IRZ Consulting hosted 30 farmers from Brazil for an “international exchange of ideas” about irrigation.

HERMISTON, Ore. — Fred Ziari of IRZ Consulting and most of the 30 Brazilian farmers he hosted in Hermiston this week don’t speak the same language — but they do share a common goal.

“We are blessed because we have food,” Ziari said, gesturing to nearby trays of fruit and pastries laid out for the guests from Brazil. “But I travel to Africa and other places every year where people are extremely hungry. As well, our state of Oregon looks beautiful but we have hunger here, too. All of us, Brazilian and American, need to play a vital role in feeding the world.”

IRZ Consulting, one of multiple businesses that Ziari has founded, helps farmers around the world increase their efficiency and yield through high-tech irrigation. Ziari said the Hermiston-based business hosts visiting farmers from other countries for an “international exchange of ideas.”

Leonel Olivira, a soybean farmer from the Brazilian state of Bahia, said Tuesday he was most impressed by “how you can remote control your farms.”

“You can rule your farm with your cell phone,” he said. “It’s quite different here.”

He said he was also interested to see how integrated farms and suppliers are in the United States.

Marcos Pooter, who grows soybeans, corn, wheat and sorghum, said he admired the “amazing” infrastructure in the country.

“Here, everything works,” he said. “In Brazil, you have to work a lot to do a little.”

He said he was interested in seeing how the pump stations used here are different than in Brazil, and he wanted to study the system further to see if it could be adapted well in the region where he grows crops.

Before the group set out for a second day of tours on Wednesday, Ziari hosted an informal question-and-answer session with one of the bilingual group members translating.

One grower asked how much of the world was using the advanced precision irrigation technology that they had seen at Herb Stahl’s farm during their tour. Ziari said worldwide, irrigation is at about 30 percent efficiency, but Stahl’s farm achieves about 90 percent efficiency.

“I think that it is a global model for efficiency, but we have large areas, many hectares in the United States that are not that efficient, that need to be brought up. But we are progressing fast,” he said.

Other questions were about the growth of agriculture in the United States, and whether the Eastern Oregon region could support more crops. Ziari said growth is limited in the United States not so much by land availability but by political issues. In 1900, 50 percent of Americans were involved in farming, he said, and now it’s less than three percent due to the technological advances that have made farming more efficient, and large corporations who are now operating many of them..

“Because we are now 2 percent of the population, politicians are ignoring the needs of agriculture,” he said.

He told the group that investment in new projects was needed for Brazil’s agricultural economy to grow, and the investment community was interested.

Olivira said Brazil was ready. And if the government stabilized, the country’s agriculture could reach the level of technology used in the United States “very fast.”

Toxic algae blooms are happening more often and lasting longer, including in drinking water reservoirs, and officials and scientists link their spread to climate change

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The words blasted to cellphones around Salem, Oregon were ominous: “Civil emergency. prepare for action.”

Within half an hour, a second official alert clarified the subject wasn’t impending violence, but toxins from an algae bloom, detected in the city’s water supply.

In both reservoirs and lakes used for recreation in communities around the country have been experiencing similar events with growing frequency; a trend that researchers say represents another impact of global warming and raises looming questions about their effects on human health.

“When water bodies warm up earlier and stay warmer longer... you increase the number of incidents,” said Wayne Carmichael, a retired Wright State University professor specializing in the organisms. “That’s just logical, and it’s being borne out.”

Technically called cyanobacteria, the ancient class of organisms that create the blooms are present nearly everywhere water is found, but thrive in warm, still bodies like lakes and ponds. They also create a unique class of toxins, the impact of which on humans is only partly understood.

Long linked to animal deaths, high doses of the toxins in humans can cause liver damage and attack the nervous system. In the largest outbreaks, hundreds have been sickened by blooms in reservoirs and lakes, and officials in some areas now routinely close bodies of water used for recreation and post warnings when blooms occur.

But less is known about exposure at lower doses, especially over the long term.

Small studies have linked exposure to liver cancer — one toxin is classified as a carcinogen, and others have pointed to potential links to neurodegenerative disease. But definitively proving those links would require larger studies, said Carmichael, who helped the World Health Organization set the first safe exposure standards for the toxins.

“It’s absolutely certain in my mind that warming temperatures are going to end up causing more of these algal blooms,” said Steven Chapra, an environmental engineering professor at Tufts University.

Chapra led a team including scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in one of the most comprehensive studies to date of the interplay between global warming and the blooms, published in 2017.

Because they prefer warm water, higher summer temperatures and more frequent heat waves help the organisms. More frequent droughts also cause reservoirs to be shallower in summer, causing them to warm faster.

