Cleaning out seven miles of ditches isn’t the most enjoyable task on John Scharf’s farm, but it’s not one that can be neglected without consequence.

Unless silt is removed from the ditches on a rolling basis, they’d eventually fill up with dirt. Even before then, the tile lines that drain his fields near Amity, Ore., would clog and water would “blow out” holes in the ground that are hazardous for machinery.

“We don’t do it any more than we have to because it’s expensive, but it’s part of farming,” Sharf said. “We do it annually any year we can afford it, because if you put it off, it gets worse.”

Scharf recently spoke at a legislative work group, which is looking at introducing a bill to streamline regulations for ditch cleaning in 2019.

The problem is that under Oregon law, Scharf and other growers are limited to removing 50 cubic yards of material from ditches in areas that have been designated wetlands.

In effect, that cap prevents Scharf from cleaning out all the silt that’s necessary, meaning the backlog of accumulated dirt keeps mounting.

“I don’t want to jeopardize my tile lines,” he said. “If the outlet is plugged, you’ve got a problem.”

While the Department of State Lands, which regulates wetlands, ostensibly allows for the maintenance of agricultural drainage ditches, many are considered “channelized streams” that fall under the agency’s jurisdiction, said Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

If those channelized streams are judged to contain “essential salmonid habitat,” even removing 50 cubic yards a year requires a permit from DSL, she said.

In recent years, the Farm Bureau has noticed an uptick of enforcement activities by DSL over ditch maintenance — in one case, pulling blackberries was considered removing vegetation from a waterway, Cooper said.

The increase seems to mostly stem from complaints by neighbors or other state agencies, she said.

Farmers who want to remove more than 50 cubic yards while avoiding regulatory problems can apply for a “general permit” to work in a waterway from DSL, Cooper said. Even then, they’re currently limited to 100 cubic yards of material, which often “does not scratch the surface” of necessary maintenance.

Removing more than 100 cubic yards would require an “individual permit” from the agency, which involves notifying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and clearing steep regulatory hurdles, she said.

“An individual permit is an incredibly complicated process to go through,” Cooper said.

Scharf is conducting a “pilot project” to demonstrate to DSL that more than 100 cubic yards can safely be removed from ditches in the late summer or early fall, but the Farm Bureau hopes to obtain broader relief during next year’s legislative session.

Eric Metz, planning and policy manager for DSL, said the agency is mandated by law to protect the waters of the state, so it tries to avoid, minimize or mitigate work in waterways.

“When we roll it out by the letter, it’s very awkward” when applying permit requirements for ditch cleaning, he said during an Aug. 28 meeting of the legislative work group in Salem, Ore.

The agency feels it’s doing a good job following the letter of the law but it’s not aiming to interfere with farm operations, Metz said. “But we also know there are fish in those ditches, so there’s the dilemma.”

During the meeting, Cooper of the Farm Bureau pointed out that ditch maintenance never occurs in wet conditions and there are environmental benefits to the work.

Growers have been keeping ditches functional for about 100 years, preventing them from filling up, she said. “That habitat won’t exist if we don’t resolve these issues.”

The Forest Service proposed 137 miles of designated off-road trails for summer use. But conservation groups argued they would hurt wildlife and ruin popular hunting grounds. The Oregon Hunters Association was among the plaintiffs.

Bill Littlefield is the outgoing president of the Bend chapter of the Hunters Association and an off-road vehicle owner opposed to the trail system.

“I think the Forest Service can come back with a good plan but they just need a different plan than they proposed,” Littlefield said. “Where they tried to put it and the amount of ground that it covered and the amount of habitat that it impacted, was too large and sensitive of habitat.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan agreed. She ruled the Forest Service failed to explain how the proposed trail system would affect summer habitat for elk and gray wolf recovery. She also said the agency needed to address road density in a forest that already has hundreds of short OHV routes and illegal trails created by riders.

Sullivan’s preliminary ruling heads to a court in Portland for a final judgment.

More hot and dry weather is expected to hang around the Pacific Northwest, exacerbating drought conditions that have gripped the region.

As of Aug. 23, every corner of Oregon, Washington state and Idaho is experiencing some stage of drought, from “abnormally dry” to “extreme,” according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor.

The result is a summer filled with wildfires belching smoke that has impacted air quality for days at a time, and low stream flows prompting water regulators to curtail deliveries in some basins.

The worst conditions appear to be in western Oregon, which is reeling from a historic lack of rainfall in some areas. The National Weather Service reports the city of Salem had gone 78 straight days without any significant rain as of Wednesday, and will likely break the record of 79 consecutive days set in 1967. Other parts of the region did get a few light showers last weekend and Monday.

