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Opportunity grows in cider apples

Capital Press Agriculture News Oregon -

SHERWOOD, Ore. — Richard Hostetter wasn’t a farmer, but he knew the international investment game. He knew the big boys were increasingly favoring agriculture over the long haul. People have to eat, after all.

Arriving in Oregon in 2013 after 17 years in Tokyo, where he’d worked for big banks and investment houses, he searched for an opportunity. He figured he was too late to make money in Oregon blueberries or hazelnuts, and the wine industry likewise seemed over-populated.

When someone mentioned cider apples, his response was, “What the heck is that?”

“Initially, I wasn’t interested,” he said. “I didn’t think it had any legs.”

Research and due diligence convinced him otherwise. It quickly became apparent that hard cider was an industry on the rise. Cideries and cider pubs were popping up everywhere, especially in Portland, mimicking the rise of the craft beer industry. Membership in the Northwest Cider Association grew from 17 to 70 in the past three years.

And just like wine grapes, the apples that make the best hard cider are different than the ones people like to eat. The rush is on to provide the bittersweet varieties, including old English and French apples, that make the best hard cider.

There is, Hostetter discovered, “A mismatch between rapidly growing demand and slow growing supply.”

Which is how he came to plant 15,000 cider apple trees on three leased acres outside Sherwood, 20 miles south of Portland.

“I do believe there’s a big opportunity in cider apples,” he said. “I’ve rolled the dice fairly aggressively on this.”

In that sense, Hostetter, 47, represents a couple of truisms in Oregon agriculture. First, the emerging generation of farmers includes people new to the field but with other skills, experience or money. Second, Oregon’s agricultural diversity — the state grows 220 crops — opens doors to unexpected economic development.

Hostetter is engaged in a crash course on grafting, planting and growing fruit trees, all of which is complicated and costly. “Even the wood for grafting is worth a lot of money right now,” he said.

The biggest difficulty has been finding farmland to buy, with water rights. suitable soil and within striking distance of Portland. He has about two dozen varieties growing in close-packed nursery style on the leased land while he searches for property on which to transplant his orchard.

He believes the industry will achieve a high-qualty niche once cider makers have a supply of proper apples.

Ten years from now, he hopes to be known as the owner of a sizable commercial cider apple business.

Richard Hostetter

Age: 47

Family: Wife, Naoko, sons Ryan and Alan, and Reggie the chocolate lab, who has free rein of the cider orchard. Wife is from Japan and family (except Reggie, Hostetter jokes) is bi-lingual.

Background: Grew up on Lookout Mountain, Tenn., a suburb of Chattanooga. Not from an agricultural family, but loved farms and dreamed of owning one.

Education: Bachelor of arts degree from Wheaton College in Illinois; master’s degree in business administration from University of South Carolina.

Professional life: Worked 13 years as an economist in the Japanese foreign exchange and stock markets, four years as a management consultant in Tokyo.

Why farming, why now: International institutional investors are increasingly looking at agriculture as a solid place to put their money. Getting into farming combines two interests.

Why cider apples: The increasing sophistication of American consumers. The demand for fine wine and craft beer is spreading to other beverages and food. With cider apples, there’s a complete mismatch between “rapidly growing demand and slow growing supply.”

Strong salmon returns up Columbia River past McNary Dam

Capital Press Agriculture News Oregon -

PENDLETON, Ore. — The Columbia Basin’s 2015 salmon season is the second-strongest year since the federal dams were built nearly 80 years ago.

A record number of fall chinook salmon returned up the Columbia River past McNary Dam in 2015, continuing on to spawning grounds at Hanford Reach, the Snake River and Yakima Basin.

More than 456,000 of the fish were counted at McNary Dam, breaking the facility’s previous record of 454,991 set in 2013. An estimated 200,000 fall chinook made it back to Hanford Reach, the most since hydroelectric dams were first built on the Columbia nearly 80 years ago.

Both federal and tribal leaders hailed the impressive run as a positive sign of their efforts to improve both fish habitat and passage at the dams. The Bonneville Power Administration is especially pleased with recent projects at McNary Dam, re-routing its juvenile fish bypass channel to provide better protection from predators. Crews also installed weirs at two of the dam’s spillway gates, which lets certain species of fish pass through closer to the surface.

Overall, 2.3 million adult salmon passed through Bonneville Dam near Portland, making it the second-strongest year on record for the entire Columbia Basin.

“When you look at how well salmon did overall is this year, it’s clear the approach of restoring critical fish habitat and improving dam passage is working,” said Lorri Bodi, vice president of environment, fish and wildlife at BPA.

There were 3,485 chinook counted at Three Mile Falls Dam on the Umatilla River near Hermiston. That’s slightly more than the 3,259 in 2014, and less than the 4,117 fish in 2013.

Coho counts fell back to Earth after a monster year in 2014 — 3,076 in 2015, compared to more than 14,000 a year ago at Three Mile Falls Dam. Steelhead were much lower, with just 558 fish versus 1,480 in 2014.

Kat Brigham, who has served on the Board of Trustees for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation as well as the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, said such anomalies used to be purely attributed to ocean survival — something that’s no doubt important, but was a convenient way of dismissing environmental damage and flaws in the dams’ passage systems.

