraged any farmer or rancher affected by the wildfires to contact their local county FSA office to learn about what resources may be available.

“Everybody is so diverse and unique in their operation, a program might fit one person and not fit another person,” Jennings said.

REDDING, Calif. (AP) — An explosive wildfire that closed down dozens of miles of a major California freeway nearly tripled in size overnight, just weeks after a nearby blaze that left neighborhoods in ruins and killed eight people, officials said Thursday.

The fire that erupted Wednesday afternoon and devoured timber and brush on both sides of Interstate 5 near the Oregon state line had expanded to 23 square miles Thursday, prompting mandatory evacuations, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement. That’s up from 8 square miles burning on Wednesday.

Authorities did not say in the statement how many people were affected by the evacuation order, but the fire is in a rural area with scattered homes.

The blaze was human-caused, fire officials said, but they didn’t indicate whether it was arson or by accident.

Truckers abandoned their vehicles Wednesday as flames roared up hillsides. In a video, a passenger in a vehicle screams: “Oh my God, I want to go!” as trees burst into flames and sheets of fire roiled on the side of the roadway.

About 17 big-rigs were abandoned and at least four caught fire, Lt. Cmdr. Kyle Foster of the California Highway Patrol’s Mount Shasta office told the Los Angeles Times.

U.S. Forest Service workers helped the driver of one flaming truck to safety and other truckers, firefighters and others aided other drivers, he said.

“There’s vehicles scattered all over,” Brandon Vaccaro with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told the Redding Record Searchlight. “Whatever occurred here was probably pretty ugly for a while.”

About 45 miles of the I-5 were closed in both directions, said Chris Losi, a spokesman for the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

Officials from different agencies will meet Thursday to determine if they can reopen the highway, which is a key route for commercial trucks, said California Highway Patrol Officer Jason Morton.

The highway runs from the U.S.-Mexico border through California, Oregon and Washington state to the U.S.-Canada border.

The blaze also delayed Amtrak’s Coast Starlight train service between Sacramento and Oregon.

Rural homes and cabins in and around the forest were under evacuation orders, from the community Lakehead north to the Siskiyou County line, Losi said.

“It isn’t a lot of people,” he said.

The fire was showing “critical” behavior — burning fiercely and moving rapidly — but was still far away from any large towns, he added.

The city of Dunsmuir, with about 1,500 people, was about 15 miles from the fire. Residents were issued an evacuation warning, urging them to be prepared to leave if the fire threatened.

A nearby fire in the Redding area burned some 1,100 homes and killed eight people last month. It was only fully contained last week.

Lisa Charpilloz Hanson, deputy director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, has won the James A. Graham Award for Outstanding Service to Agriculture from the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.

The award, which will be presented to Hanson Sept. 12 at NASDA’s annual meeting in Hartford, Conn., recognizes her “leadership in highly controversial natural resources issues, participation in successful trade policy development and missions, and productive relationships with federal and state agencies,” according to the association.

Hanson began her career in the food processing industry and joined ODA as the manager of its commodity commission program in 1996 before eventually working at “almost every level of the department,” according to a joint letter of support from the agency’s three most recent directors — Alexis Taylor, Katy Coba and Phil Ward.

Her accomplishments include a change to ODA’s structure to create a “flatter” organization and reduce the bureaucracy for farmers, ranchers and other customers, as well as legislative leadership in representing agriculture’s interests among Oregon lawmakers, the letter said.

“Lisa comes to work each day so that she can create an agricultural legacy for her daughters, so they too will have the opportunity to work in a vibrant Oregon agricultural and food section,” the letter said.

WENATCHEE, Wash. — Dalton Thomas, a leader in the Washington tree fruit industry, was recognized for his “pioneering contribution” in developing U.S. fresh fruit exports to Asia at the Asiafruit Congress in Hong Kong on Sept. 4.

Thomas retired a year ago as president of Oneonta Starr Ranch Growers, which was founded by his late father Paul “Tommy” Thomas in 1934 as the first exporter of Washington apples.