Overall, Oregon precipitation is averaging 86 percent of normal, while stream flows are averaging less than 50 percent of normal — ranging from 30 percent in the John Day Basin to almost 80 percent along the South Coast.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a drought emergency in nine counties: Lincoln, Douglas, Klamath, Lake, Harney, Grant, Wheeler, Baker and Morrow. Ken Stahr, surface water program manager for the Oregon Water Resources Department, said he has been surprised by how widespread this year’s drought is.

“I think we saw some of this coming over the winter,” Stahr said, referring to low mountain snowpack and rapid snowmelt in May. “We had kind of a late series of storms where we thought it may help. But by May, it was gone.”

Ivan Gall, administrator for the Field Services Division at OWRD, works with the 21 local watermasters across the state. He said they have largely had to begin regulating water deliveries sooner, curtailing junior users to satisfy senior water rights holders.

“We’ve had to cut deeper into the list of junior users more quickly than compared to normal precipitation years,” Gall said.

It is a similar situation in Washington state, which is also seeing below-average flows in nearly half of all rivers and streams. Temperatures have also averaged about 3 degrees above normal statewide in July, making the period between May and June the fourth-warmest on record.

Jeff Marti, drought coordinator for the Washington Department of Ecology, said the state is going through a significant precipitation deficit, which is being most felt in the west and southwest portions of the state.

“We have some rivers that have been establishing record low flows for this day of the year throughout the summer,” Marti said.

The Department of Ecology has been curtailing water for some 88 users in the Chehalis River Basin since late May and early June. State officials, however, have not gone as far as to declare a drought emergency.

Drought conditions are creeping east into Idaho as well. About 70 percent of the state is listed as “abnormally dry,” and the remaining 30 percent is in “moderate drought.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center is calling for an increased likelihood of more unseasonably warm weather across all three states for the next three months, and likely below-average precipitation in most of Oregon and Washington.

The longer drought lingers, the more it will heighten anxiety over reservoir storage heading into next year, Marti said.

“You could have a vast recovery, or there could be some anxiety if we have a sub-par snowpack year,” he said. “You like to have good carryover. It gives you a little cushion heading into next year.”

Philip Mote, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University, said based on forecasts, the Northwest drought will not be easing up soon, and in fact more areas in eastern Washington may actually start developing more severe conditions.

In many ways, Mote said this year is reminiscent of 2015, another drought year amplified by low snow and spring precipitation. Some coastal streams in Oregon have lower flows this year than they did in 2015, Mote said.

“For anything relying on snowpack, that was a difficult year,” Mote said.

Northwest wheat farmers can check online to see how the different wheat varieties fared this year in falling number tests.

USDA Agricultural Research Service molecular geneticist Camille Steber posts the information gleaned from Washington State University cereal variety trials on her website. The tool compares falling number susceptibility and yield, two important factors for farmers deciding which varieties to plant next.

The website shows “which had high falling numbers, which ones also yield well,” Steber said.

Falling number is a test that measures starch damage in wheat that reduces the quality of baked goods and noodles. Grain inspectors measure the time it takes two pins on a falling number test machine to fall through a ground wheat-water slurry, measuring viscosity. The price of grain with a low falling number is discounted because end-use quality is compromised by starch damage.

Farmers were caught off-guard in 2016, when roughly 44 percent of soft white wheat samples and 42 percent of club wheat samples tested below 300, the industry standard. The industry estimates the damage that year cost farmers more than $30 million in lower prices.

Steber hopes the data will help wheat breeders avoid releasing varieties susceptible to falling number.

Scott Steinbacher, regional manager of the Washington State Department of Agriculture grain inspection program, said he’s seeing more samples with falling number above 300 in the Colfax and Spokane offices as harvest progresses.

“The difficult part now is all those (samples with) low falling numbers are being resubmitted to be double-checked. ... it’s hard to tell the difference between an original and a resubmit,” he said.

The harvest rush is winding down in the Spokane office, while the Colfax office has a steady flow of samples coming in.

Falling number this year has been consistent with Steber’s expectations. The enzyme late-maturity alpha amylase, or LMA, caused problems in areas where the wheat flowered earlier. Wheat was in a susceptible window during a cold snap in June, Steber said. Wide fluctuations in temperature can damage wheat during a certain stage of its maturity.

Farmers are having less trouble in areas where the wheat matured later, she said.

“We’re getting problems, but the falling numbers aren’t as extremely low as what we saw in 2016,” she said. Most were in the high 200s, she said.

Steber and Steinbacher are both concerned that recent rain could lead to sprouting on wheat still in the fields. Sprouting can also damage starch and lead to low falling number test results.