“Ocean survival is an important piece, but nobody can really determine what good ocean survival is,” Brigham said. “We still have to look at what needs to be done to protect our fish as both adults and juveniles.”

Brigham said she is excited about this year’s fall returns, which is the result of hard work between the four CRITFC tribes, Northwest states and federal government.

But there are still challenges to reestablishing sustainable populations, she said. The basin still has 13 fish runs listed on the Endangered Species Act, and a changing climate won’t make things any easier.

The CTUIR and Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife began trucking spring salmon up past Three Mile Falls Dam in May this year, much earlier than normal as low flows and warm water put additional stress on the fish.

Coming up with a plan for endangered fish require a holistic approach, Brigham said. No part of the restoration effort is more important than the other.

“If it was a real simple answer, I hope we would have found it and got it done,” Brigham said. “It’s not just the drought. You have to look at everything.”

Brigham said she understands the BPA has to consider costs, and irrigation will always be a part of the basin. They are striving to come up with a balance that will ultimately allow everyone to survive. She said the CTUIR’s Umatilla River Vision is potentially a model for other interests to consider.

“It’s an ongoing project to try and protect the habitat and fish going over dams,” she said. “We are protecting our culture, our way of life and treaty rights.”

Not all Northwest fish runs fared well in 2015. Unseasonably warm temperatures heated river water enough to all but decimate endangered Snake River sockeye, though biologists did release 600 hatchery sockeye into Idaho’s Redfish and Pettit Lakes to spawn naturally. Research shows the offspring of sockeye spawned naturally in lakes return at higher rates than those simply released from the hatchery.

Paul Lumley, CRITFC executive director, said the successes in 2015 highlight what they are capable of accomplishing as a region when everyone works together.

“Yes, there is more work to be done to address things like climate change, water quality and water temperatures, but this success provides the confidence to achieve full salmon recovery,” Lumley said.

Bandon/Port Orford KOA awarded

Langlois News from The World Newspaper -

LANGLOIS — The Bandon/Port Orford KOA Journey has earned the prestigious 2016 KOA President’s and Founder’s Awards from Kampgrounds of America Inc., the world’s largest system of family-friendly, open-to-the-public campgrounds, according to a news release from KOA.

Farm impacts impede landfill expansion

Capital Press Agriculture News Oregon -

A controversial proposal to expand a landfill on farmland in Oregon’s Yamhill County has been dealt a setback due to an adverse land use ruling.

Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals found that, in approving the proposal, the county government improperly shifted the burden to farmers to prove they’d be harmed by the 29-acre expansion.

Due to this error, LUBA has now sent the approval decision back to Yamhill County for reconsideration.

Under Oregon law, certain non-farm uses such as landfills can only be approved if they don’t “force a significant change” in farm practices on surrounding farmland.

In this case, LUBA found that the county incorrectly discounted evidence of harm from the Riverbend landfill on properties beyond one mile from the facility.

The county also erred by disregarding evidence of bird damage because the farmers didn’t quantify the amount of destruction, LUBA said.

It’s up to landfill’s owner — Waste Management — to prove the harm isn’t significant, but the county didn’t fault the company for not quantifying the extent of damage from birds attracted to the facility, the ruling said.

Similarly, LUBA said the county insufficiently considered the impacts of wind carrying plastic bags and other trash from the landfill onto nearby fields, complicating hay baling.

The county also should have considered the negative effects of noise on a nearby pheasant farm as well as “odor and visual impacts” on farm stands and other direct marketing operations, LUBA said.

Ramsey McPhillips, a landowner and longtime opponent of the landfill, said the LUBA decision is a victory because Oregon’s environmental regulators can’t permit the expansion until Yamhill County revises its findings or the ruling is reversed on appeal.

It will be difficult for the county’s commissioners to again ignore evidence of harm to farmers, but if they do, opponents will again challenge the approval, he said.

“We’re not going to give up. We’re going to just keep going and going and going,” McPhillips said.

The best case scenario for opponents would be if Yamhill County turned down the expansion proposal, especially since the legal controversy is prompting landfill customers to examine other dumping options, he said.

“The tide has turned more in that direction,” he said.

Waste Management noted that LUBA rejected most of the “assignments of error” alleged by the opponents, which “shows we are on the right track,” said Jackie Lang, senior communications manager for the company, in an email.

The finding on farm impacts indicates LUBA want more information, but Waste Management hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal that aspect of the ruling, she said.

“We are reviewing the decision now to understand the full intent and determine our next steps,” Lang said. “There have been many steps to this process over the last seven years. We are continue to look forward and take it one step at a time.”

Tim Sadlo, the county’s general counsel, said the commissioners have until Dec. 1 to decide whether to challenge LUBA’s ruling before the Oregon Court of Appeals, but such an outcome isn’t likely.

The ruling held that Yamhill County did not misconstrue land use law by allowing a landfill in a farm zone, which a major point in favor of the county, Sadlo said.

As for the county’s analysis of farm impacts, “that’s the kind of thing that can usually be cured on a remand,” he said.

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