It was during the Great Depression and Tommy Thomas traded a boat load of apples into Europe for a half load of tire sand nails that he sold in the U.S.

Dalton Thomas worked a year as a USDA fruit and vegetable inspector before joining quality control and then the sales desk of his father’s Wenatchee-based company in 1966. The younger Thomas became president in the 1970s and opened Washington apple exports to Asia in 1972 with the first shipment to Taiwan. He also led the way into Indonesia and other Asian markets.

“He saw the opportunity before anyone else did,” said Scott Marboe, Oneonta Starr Ranch marketing director.

“When I came to the company in 1987, he would load two to three ships to Asia and Middle East — open cargo ships of 160,000 to 230,000 (40-pound) boxes each and he would fly over to help with the inspection and unloading,” Marboe said. “It was quite a process and a team effort. A lot of people in the industry at that time knew we knew what we were doing and relied on us.”

Eventually other Washington tree fruit companies began handling their own exports. Oneonta shifted from being 65 percent export and 35 percent domestic sales to 70 percent domestic and 30 percent export, the same as other companies today.

“We are still selling to the same companies that Dalton pioneered in the ’70s and ’80s in the Middle East and Asia,” Marboe said.

Todd Fryhover, president of the Washington Apple Commission in Wenatchee, said he met Thomas in 1985 as a competitor salesman for another company and soon respected Thomas as “the best export sales person in the industry bar none.”

Later, when Fryhover was commission president and Thomas was a commissioner, Fryhover said he enjoyed watching Thomas when industry members welcomed importers on trade missions.

“My job was complete with introductions and I sat back and watched the interaction. I’ve never seen anyone work a room better than Dalton. He meets everyone in the room and comes away with orders for fruit,” Fryhover said.

Asiafruit Congress is a 20-year-old annual conference for fresh fruit and vegetable producers and marketers. Thomas received its first Impact Award for his “pioneering contribution to developing Washington and U.S. fresh fruit exports to Asia.”

A Chilean cherry committee, an Indian importer and Indonesian retailer also were honored.

Thomas’ sons, Brad and Jimmy, are now president and vice president, respectively, of Oneonta Starr Ranch Growers. Brett Reasor is CEO. The family also owns Custom Apple Packers, also in Wenatchee.

Oneonta sells about 15 million boxes of apples annually with 1.3 million of that organic. It sells about 2 million boxes of cherries, 2 million boxes of pears and 500,000 boxes of stone fruit. It also sells table grapes, citrus and other commodities to domestic and international customers.

Among companies it sells for, besides itself and Custom, are Gilbert Orchards and Columbia Reach, both in Yakima, Davis Orchards in Milton-Freewater, Ore., and Diamond Fruit in Odell, Ore.

ASHLAND, Ore. (AP) — Kristi Mastrofini stared down the roaring gun barrel of the deadly Klamathon fire that was ready to burst through Oregon’s southern door.

In just its second day, the 9,600-acre fire had killed one man in Northern California and swept through 40 structures. Now, shifting winds hurtled flames northward toward the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and the communities around it.

If left unchecked, the fire could swallow rural homes, destroy key power lines, and surge through the Soda Mountain Wilderness Area, whose topography suggested the possibility of a Sherman-like march all the way to Highway 66.

Oregon Department of Forestry fire bosses saw decommissioned roadbeds through the southern end of the wilderness as the first and best line of defense. They asked to open them, but much wider and more quickly than hand crews could possibly do.

“It really was important not to lose this opportunity, so the fire didn’t get established in Oregon,” said Mastrofini, the Bureau of Land Management’s Ashland Resources Area field manager.

So Mastrofini and BLM District Manager Elizabeth Burghard on July 6 did what was once virtually unthinkable. They approved bulldozers to blade nearly 20 miles of former roadbed in the wilderness, lands so protected from mechanization that hikers can’t even push a stroller on its trails.

Flames hit the fresh lines in several locations, but they held until winds shifted again to push Klamathon flames back to California. Calamity avoided.

