MOXEE, Wash. — The growth of U.S. hop production slowed this year, up just 3 percent compared with a 13 percent increase in 2013.

But the industry continues to expand as demand grows for more hops, said Ann George, administrator of Hop Growers of America and the Washington Hop Commission, both in Moxee near Yakima.

George attributes reduced growth to number of factors.

Producers are replanting hop yards to grow more aroma varieties for craft breweries rather than alpha varieties for large breweries. Aroma varieties yield less than alpha varieties, and immature plants in replanted yards yield less than mature plants.

Summer heat hurt yields, particularly in Oregon, George said.

Oil in the hop cone or flower is used for flavoring and stabilizing beer.

Craft breweries project 20 percent growth through 2020, George said. That means hop growers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho likely will continue increasing acreage, she said.

Washington produced 79 percent of the 2014 U.S. crop, Oregon 11 percent and Idaho 10 percent, according to a National Agricultural Statistics Service report issued Dec. 17. Washington’s production is in the Yakima Valley. Oregon is in the Willamette Valley.

Production increased 18 percent in Idaho, 2 percent in Washington and dropped 4 percent in Oregon, NASS said. Acreage increased in all three states.

Idaho likely will surpass Oregon in the next year or two as it has been expanding acreage at a faster rate due because land is more readily available with less competition from other high value crops, said Pete Mahony, director of supply chain management and purchasing for John I. Haas Inc., Yakima. Haas is a leader in hop processing, research and development.

Total U.S. acreage is expected to surpass 40,000 in 2015 with virtually all of the expansion being in aroma varieties that now account for 60 percent, Mahony said.

Cascade, the leading aroma variety, is now 16 percent of U.S. production and closing in on CTZ, a high alpha variety complex, that’s 23 percent of the crop, he said.

The U.S. hop industry is strong and should remain so for the next several years, Mahony said.

Michigan and New York are leading 14 additional states that are getting into hop production, George said. The U.S. and Germany are the top producers in the world.

Total U.S. production was 71 million pounds in 2014 compared with 69.2 million in 2013, according to NASS.

The crop was valued at $272 million, up 17 percent from a revised 2013 value of $232 million. The average price per pound was $3.83 versus $3.35 in 2013 and $3.17 in 2012.

Producers hung on through years of red ink from the late 1990s to 2007, George said. Better prices since then have allowed growers to upgrade harvest equipment, needed to handle many aroma varieties that mature at the same time, she said.

Hop Growers of America is holding its 59th annual convention and Hop Research Council Winter meeting at Rancho Bernardo Inn, San Diego, Calif., Jan. 20-23. More information: www.usahops.org.

CLACKAMAS, Ore. — Stephen Burtthas seen the future and it’s. ... wait, let him ask you: Have you seen “Star Wars?”

Drones are everywhere in those movies, Burtt says. Doing jobs in the background, delivering goods, fixing things — their presence is so routine that no one even notices.

And that, he says, could be the future of American farms. A drone, perhaps one of his Aerial Technology International multi-rotored Quadcopters, launches itself in the morning to carry out pre-programmed tasks. Flying over the field, it uses sensors and cameras to look for diseases and pests, take inventory, check irrigation, assemble yield information or make harvest decisions.

Returning to its charging station, it downloads the information to the farmer or even to other machines, which move out on their own to pick, spray, water, cut or till.

“It’s terrestrial and airborne robots that run the farm of the future,” Burtt says.

Burtt’s three-year-old company, founded with his boyhood friend Lawrence Dennis, is among the startup tech firms aiming to get a piece of the action. Doubters question the cost and usefulness of the technology, but multiple companies and universities are engaged in research while waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to set rules for commercial use of drones.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International estimates drone technology will produce an $82 billion economic impact and create more than 100,000 jobs by 2025. Many in the field see agriculture as a key opportunity for growth, in part because farmers eagerly seek data and are early adopters of technology that can save them time and money.

The Pacific Northwest is home to major drone developers such as Insitu Inc. and other companies. A fledgling company in Wilsonville, Ore., HoneyComb Corp., makes a fixed-wing AgDrone that it is marketing to farmers. Burtt’s company uses miniature helicopters; he believes the vertical take-off and landing capability makes it easier to launch, control and land.

He and partner Dennis, whom he’s known since seventh grade and who worked on helicopters in the military, teamed up in business about eight years ago.

They originally were drawn to the idea of using drones for mapping and shooting films. “The idea just grabbed me,” Burtt says. “If we can get a camera in the air, we can have a business.”