“At this point I’m just hoping we don’t get a pre-harvest sprouting problem on top of an LMA problem,” Steber said.

Online

http://steberlab.org/project7599data.php#anchor2018Results

Environmentalists have failed to convince a federal judge that a 2,000-acre thinning project in Northeast Oregon’s Wallowa-Whitman National Forest violated environmental law.

Last year, the Greater Hells Canyon Council and Oregon Wild nonprofits filed a lawsuit challenging the Lostine Public Safety Project, which aims to reduce wildfire and insect problems along roughly 11 miles of the Lostine River.

A U.S. magistrate judge disagreed with the plaintiffs’ contention that the fuel reduction project was improperly excluded from environmental studies under the National Environmental Policy Act and dismissed their other allegations.

Those findings have been upheld by U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, who has ruled in favor of the U.S. Forest Service and Wallowa County — which intervened in the case — by dismissing the lawsuit.

Simon has agreed with the earlier ruling that the federal government properly used a “categorical exclusion” to exempt the project from the usual requirement of preparing an environmental assessment or more in-depth environmental impact statement.

In this case, the agency didn’t have to analyze whether “extraordinary circumstances” called for such studies due to provisions in the 2014 Farm Bill that allowed “categorical exclusions” outright for certain ecologically oriented forest treatments, the ruling said.

Likewise, wildlife and botanical reports associated with the project meet the requirements of the forest plan for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest and didn’t violate the National Forest Management Act by failing to ensure “species viability and recovery,” the ruling said.

The project also complies with the “wild and scenic river” plan for the Lostine River because the Forest Service properly determined its long-term effects would benefit the river’s “outstandingly remarkable values,” according to the judge.

The agency’s collaboration on the project was sufficient under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act as well, the ruling said. “Instead of participating, plaintiffs often objected to how the Project was being developed, rather than providing meaningful, substantive input.”

The U.S.-Mexican preliminary trade agreement won’t erase the 20 percent retaliatory tariff Mexico put on dried cranberries in June, the director of an association of U.S. cranberry handlers said Tuesday.

The tariff responded to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, which remain in place. The deal announced Monday reworked the North American Free Trade Agreement, which imposed no tariffs on cranberries.

“The information we received yesterday was that the agreement (with Mexico) did not address the steel and aluminum issue, and our understanding is the tariff would remain the same,” said Terry Humfeld, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Cranberry Institute.

U.S. cranberries are frequently targeted for retaliatory tariffs. China, Canada and the European Union also have imposed new duties since June. The retaliation strikes at a major crop in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin.

The U.S. exports about $300 million worth of cranberries and cranberry products a year. Roughly $30 million of that is in the form of dried cranberries bound for Mexico. The tariffs come as the cranberry industry is trying to reduce a price-depressing surplus.

The U.S. Census Bureau has yet to release export figures for July, the first full month that retaliatory duties were in place. Humfeld said it’s too early to judge the damage to the industry.

“We believe there is an impact, but don’t have any numbers to back that up, and probably won’t for a few months,” he said.

The European Union, the largest overseas market, imposed a 25 percent tariff on cranberry concentrate and held out the possibility that the tariff eventually will apply to dried cranberries. Canada put a 10 percent tariff on juice. China increased a tariff on dried cranberries to 40 percent from 15 percent.

Bumper crops and flat demand have led to a large surplus. The USDA ordered handlers to divert 15 percent of the 2017 crop from the marketplace to reduce the surplus. The order, however, didn’t apply to about 35 percent of the crop because handlers who took in fewer than 125,000 barrels were exempted, according to figures from the Cranberry Marketing Committee. Each barrel equals 100 pounds.

The committee calculated that the USDA mandate, granted at the industry’s request, diverted 792 barrels, or about 9 percent of the harvest.

The USDA had yet to make a final decision on whether to order a portion of the 2018 crop be diverted. The USDA proposed a 25 percent diversion, with small handlers again being exempted.

The USDA this month forecast that cranberry growers will rebound from a subpar 2017 harvest — not particularly good news for the industry. The USDA predicts the crop in the five top cranberry producing states, which include Oregon and Washington, will be up 3 percent to 8.6 million barrels.

Long Beach, Wash., farmer Malcolm McPhail said he’s continued to grow as many cranberries as he can. “I just do everything the way I always have. That’s the best philosophy,” he said. “You have to do the biggest crop you can. I don’t know how it’s going to sort out.”

A northeast Oregon cattle rancher was reissued a permit to shoot one wolf on a forested grazing allotment near Joseph Creek in Wallowa County where four calves have been killed or injured since June.