And more intense rainstorms, also conclusively linked to climate change, can wash more nutrients into lakes and reservoirs, especially from farms where nitrogen and phosphorous-rich fertilizers are used, Chapra said.

In Utah, a 2016 algae bloom in a recreational-use lake sickened more than 100, and when the story made national headlines other states reached out.

“We started getting calls from other health departments all over the country saying, ‘Hey, we’re dealing with an algal bloom in a lake that has never ever had one before,’” said Aislynn Tolman-Hill, a spokeswoman for the Utah County Health Department.

Officials only recently started carefully logging the blooms, but they seem to be becoming more intense, said Ben Holcomb, a biologist for Utah’s environmental agency. “They’re starting earlier, they’re lasting longer, and their peaks seem to be getting bigger,” Holcomb said. “I don’t think any state is isolated.”

In Lake Erie, a major bloom in 2014 caused authorities to warn against drinking tap water in Toledo, Ohio, for more than two days, cutting off the main water source for more than 400,000 people.

Now blooms happen every year in Utah and Ohio. Officials in both states say they’ve largely been able to stop them from toxifying drinking water, but they can still sicken people and pets that go in the water, and often hit recreation businesses that depend on lake access.

Other blooms, including flare-ups affecting drinking water, have been logged in recent years in New York, Florida, and California.

In Oregon, officials lifted the capital city’s drinking water advisory after several days, but then had to re-issue the warning.

The water supply serves a population of just over 150,000 in the city, along with residents outside city limits.

Officials also warned that dozens of other water supplies could be vulnerable, and indeed, when workers from the city of Cottage Grove inspected another reservoir, they found a bloom, according to a report by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Officials pointed out that testing for the blooms isn’t required by either federal or state law.

Researchers say that needs to change because blooms are likely to become more common, including in states where low temperatures had previously provided a buffer against the blooms.

“These things like you’re seeing in Lake Erie and in Oregon are kind of like the canary in the coal mine,” said Chapra, the Tufts researcher.

“It’s going to get worse, and it’s going to get worse in a big way.”

Bartels Packing, a defunct Oregon meat company, wants to pay out more than $600,000 in trust claims to livestock suppliers.

A defunct Oregon beef packer wants to pay out more than $600,000 of the $1.3 million in USDA trust claims that cattle suppliers have filed against it.

Bartels Packing of Eugene, Ore., shut down in March, citing declining sales and the loss of a major customer, among other factors. A court-appointed receiver has since overseen the company’s dissolution.

Under the federal law, certain assets of meat packers are held in trust for the repayment of cash livestock sellers, who must file claims to obtain the funds. Livestock suppliers who sell their animals to packers on credit generally aren’t protected by the trust.

The USDA has received more than $1.3 million in trust claims since Bartels closed, with the agency determining that about $624,000 of those claims are valid.

The receiver hasn’t yet finished analyzing the remaining claims, some of which the USDA has determined aren’t valid under the Packers and Stockyards Act.

Pivotal Solutions, the receiver, has now asked a judge for permission to turn over the $624,000 “after holding back a reasonable amount for the estate to be able to maintain the necessary liquidity” of the operation as it dissolves.

The majority of livestock suppliers who’d receive payment are auction yards, with the largest claim — about $330,000 — owed to Toppenish Livestock Commission of Toppenish, Wash.

Though Bartels has shut down, the receiver is using its facilities to re-process certain cuts and sell meat to make money available for creditors.

The USDA hasn’t objected to the receiver’s request, which will be the subject of a hearing scheduled for July 23 in Lane County Circuit Court in Eugene.

When Bartels Packing closed, it claimed to have roughly $14 million to cover its $8.3 million in liabilities, including nearly $4.7 million owed to cattle suppliers and feedlots.

Documents filed in the receivership case show that representatives of Pivotal Solutions have actively been trying to sell the company’s facilities, which include a processing plant and slaughterhouse.

The receiver has had numerous meetings, tours, emails and phone calls with undisclosed potential buyers and held talks with local government representatives and state economic development officials, according to invoices submitted to the court.

Odds increase for warm Northwet winter

Chances are rising that next winter will be warmer than usual in the Pacific Northwest, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center reported Thursday.

The outlook is largely based on the likelihood that the Pacific Ocean will heat up to El Nino conditions by fall, according to forecasters,

“Odds for above-normal temperatures continue to increase during the winter 2018-19 from the Pacific Northwest east to the Northern Great Plains and Upper Mississippi Valley,” according to center’s new seasonal forecast.

An El Nino generally brings warmer weather to the Northwest, though the effect on summer water supplies have varied. A weak El Nino prevailed during Washington’s snowpack drought of 2014-15. There was a strong El Nino the following winter, but the state’s snowpacks were normal.