The development of brushless motor gimbals, which hold a mounted camera steady even if the craft carrying it bucks and bobs, provided video that was “beautiful and cinematic,” Burtt says.

ATI, the company they founded three years ago, has nine employees and concentrates on building and selling unmanned aerial systems; some custom, some out-of-the-box ready to fly. The company prides itself on training users.

“If someone buys an ag drone from us, we better make sure they succeed with it,” he says.

While some copters go for mapping and filming purposes, agricultural uses appear to hold promise, Burtt says.

Agronomists “all seem to think it’s invaluable,” he says. Most demonstration requests have come from vineyard operators, who appear to be keenly interested.

Bugs need to be worked out, starting with FAA approval. Business privacy is another concern to address. “Some farmers are very concerned about where their data goes,” Burtt says. “They don’t want their data to leave their farm.”

But Burtt is confident his company is on the right track.

“The vision of the future farm is robotic,” he says.

Stephen Burtt

Occupation: CEO and co-owner of Aerial Technology International in Clackamas, Ore. Boyhood friend Lawrence Dennis is co-owner and chief technology officer.

Age: 34

Background: Born in England, moved with his family to the U.S. as a child and grew up in Milwaukie, Ore.

Education: Not an engineer, holds a bachelor’s degree in conflict resolution from Portland State University. “You have no idea how much conflict there is in this industry,” he says with a laugh.

Entrepreneurial spark: The excitement, challenge and element of risk that comes from doing “something that no one has ever done before.”

A highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza has been found in guinea fowl and chickens in a small backyard flock in Southern Oregon, the state Department of Agriculture said today.

The H5N8 virus was confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is similar to the virus that killed a captive gyrfalcon this week in Whatcom County, Wash., in the northwest corner

The flock of approximately 100 birds in Douglas County had access to the outdoors, according to ODA. A pond and marsh on the premises are frequented by migratory birds.

The falcon in Washington died after eating a wild duck shot by a hunter at Wiser Lake 3 miles southwest of Lynden, Wash. Another wild duck found dead at the same lake tested positive this week for H5N2 avian influenza.

The H5N8 virus struck Asia flocks earlier this year and was detected in European commercial poultry for the first time in November. The virus has never been detected in commercial poultry in the United States.

A highly pathogenic H5N2 virus has claimed more than 200,000 birds at 10 poultry farms in British Columbia, just north of the Washington border.

ODA is the lead agency responding to the bird flu in Southern Oregon.

The agency is working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Health Authority and USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service.

The H5N8 virus found in other parts of the world has not caused any human health problems, according to ODA.

Bird flu does not taint meat or eggs, which are safe to eat if properly cooked, according to officials.

ODA advised commercial poultry growers and backyard flock owners to keep their birds away from wild birds.

“Steps are being taken to contain the disease and we have not diagnosed avian influenza elsewhere in Oregon’s domestic poultry population, but the presence of the virus in migratory waterfowl poses a potential risk to our backyard poultry,” Oregon State Veterinarian Brad LeaMaster said in a written statement.

Backyard flock owners can report sick birds to the State Veterinarian’s office at 1-800-347-7028 or can call USDA toll free at 1-866-536-7593.

Oregon’s commercial poultry industry has an avian influenza testing program, and ODA conducts weekly tests and health inspections at the state’s only live bird market in Woodburn.

In addition, ODFW tests dead birds. Wild bird deaths can be reported to the ODFW toll-free line at 1-866-968-2600.

Members of the Northwest Food Processors Association, who weathered the recession better than other agricultural sectors and pack a surprising economic punch, will gather in Portland Jan. 12-14 for their 101st expo and conference.

The event, at the Oregon Convention Center, includes a trade show with the latest in processing equipment. Educational sessions include presentations on emerging technology, climate change, workforce training, food safety and water regulations. For registration and agenda information, go to http://www.nwfpa.org/nwfpa-events/expo-2015.

Northwest farms, orchards and ranges may be the most visible facet of agriculture, but food processing plants are a major factor.

In Oregon alone, 637 food processing companies employed nearly 25,000 people in 2012 and added $6.1 billion in value to crops, according to a state report.

From 2007 to 2012, the depth of the recession, Oregon’s manufacturing sector lost 15.8 percent of its jobs. But food manufacturing jobs increased 7.8 percent during that same period.

YAKIMA, Wash. — With the United States moving to normalize relations, Cuba is a potential market for Washington tree fruit but probably not for some time and not in large volumes.

Cuba only has 11 million people and more than five decades of communist control has resulted in a poor economy and very little middle class, said Chris Schlect, president of the Northwest Horticultural Council in Yakima.