“They met the objective we were looking to meet at a very ever-changing situation,” Mastrofini said.

Once a legal tool kept deep in the toolbox, heavy equipment such as bulldozers are now on the tool bench ready for use to reduce the ecological, social and economic damage created when wildfires rage in wilderness areas.

With ever-larger fires damaging public resources, communities under siege from choking air, and tourism businesses up in smoke the past two years, land managers are looking to hit wildfires earlier and harder — even if it means dozers in wilderness areas.

“There is a lot of fatigue in southwest Oregon in the past two years,” said Traci Weaver, public affairs officer for fire communications for the Forest Service and BLM’s state office. “I think everyone’s doing their best trying to keep fires to a smaller footprint.”

The Wilderness Act bans mechanized equipment such as chainsaws and bicycles from designated wilderness areas, but provisions allow for heavy equipment such as vehicles, dozers and excavators when fighting wildfires.

The equipment must be approved on Forest Service land by the regional foresters, but BLM delegates that authority down to the local level, including Mastrofini, BLM’s Ashland area resource manager.

Wilderness dozer work within 50 air miles of Medford has been approved as often this summer as it has the previous 12 years on all Forest Service lands in Oregon and Washington, records show.

The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest twice asked for and received approval last month to use bulldozers in wilderness areas while fighting the Klondike fire in western Josephine and eastern Curry counties.

However, encroaching flames kept bulldozers from cutting lines in the Kalmiopsis and China Hat wilderness areas, so the approvals were never used, but dozers were ready to go had conditions not worsened and reduced the likely effectiveness of dozer lines there, officials said.

Before those approvals, the Forest Service approved bulldozer entry to just three wildernesses during wildfires in Oregon and Washington — the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area during 2014’s Chiwaukum fire; the Mount Washington Wilderness Area during the Shadow fire in 2011; and the Columbia Complex fire in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness Area in 2006.

In the Shadow fire and the Columbia Complex, both of which were in Oregon, bulldozers were not deployed in the wilderness areas, Weaver said. No information was available on whether bulldozers were actually used in the Chiwaukum fire, she said.

BLM also used bulldozers on a short line during 2014’s Oregon Gulch fire in the Soda Mountain Wilderness Area, which was founded in 2009 and is a rare “urban wilderness” with development nearby and former roads and two Pacific Power transmission lines criss-crossing it.

Craig Trulock, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest deputy supervisor, said the forest would “probably not” have asked for dozers 10 years ago on a fire like the Klamathon. But wildfires fed by more fuels on the ground and fire fatigue among the public beaten down by unhealthy air and crashed tourism economies ratcheted up the need to keep fires from growing unchecked in wilderness areas, he said.

“I think all of those contribute to our sensitivity to the public,” Trulock said.

“If we’re not going to keep up with being as aggressive as we can both in fire season and off-season, we’re going to see bigger and bigger fires,” he said.

Firefighters are more adept now at using dozer lines more effectively as anchors for burning out fuels toward a fire, robbing it of potential strength and halting flames at ridge lines or other key geographically defensible areas, Trulock said.

“We’re getting better at it,” Trulock said. “Being able to put a dozer line in wilderness makes more sense than when we weren’t so good at doing that.

“There are only so many places where you can be successful,” Trulock said.

So far, there has been little Monday-morning quarterbacking of the BLM’s dozer decision.

“I’m not going to second-guess the firefighting in the wilderness,” said Joseph Vaile, executive director of the Ashland-based Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “It’s a balancing act to make sure firefighters are kept safe, communities are kept safe and that wilderness values remain.”

Vaile said he would like to see an intense study of the “burn reports” that review a fire’s activities and the reactions by firefighters to them “to see what we can learn from them.”

Dave Willis, executive director of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, said he knows the BLM’s decision was legal, but “I can’t say that I know” whether it was necessary.

Willis said he has seen some of the dozer work, as well as photographs and videos. “The fire-suppression impacts have been more environmentally harmful than the impacts of the fire itself,” he said.