Some forecasting models show sea-surface temperatures along the equator peaking at 1 degree Celsius above normal between November and February, according to the prediction center. That would put the El Nino just into the “moderate” category.

A La Nina, lower-than-normal sea temperatures, prevailed this past winter. The ocean has warmed to neutral conditions and likely will stay that way through the summer, according to the center.

The outlook for July, August and September favors above-average temperatures across most of the country. The odds are especially high for a warm summer in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Basin, including Idaho.

Below-average precipitation is favored for summer for Oregon, Washington and the Idaho Panhandle. Northern California and the southern half of Idaho have equal chances of being wet, dry or average, according to the center.

Project operates, maintains a nearly 1,500-mile network of canals, laterals and drains servicing about 165,000 acres.

The Boise Project Board of Control, a major player in southwest Idaho’s water system, continues to deal with the area’s population growth as a leadership change nears.

The project stores water behind two of the three Boise River dams, operates a large canal system and an off-site reservoir, and services a handful of irrigation districts.

“Urbanization is a big issue,” said project Assistant Manager Bob Carter, who will replace retiring Tim Page as manager Aug. 1. “As the population is growing and with all the new subdivisions, it’s a challenge to operate, maintain and keep our easements.”

Subdivisions ultimately become water users to which the project and its client irrigation districts deliver, often via existing infrastructure linked to a pressurized system the developer installs.

Potential encroachment poses a challenge.

“We have to protect our facilities and easements,” Carter said. The project constantly works with developers “to maintain our easements so we can do operations and maintenance.”

Most of the water the Boise Project stores on behalf of its water-rights holders is in Anderson Ranch and Arrowrock reservoirs under a 1926 operation and maintenance agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, including the Lake Lowell storage reservoir between Nampa and Caldwell, and a nearly 1,500-mile network of canals, laterals and drains servicing about 165,000 acres.

The project does not store water in Lucky Peak Reservoir, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Anderson and Arrowrock dams prioritize irrigation while Lucky Peak prioritizes flood control. But the Army Corps and Bureau of Reclamation have a joint agreement to operate the three reservoirs to help with flood control. The dams maintain minimum winter flows to benefit fish, wildlife and riverside public space.

The project is also an operating agency for five irrigation districts, which are essentially taxing districts; they return a portion of their assessments as tolls to the project to cover system operation and maintenance. These are the New York, Boise-Kuna, Wilder and a portion of Nampa-Meridian Irrigation District in Idaho; and the Big Bend district near Adrian, Ore. Water rights are held by the Bureau of Reclamation and the irrigation districts for Boise Project patrons.

Carter said the nonprofit project aims to keep tolls as low as possible while maintaining good service to users. Farming is the biggest user category, and servicing pressurized irrigation systems for subdivisions and individual homeowners is a growing segment.

The project has automated some of the outlet and check structures used when canal water levels are raised and lowered. Automation can increase the efficiency while keeping levels consistent and maintaining head pressure for making deliveries, Carter said. Because automation helps maintain exact water levels while reducing tailwater spillage, water is conserved.

The project for the past decade or so has also operated small hydropower plants. It has two on dams and three in its canal system. The project, which can deliver about 0.5 to 4 megawatts, sells the electricity to power companies that put it onto the larger Northwest power grid.

“We’re always looking to add more” power customers, Carter said. “It’s green power, and that money can go back in and help keep end users’ costs down.”

The project would be impacted by any changes to system infrastructure.

Adding as much as 30,000 acre-feet of storage capacity at either Arrowrock, Anderson Ranch or Lucky Peak dams is the subject of current studies by the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers, Carter and Page said.

Current capacities of the reservoirs east of Boise are 272,200 acre-feet at Arrowrock, 413,100 acre-feet at Anderson Ranch and 264,400 acre-feet at Lucky Peak.

Gov. Butch Otter and House Speaker Scott Bedke on June 21 announced an agreement between water users and water managers on prioritizing water rights from Boise River reservoirs. The agreement involves the state Department of Water Resources, municipal water system operator Suez, the Boise Project Board of Control and the irrigation districts the project serves.

The agreement includes specifics about processes for prioritizing and appealing water-right allocations, the governor’s office, the governor’s office said in a release. Water users were concerned about the right to refill the reservoir space opened up by flood-control releases in order to ensure their water-rights allocations could be met. They wanted assurances that allocating water to fill new storage capacity within the system was not prioritized over filling established reservoirs.

C

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday that marijuana will be legal nationwide on Oct. 17.

Mail-order weed? You betcha!

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

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

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

Here’s what to expect:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

———

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other western states are farther behind the hemp bandwagon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It was worth it,” Juliana declared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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