“Down the road when their economy takes off and they get more of a middle class, it should be a good market,” Schlect said.

A turn to democracy or at least some sort of mixed communist-capitalist system, like China or Vietnam, and an increase in tourism would help that happen, he said.

“Tourism is what they have to sell and builds their economy. I envision a huge surge in tourism, of people going who haven’t been there in decades and a build up of resorts,” he said.

Steve Appel, a wheat farmer and president of the Washington Farm Bureau, was part of a Clinton administration trade mission to Cuba in 1999 that preceded a change in law in 2000 that allowed some agricultural exports to Cuba.

Along with other commodities, it resulted in Pacific Northwest apples and pears going to Cuba for a few years.

Northern Fruit Co. Inc., East Wenatchee, sold small amounts of apples to Cuba in 2002 and 2003. The company’s operations manager, Doug Pauly, said he would like to sell there again. If Cuba can develop its economy, it could be a solid market like other Latin American countries of about 200,000 boxes of apples annually, he said.

That would be about $4 million at current prices of about $20 per box. The Dominican Republic leads the region at about 500,000 boxes, roughly $10 million.

“Every new market opportunity is a good market opportunity,” said Rebecca Lyons, export marketing manager of the Washington Apple Commission in Wenatchee. She said she knows of no Washington apple company shipping apples to Cuba since Northern Fruit did. Sales were complicated by Cuba having to pay in dollars through a third party, she said.

Lyons, Schlect and Kevin Moffitt, president of The Pear Bureau Northwest in Portland, all attended a trade show in Cuba in 2002.

The Northwest sold 2,154, 44-pound boxes of pears to Cuba in 2002 and doubled that by 2005, Moffitt said. The U.S. tightened regulations on credit and shipments dropped back to about 2,000 boxes for several years before ending in 2012, he said.

Cuba is allowing some small businesses to open and people to sell produce outside of official stores, Moffitt said. It is building some wealth, although small.

“As people are lifted out of poverty, more will be able to afford pears and apples,” he said. “The retail segment will need to be developed a lot before large volumes can go there.”

It will probably be seven to 10 years before enough middle class emerges in Cuba for it to become a target for Northwest cherries, said B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherry Growers in Yakima.

A good comparison is Vietnam, he said, which is merging communism and capitalism, developing “a very nice little middle class market for cherries” this year at 35,000 boxes.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A watchdog group is challenging the environmentally friendly “green lumber” certification for Plum Creek Timberlands, one of the nation’s biggest landowners and timber producers.

The Center for Sustainable Economy, based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, filed the complaint Thursday with a nonprofit group that verifies whether timber producers follow standards for environmentally responsible logging, including replanting after harvest, protecting water and biological diversity, and complying with environmental laws and regulations.

The complaint covers Plum Creek logging in Oregon’s Coast Range, citing 11 civil citations over the past six years for violating state logging regulations, including four citations for exceeding the clear-cutting limit of 120 acres. The complaint includes Google Earth images showing landslides in areas stripped of trees by Plum Creek.

The company also was cited for failing to protect riparian zones along fish-bearing streams, allowing logging road drainage into a stream and failing to notify state regulators of changes in logging operations.

Seattle-based Plum Creek did not immediately respond to requests for comment. On its website, it states prominently that all its timberlands are certified by the nonprofit Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

“We have long conducted our business with a strong commitment to the environment,” the site says.

The complaint demands that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative immediately suspend certification for Plum Creek in Oregon and investigate the company’s logging practices throughout the country.

Besides giving companies a way to green up their image, certification can have economic benefits. Some state and federal agencies are required to buy products that are certified as sustainable, and some businesses and retailers have sustainability policies. Home Depot, for example, says on its website that it sells only lumber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the other major certification body.

The timber industry started the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, but it has since become an independent nonprofit certifying more than 240 million acres of private forests. Outside auditors certify that companies conform to standards for environmentally responsible logging.

Chris Lunde, harvest manager for Blakely Tree Farms LP in Seattle, oversees compliance with Sustainable Forestry Initiative standards in Oregon. He confirmed receiving the complaint, the first in his seven years in the position.

Plum Creek has 45 days to respond, and the complaint will be taken up by an outside auditor, initiative spokeswoman Elizabeth Woodworth said.

John Talberth, president of Center for Sustainable Economy, said the group feels the alleged Oregon violations are part of a larger nationwide problem.

“We think this is the tip of the iceberg, definitely in Oregon, but probably in other states as well,” he said. “As we know, regulations protecting state and private forest lands are far weaker than those for federal lands, and have far less citizen oversight.”