Willis stressed that the BLM needs to follow its rehabilitation directives spelled out in the wilderness area’s management plan to curb erosion and other potential ecological hazards caused by the bulldozers.

“I think it’s important that the rehabilitation be done in a timely and quality fashion, certainly before the fall rains,” Willis said.

Rehabilitation already has begun, with BLM crews breaking up the bladed former roadbed on a secondary dozer line that was not used, Mastrofini said. Also, some drainage areas and seasonal streams filled in during bulldozing were restored to their natural contour.

Already ceanothus sprouts are popping out of the char.

“It’s really cool to see things come back real fast,” said Charles Schelz, the monument’s ecologist. “It’s pretty amazing.”

Perhaps as early as next week, the main rehabilitation will begin, with excavators moving into the center of the bulldozed areas and working their way back while breaking up the compacted soils.

“It’ll be an excavation show, which means it will be slow but high quality,” said Tim Montfort, the BLM hydrologist assigned to the rehab project.

Drainage areas will be seeded, and slash will be spread on the former dozer lines as mulch for natural regeneration of grasses and brush, Montfort said. When the last pickup and piece of heavy equipment used in the rehab backs out of the wilderness area, the chain gate will be locked once more and bulldozers will be just as forbidden again as strollers on Soda Mountain.

“When it’s complete, that’s it,” Schelz said. “No more riding on the road.”

BOSTON (AP) — Cranberry farmers have asked the federal government for permission to destroy a quarter of their crop in response to a glut that has kept prices low and growers operating in the red.

The Boston Globe reports that after struggling with an oversupply of the berries for nearly two decades, growers around the country are asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture for authorization to sell 75 percent of the supply and discard the rest.

If the government approves their request, farmers would hold back roughly 100 million pounds of cranberries.

Jack Angley is owner of Flax Pond Farms in Carver. He says overproduction means “we’re not getting much money for our crops.”

The USDA estimates the cost to produce a barrel of cranberries is $35, but the average price last year was $31.50.

Eugene, Ore. — When Daniel Walters was young and pursuing music, his grandmother told him that he needed to be a farmer. Although the concept didn’t stick then, when he was asked in his 30s by a friend what he wanted to be when he grew up, the first thing out of Walters’ mouth was “farmer.”

“I don’t know if it was Grandma’s words in my head or God’s providence,” he said.

In 2012, he finally established his own farm called Laughing Salad Farm, which specializes in salad greens, tomatoes and ginger. The farm is also organic, which Walter said at their size is, “The only way to get your foot in the door.” They don’t use manure, but instead utilize cover crops or bagged organic matter.

Although it was originally located near Veneta, Ore., Walter said he wanted to expand and there wasn’t much arable land for lease in that area. In February of this year, Laughing Salad moved to Eugene, Ore., onto his in-laws’ property. Along with “superior” soils, Walter also said it gives him an opportunity to focus on his family as well; he has two daughters, the youngest is three months.

“One of the really important aspects for me is having a traditional family,” he said. “Having a traditional job we would miss out on a lot.”

His wife, Heather, said that it was never her dream to have a farm, but she has welcomed the farm life after finding a passion for tomatoes.

Laughing Salad Farm has a total of three acres. Eventually as they expand, they’re going to look for another acre to rent. Although he prefers the soil, there are different challenges with pests that he faces, such as gophers, moles, deer and insect pressure.

Instead of selling directly to consumers, Laughing Salad Farm sells to restaurants and grocery outlets in the Eugene area, such as Novo and Red Barn. Walters said in the past when they have done farmers’ markets in the area, the general consumer couldn’t tell the difference between the tomato varietals, and didn’t understand the purpose of the special crops.

However, their higher-end produce was more appealing to chefs in the area.

Although there has been more turnover in clients as chefs move and price points shift, Walters said that they have an advantage over other farms because they’re open year-round and can fill in the need.

“We’re experimenting with crops,” he said. “Seeing what we can do good, what’s profitable and has a market for it. We’ll even go and ask places what they’re looking for that their not getting enough of.”

Walters plans on planting more citrus, to accompany the fruit trees and kiwi berries the farm also sells.

Although Walters enjoys producing salad mixes for his customers, he also said the business is selfishly motivated to fulfill his love of salad.

“I eat a lot of salad,” he said.

An Oregon judge has rejected several Umatilla Basin farmers’ allegations that they’ve been cheated out of water, ruling that the Westland Irrigation District properly allocated water.

At the conclusion of an Aug. 30 hearing in Hermiston, Ore., Baker County Circuit Court Judge Greg Baxter dismissed a lawsuit filed against the district by the plaintiffs, ELH LLC, Oregon Hereford Ranch LLC, Paul Gelissen, Maurice and Lucy Ziemer, Craig and Cynthia Parks and Richard and Kristine Carpenter. Baxter presided over the case because judges in Umatilla County had recused themselves.

“It validates the way they’ve been distributing water,” said Nicole Hancock, the irrigation district’s attorney.

Capital Press was unable to reach Mike Haglund, attorney for the plaintiffs, as of press time.

The complaint filed against Westland Irrigation District in 2016 claimed that smaller growers with senior water rights had been deprived of water to benefit larger operations with junior rights.

However, the judge found the district’s system of distributing water was lawful and that the plaintiffs’ claims were regardless time-barred by the statute of limitations, said Hancock.

“The judge made a very solid factual legal ruling,” Hancock said, adding that she’s confident the decision would survive a potential appeal. “The plaintiffs never had a viable claim that could gain any traction.”

The irrigation district wants to rebuild its relationship with the plaintiffs and do its best to represent the interests of all patrons, she said.

According to the plaintiffs, the district had consistently ignored and failed to account for the “priority dates” of senior water rights holders when distributing water from the Umatilla River and the McKay Reservoir.

Instead, the district’s policy has been to distribute as much water to the maximum acreage possible while disregarding the “first in time, first in right” principle of Oregon water law, the plaintiffs claimed.

The plaintiffs requested that the judge nullify contracts that allow a “select group of farmers” to use water they allegedly have no right to divert.

The irrigation district called these claims “frivolous” and argued the plaintiffs ignored case law that recognizes irrigation districts are “created for the purpose of sharing resources and risk.”

Plaintiffs in the case have never been deprived of water while junior water rights holders continued to irrigate, and they wrongly claim that irrigation districts lack discretion over when and how water is allocated, the district said.

It was a tale of two meetings Thursday in The Dalles as traditional adversaries sat down to find common ground within the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, now three years past due for an update.

Around the table, members of farming, ranching, environmental and hunting organizations laid out their objectives for the plan, which will guide wolf recovery across the state for the next five years.

Conversations were heated at times — especially while discussing the prospect of hunting wolves — but the group eventually reached some areas of compromise, and agreed to schedule a second meeting.

Deb Nudelman, a mediator with Kearns & West in Portland, was hired by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife to facilitate the talks. ODFW staff members, including Director Curt Melcher, were also on hand to listen.

Joining the work group were Todd Nash, with the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association; Mary Anne Cooper, with the Oregon Farm Bureau; Rob Klavins, with Oregon Wild; Nick Cady, with Cascadia Wildlands; Jim Akenson, with the Oregon Hunters Association; Dave Wiley, with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; Amaroq Weiss, with the Center for Biological Diversity; Quinn Read, with Defenders of Wildlife; and Amira Streeter, natural resources policy adviser to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown.

“I think it’s a great group,” Nudelman said. “Groups like this don’t come together if it’s easy. They come together because it’s hard.”

This is not the first time opponents have met face-to-face to talk about wolves. The Oregon Wolf Plan was first written by ODFW in 2005, and last updated in 2010. Environmental groups sued the department in 2011 to halt killing wolves that had preyed on livestock under Phase I of the plan, which resulted in a settlement in 2013 emphasizing non-lethal deterrents.