TODAY

Eastern Oregon got some representation in Washington, D.C., last week when an undocumented farmworker from Hermiston testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform.

Raul Esparza de la Paz, who has been in the country since 1998, urged the committee to keep President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration intact while working to come up with a comprehensive immigration reform of their own.

“On a personal level it was something amazing to be among so many senators in Congress, especially representing the city of Hermiston,” he said in Spanish.

The president’s executive orders protect several groups from the threat of deportation, including those who arrived in the country as a child and the parents of immigrants who have been a legal resident for more than five years.

De la Paz said he told the committee about how Obama’s executive action benefited his family. One of his children was already a legal resident and another was covered by the 2012 order to defer action on students who came into the country as a child. But for de la Paz, his wife and three other adult children, Obama’s new executive action removes a sense of fear they have lived with since coming to the United States.

“But a lot more needs to be done,” de la Paz said. “Now it’s Congress’ turn.”

He said even though he had to sacrifice a few days of work to travel to the hearing, he jumped at the chance to represent the United Farm Workers in the nation’s capital.

“I wanted to take the opportunity to manifest my excitement and joy over the executive action,” he said.

He said he was so excited about speaking at the nation’s capital that it only took him 20 minutes to write his speech.

De la Paz spoke at a press conference before the hearing, and said afterward at the hearing Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, ceded his time on the floor to de la Paz to expand on some of the points he made at the conference about the importance of keeping families together through immigration reform.

Immigration reform activist Astrid Silva, a “Dreamer” from Nevada who came to the country illegally at four years old and is now able to attend college thanks to Obama’s 2012 actions, also spoke at the Dec. 10 hearing.

Hop production for Idaho, Oregon, and Washington in 2014 totaled 71.0 million pounds, up 3 percent from the 2013 crop of 69.2 million pounds.

Read the entire report at: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Regional_Office/Northwest/includes/Publications/Hops/hops_12.pdf

TODAY

An Oregon mint farm’s line of candy, started as a side business a few years ago, is featured in celebrity Oprah Winfrey’s magazine this holiday season.

It’s too soon to know whether the spotlight in “O” magazine will result in increased sales of chocolate covered mint patties, but Seely Farms is enjoying the ride.

The magazine includes the mint patties among other treats, describing them as a “guilt free” indulgence.

The farm, owned by Mike and Candy (yes, that’s her real name) Seely, is the last mint farm in Columbia County, which used to be one of the state’s major mint production areas. The Seelys, both former electrical engineers, farm with their children. Mike Seely’s parents and grandparents were mint farmers near Battle Ground, Wash., and he left engineering because he felt drawn to the farm life.

Like other mint farmers, they sell oil that is used to flavor gum, candy, toothpaste, breath mints and other products. But the market nearly tanked when companies turned to less-expensive oil blends or synthetic flavorings, and the Seelys began looking for options about eight years ago.

They began diversification by selling mint tea and vials of oil at the Portland Farmers’ Market. Then, aided by Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center in Portland, they set up shop in a Clatskanie restaurant and began making mint candy.

They first made 4,000 candy canes, which quickly sold out. Then came the patties, an intensely flavored peppermint fondant covered in dark Belgian chocolate, and Mint Melt-Aways, a smaller, simpler combination of chocolate and mint oil.

The farm’s candies are carried nationally by Whole Foods Markets and other specialty grocers. Mike Seely said the candy business is breaking even, but only uses about 2 percent of his annual oil production. The rest goes as commercial flavoring.

Online

www.seelyfamilyfarm.com

Humbug Mountain Weavers and Spinners will be meeting at the Langlois Fire Hall on Thursday, Dec. 18. The business meeting will start at noon, show and share, program and social time will begin…

LANGLOIS -- 'Tis the week before Christmas and all are in town, at the Langlois library singing, eating and making loud sounds!

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Secretary of State Kate Brown has certified recount results that show the defeat of an Oregon ballot measure to require labels on genetically modified foods.

Brown’s certification on Monday makes the results of the recount official.

They show the measure was defeated by 837 votes out of more than 1.5 million cast. That’s a margin of less than 0.06 percent.

The recount was automatically triggered by the close margin. The hand tally showed an additional 167 votes, with a net gain of 25 no votes.

Oregon becomes the fourth state in the West to reject a labeling requirement for GMOs, following Colorado, California and Washington.

Proponents conceded defeat last week.

LANGLOIS — 'Tis the week before Christmas and all are in town, at the library singing, eating and making loud sounds.

TODAY

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences said goodbye to seven long-time Department of Crop and Soil Science personnel in a celebration Dec. 12 that drew researchers, crop consultants, farmers and university administrators.

The celebration included a recognition ceremony during which participants honored long-time OSU Extension personnel Bill Young, Glenn Fisher and John Hart, as well as Department of Soil Science personnel Ann Corey, John Baham, Barbara Reed and former department head Russ Karow.

All are retiring from the university in the coming weeks or have recently retired.

Fisher, Hart, Karow and Young, particularly, were well known among Oregon farmers, who utilized their research to improve crop management practices.

New Crop and Soil Science Department head Jay Noller said research conducted by Fisher, an entomologist, was vital in helping farmers battle slugs and insect pests that increased after field burning was phased out in the Willamette Valley.

As for Young, Noller said: “Bill is one of those names that comes up around the world.” In a meeting in France, Noller said a scientist asked him if he knew Bill Young after learning Noller was from OSU.

Noller also read a letter from the International Herbage Seed Group thanking Young for his research and group participation.

Bill Brewer, executive director of the Oregon Potato Commission, was among several to offer comments about Karow. “There is a difference between how growers speak and how the university speaks,” Brewer said, “and Russ understands both languages.

“He has done a wonderful job being part of our industry,” Brewer said.

Noller said the department is in the process of locating a new extension soil specialist to replace Hart and is looking for a new soil landscape scientist to backfill his previous position.

Noller, a soil landscape scientist, replaced Karow as department head earlier this fall.

The department doesn’t have an immediate plans to fill Young’s extension seed specialist position.

“That is still out in the future,” Noller said.

As for replacing the 230 years of institutional memory that were on hand Dec. 12, Noller said that will be impossible.

“We are saddened by the loss,” he said, “but they’ve accomplished so much, they deserve a break.”

Steve Gapp, a consultant for Crop Production Services, may have put the participants’ sentiment best when in addressing the audience, he said: “Myself, and the farmers we work with, are the ones who have been the recipients of the work these people have done.

“Thank you again on behalf of the industry for all your hard work,” Gapp said.

Phil Hamm, director of Oregon State University’s Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center, said College of Agricultural Sciences Dean Dan Arp has approved an emergency replacement for Don Hornek, who died of a heart attack Sept. 28.

Hamm said he hopes to have a new hire on hand in about eight months.

Hornek served as extension agronomist and soil scientist at the station for 14 years.

Also, Hamm said, the station recently named Ken Frost, a research assistant in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as its new plant pathologist. Hamm has maintained plant pathology duties at the station for several years part-time while serving as station director.

Frost will start at the station at the end of January, Hamm said.

— Mitch Lies

State wildlife and health officials urge people to be cautious when approaching animals acting strangely, following disclosure that a gray fox involved in a Dec. 11 biting incident tested positive for rabies.

Foxes and raccoons in particular may show signs of convulsions, excessive drooling, or aggression, or may appear uncoordinated or walk in circles. Rabies is a viral disease that attacks the nervous system. It can be spread to humans, livestock or unvaccinated pets by bites, scratches or saliva. Bats, coyotes and skunks can also carry the disease. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said people should not approach animals that show symptoms of the disease.

If bitten, wash the wound with soap and water for at least five minutes and seek medical attention.

The biting incident happened in the Alazlea-Glen Road area of Douglas County. Additional details were not immediately available.

People who see wild animals acting strange should call the ODFW Wildlife Health Lab toll-free at 866-968-2600 to report the animal to one of ODFW’s veterinary staff. Douglas County residents who encounter pets or stray cats or dogs acting odd should contact Douglas County Animal Control at 541-440-4471.

Registration is open for Organicology 2015, the annual gathering of organic farmers, retailers, activists, policy experts and others.

The event will be held Feb. 5-7 at the downtown Hilton Hotel in Portland. To register, visit http://www.organicology.org

The gathering features a trade show, displays, discussions and workshops on issues ranging from climate change and food safety to organic food production and the next generation of organic leaders, according to organizers.

Speakers include Matthew Dillon of Seed Matters, LaDonna Redmond of Campaign for Food Justice Now and Arran & Arjan Stephens of Nature’s Path Organic.

A pre-conference event, a Feb. 4 “Food Lovers Excursion” tour of Ayers Creek Farm, the Fraga Farmstead Creamery and Momokawa sake distillery, requires a separate registration. (http://www.organicology.org/farm-and-tasting-tour) The tour will be led by Lane Selman, an Oregon State University ag researcher and director of the Culinary Breeding Network.