Since then, the Oregon wolf population has grown to a minimum of 124 animals, and the plan has progressed to Phase III in Eastern Oregon, allowing greater flexibility for ranchers and wildlife managers to consider killing so-called “chronic depredators.” Wolves remain protected under the federal Endangered Species Act west of highways 395, 78 and 95.

ODFW was supposed to update the Wolf Plan again in 2015. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission decided to postpone its vote indefinitely in January so the agency could build a broader consensus among stakeholders.

Thursday’s work group got the process started, though it nearly faltered out of the gate. After identifying numerous issues, the group attempted to debate the merits of killing wolves that repeatedly prey on livestock, which led to an uneasy dialogue that had Nudelman openly questioning whether to proceed.

Akenson, conservation director for the Oregon Hunters Association, said he believes hunting needs to be included in management of wolves.

“The bottom line is, hunters need to be part of the process,” Akenson said. “It’s a real need.”

Nash, a Wallowa County commissioner and longtime rancher, said livestock producers never wanted to kill wolves in the first place, but are in a predicament now where they must protect their livelihood.

“There isn’t a class of livestock out there that is safe anymore,” he said. “Lethal take in the remote areas where we run (livestock) is sometimes the only conclusion we can come to.”

Klavins, northeast Oregon field coordinator for Oregon Wild, fired back at the notion of hunting wolves. Adding hunting into the Wolf Plan would be troublesome, he said, and might actually backfire when it comes to protecting livestock. He referred to research that suggests killing wolves actually increases the odds of future attacks, because it disrupts the social structure of packs.

“We’re not trashing hunting,” Klavins said. “We are expressing serious concerns about hunting.”

Weiss, the West Coast wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, said hunting wolves in the lower 48 states is not being done for subsistence, and decried it as a “waste of wildlife.”

Having reached an impasse, the group shifted gears to focus on collaring wolves with GPS tracking collars, and using the data to alert ranchers when wolves are in the area.

The cattlemen’s association has called for making sure at least one wolf from every pack in the state is wearing a collar. But Roblyn Brown, wolf program coordinator for ODFW, said it is nearly impossible for staff to find and safely collar certain wolves in densely forested habitat. ODFW also estimates collaring costs about $2,000 to $7,000 per wolf, with an average lifespan of 18 months per collar.

“It’s just a tough thing to do,” Brown said.

Nash said ranchers need to know where wolves are moving to make the most effective use of range riders and other non-lethal deterrents. Rather than provide specific GPS points of where wolves have been, Brown said it may be more effective to use the data as a whole, coloring a picture of where wolf activity is most active — what wildlife officials call the “blue blob.”

Despite concerns about whether the data would be used to poach wolves, Klavins said GPS collars may be one area where environmental groups may be willing to make a compromise.

With that bit of progress, the work group decided it would be worth it to meet again on Sept. 21 in Redmond.

Derek Broman, state carnivore biologist for ODFW, said the tentative plan is to go back before the Fish and Wildlife Commission in October to receive further direction.

“We know there’s not going to be unanimous decisions,” Broman said. “That’s ultimately why this process is so valuable.”

Melcher, the ODFW director, said he is an “eternal optimist,” and believes the collaboration will prove to be a positive investment.

“We’re writing the checks, and we’re happy to keep doing it,” Melcher said.

REDMOND, Ore. — Crews busily worked Tuesday afternoon putting the finishing touches on the new Wilco farm store, getting ready for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and the “sneak peek” event that would follow.

As the store’s employees scurried about, caterers and a local brewery and winery set up shop in the brand new store for the grand opening.

“This will be our 20th farm store,” said Sam Bugarsky, Wilco’s president of retail stores. He also said the store is the newest generation of the co-op’s farm stores, with about 10 percent more floor space than other locations, such as the Bend store.

Wilco’s 19th store opened last June in East Bremerton, Wash.

Wilco is a cooperative owned by about 3,000 farmer-members. It was formed in 1967, he said.

The cooperative has four divisions — Hazelnut Growers of Oregon, an ag business division that provides customers with crop protection products and fertilizers, a petroleum division for commercial fuel delivery and the farm store division.

Of those, the farm store division, with locations in Oregon and Washington, generates the most revenue, he said.

“The farm stores are really built to serve the small farm family or the rural living family,” Bugarsky said.

Although Wilco began in 1967, its farm stores didn’t expand to Central Oregon until 2013, when Round Butte Seed in Culver, Ore., sold two of its farm stores to Wilco.

Business at the Central Oregon stores has tripled since then, he said.

The Central Oregon markets vary from the markets of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where Wilco is based. There was some hesitation from some members about moving out of the valley, Bugarsky said, because of the different climate and markets.

It has been a learning process for the stores in Central Oregon, from what types of plants to stock in the greenhouse to figuring out they needed to carry snow blowers and shovels for the snowy High Desert winters, something they had not done in the valley, said Bugarsky.

Wilco aims to open one to four new stores a year and is looking at potential locations for them, he said.

Lorane, Ore. — Christina del Campo said she has two babies: her two-year-old son, Quincy, and her farm, Oaksong Farm. The one-acre farm was established last year in the spring, and del Campo said she’s enjoyed the challenge of raising her son with the farm.

Already, he knows the names of the crops and other items around the farm, and doesn’t understand why his friends don’t have food in their backyard, del Campo said.

“I really like when Quincy goes out and picks carrots in the morning, is munching on cucumbers or obsessed with tomatoes,” she said. “He’ll eat basil. What kid does that? He’s a huge part of why I wanted a farm.”

Oaksong Farm is certified organic because del Campo’s background was environmental studies at the University of California-Santa Cruz, where she worked on the college’s organic farm. 

“I learned so much about conventional versus organic agriculture,” she said. “It’s what we’re putting in our bodies and giving to others. I often joke that I can understand why someone’s conventional. I’ve just learned to embrace the weeds.”

After her time at the university, del Campo went into the Peace Corps as a Natural Resource Management Volunteer and helped farmers in their fields. She interned at the Dawn Institute in Northern California, managed Morning Star Farm on Orcas Island, Wash., tended olives in Spain and planted coffee in Hawaii.

“There are probably three to four times a week that I think of something another farmer has told me,” she said.

Although the Spain and Hawaii experiences were interesting opportunities for her, del Campo said they weren’t relevant to what she wanted to do because she knew she wanted to farm in the Pacific Northwest.

Oaksong Farm produces predominately vegetables, flowers and herbs. Del Campo’s mother, who is retiring to work on the farm full-time, also creates a value-added aspect by making preserves and sourdough bread. The family owns turkeys, but at this point the meat is raised for the family members for themselves — excluding del Campo, as she’s vegetarian — but in the future could be expanded to sell to customers as well.

Del Campo sells her produce at Oaksong’s farmstand as well as at farmers’ markets. She sells the flowers to local wineries, Iris and Silvan Ridge.

One of the more rewarding aspects for del Campo has been meeting all the customers.

“If they try something new and like it, or when the people at the farmstead are locals and tell me I’m filling a need in the community,” she said. “They’ve said, ‘We’re grateful you’re here.’”

As a beginner farmer, del Campo said the first five years will be experimenting with which products grow and sell the best. One of the biggest challenges she faces is that underneath her soil is clay, and there is excess water that bogs down the plants; next fall she aims to replant the beds downhill to correct that.

For del Campo, having the experience of farming is an important skillset that she wants to instill in her son through the farm.

“It’s important to have real life skills,” she said. “If it’s the end of the world, can you survive? He’ll be able to say, ‘I can kill animals to eat and grow my own food.’ I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve always admired hands-on, practical skills.”

PORTLAND — Pear harvest is underway in all four growing regions of the Pacific Northwest, and Pear Bureau Northwest is forecasting a larger fresh crop than it did in June.

The new estimate is 20.2 million, 44-pound boxes, up from 18.9 million. If the new forecast holds it will be the fourth largest crop in history and the largest organic crop with organics making up 2 million boxes or 10 percent of the crop.

“After last year’s very small crop our growers are pleased to have a full crop of great quality pears to meet growing consumer demand,” said Kevin Moffitt, the Pear Bureau president in Portland.

“Retailers have a strong opportunity for pear category growth in the produce department this season and we are prepared to provide them with individual category analysis, consumer insights and effective promotions to drive pear sales,” Moffitt said.

Picking will continue through September in the Wenatchee, Yakima, Hood River and Medford districts.

The new estimate is for 9.9 million boxes of Green d’Anjou, 5.3 million boxes of Bartlett, 3.2 million boxes of Bosc, 1 million boxes of Red d’Anjou and other varieties rounding out the balance.

The Pear Bureau’s international promotions focus on Mexico, Central America, India, the Middle East and Asia.

To combat increased competition overseas, the bureau is initiating one- to two-month promotional agreements with key retailers to increase shelf space and improve space and location of USA pears in stores.

PORTLAND — An Oregon judge has sided with a controversial dairy’s remedies for violating a settlement deal over wastewater management.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Kelly Skye agreed on Aug. 30 to a proposal by Lost Valley Farm of Boardman, Ore., to increase storage space in its manure lagoons by recycling its wastewater.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture had requested that the facility be required to scrape manure from dairy barns rather than wash it away, which the agency argued would be accomplished more simply and quickly.

“We think it’s achievable on a short timeline,” said Nina Engländer, an attorney representing Oregon’s farm regulators.

Elizabeth Howard, the dairy’s attorney, argued that scraping barns would create manure piles with the potential for further water quality problems.

“There are a lot of opportunities there for incidental discharges,” she said. “We don’t want to be going backwards. We don’t want to be having more discharges.”

A week earlier, the judge found the dairy’s owner, Greg te Velde, in contempt of court for violating a judgment requiring the facility to maintain at least 75 acre feet of manure storage capacity at the site.

However, Skye did not agree to ODA’s request to sanction the dairy by halting all wastewater production, effectively putting it out of business.

Aside from allowing the dairy to recycle wastewater, the judge also agreed with its proposal to install multiple flow meters to measure wastewater production.

The dairy will also be required to install a weather station at the site, among other conditions.

The judge warned te Velde that the consequences would be harsher if the wastewater recycling doesn’t create enough storage in manure lagoons, results in leaks or causes other issues.

“If I allow it to do it your way, I’m probably going to be harder on you,” she said.

The dairy has until Oct. 5 to switch to recycling wastewater and to have a plan for installing flow meters.

It must also have at least 75 acre-feet of storage capacity in its lagoons by Nov. 6 or face the possibility of a reduction in its herd size.

“We can’t just allow this to go out of compliance all winter,” Skye said.

The ODA had wanted the dairy to stop producing all wastewater if it doesn’t live up to the remedies, since the agency is “at the end of its rope.”

“A big hammer has historically been necessary to get any movement,” said Englander.

However, the judge said she preferred to scale down the herd size so the dairy could demonstrate its methods are effective at improving wastewater management.

Lost Valley Farm has repeatedly been cited by ODA for spills and other violations of its “confined animal feeding operation” permit since it began operating in April 2017.

The agency fined the dairy more than $10,000 and sought a temporary restraining order to shut the facility down, resulting in the settlement deal over wastewater in March.

The ODA then sought a contempt of court order for te Velde, arguing he had willfully disregarded the agreement.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon State Police have suspended the law enforcement credentials of the Oregon Humane Society’s animal abuse officers, pending an investigation into allegations of mishandled evidence and improper investigative practices.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports a letter earlier this month from State Police to the society states the organization’s law enforcement officers are being investigated for alleged “mishandling and improper storage of evidence” and alleged “improper investigative techniques.” The details of the allegations weren’t immediately available.

The organization said in a statement Wednesday that its leaders “take concerns and complaints very seriously,” and they are “committed to conducting a thorough review of any complaint.”

The organization has employed two officers in past years funded by donations to the organization. A spokeswoman says only one officer is currently employed.