The latest attack was confirmed by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife on Aug. 20. A range rider found the dead 300-pound calf earlier that morning, and investigators later determined wolves were to blame.

The pasture is within an area of known wolf activity in the Chesnimnus Unit, where ODFW counted three wolves at the end of 2017. Chesnimnus wolves also injured three calves in three days between June 12 and June 14, all belonging to RL Cattle Company of Enterprise.

ODFW granted the original permit for RL Cattle to shoot one Chesnimnus wolf on June 21, but no wolves were killed before the permit expired July 10. The permit has been reissued for 30 days and will expire Sept. 24.

Wildlife officials have documented wolves in the area over the past two months, but do not know whether the animals are remnants of the Chesnimnus pack or new wolves that moved into the territory. None of the wolves in question are wearing GPS tracking collars.

The incident further underscores the continuing debate between ranchers and conservationists about how best to manage wolves in Oregon. Groups will gather Thursday for a meeting intended to find common ground on lingering issues in the state Wolf Plan, which is now three years past due for a regular five-year update.

Deb Nudelman, a mediator with Kearns & West in Portland, will moderate the discussion, scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 3561 Klindt Drive in The Dalles. The meeting is open to the public, though seating is limited.

The wolf plan was last revised in 2010. Since then, the minimum known wolf population has risen to 124 animals statewide, and Eastern Oregon wolves were removed from the state endangered species list in 2015.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission was supposed to vote on the plan back in January, but indefinitely postponed its decision to try and reach a broader consensus among stakeholders.

Jerome Rosa, executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said ranchers have three main concerns: fitting more wolves with GPS collars, creating management zones with population targets, and allowing local authorities — such as county sheriffs and veterinarians — to investigate suspected livestock depredations in a more timely manner.

GPS collars will help alert ranchers when wolves are approaching, Rosa said, and make sure they are doing non-lethal activities to haze wolves such as hiring range riders.

“The only way we’ll know that is if there are collars on those wolves, so our guys can go in and do some of the non-lethal measures,” Rosa said. “Without that information, they have no idea until it’s too late.”

According to ODFW, RL Cattle was using non-lethal deterrents when the Chesnimnus wolves attacked, including camping out with the livestock at night, removing injured animals from the pasture and setting up trail cameras to check for wolves in the area.

Management zones could be especially useful in the northeast part of the state, where the vast majority of Oregon wolves reside. Rosa said the wolf density in the region has made it extremely difficult for local ranchers to graze their livestock safely.

As for local control to conduct depredation investigations, Rosa said it often takes ODFW biologists too long to arrive on scene, leaving evidence to deteriorate and lessening the odds it will be confirmed a wolf attack.

“We’ve had that happen many times,” Rosa said. “A lot of it depends on the day of the week. ... By the time a biologist can get out there, it’s really too late to comb through the evidence.”

Rob Klavins, northeast Oregon field coordinator for the environmental group Oregon Wild, agreed it is important for ODFW to make accurate, efficient and transparent rulings on depredations. However, he said if that means allowing decisions to come down to elected politicians and others with a conflict of interest, “we’re going to have a harder time.”

Klavins said the wolf plan must have clear, defensible and enforceable standards for addressing conflicts with livestock.

Klavins said the agency has also weakened parts of the wolf plan in recent years, as it transitioned from Phase I to Phase III, and doubled down on more controversial aspects like killing wolves that have caused conflict and controversy.

“We need a plan based on the best available science informed by 21st century values,” Klavins said. “If we all share the goal of less dead cows, less dead wolves, and less conflict, there’s going to have to be some give and take on both sides. But we’ve been there before and we stand ready to work together to get there again.”

Rosa said he is also looking forward to having a constructive conversation about the plan entering mediation.

“It’s time to move ahead and get this plan finished,” he said.

The Eugene Livestock Auction in Junction City, Ore., narrowly escaped demolition and now has a new owner intent on keeping the business operating.

After 23 years of running the auction, former owner Bruce Anderson wanted to sell the business, but the first three prospective buyers who approached him about the auction yard wanted to convert it to another use, he said.

Anderson said his wife, Kate, who helped run the business, balked at the prospect of shutting it down, so they were both relieved when an employee, Leon Birky, offered to buy the company.

Birky and his wife, Chloe, closed on the sale in mid-August. The price was not disclosed, but county records show the 4-acre property worth more than $1.1 million in real market value.

“They actually did the industry a favor,” said Anderson. “When they heard it was going to be knocked down, they wanted to keep it going.”

Only eight livestock auction yards remain in Oregon after many shut down due to the high cost of compliance with confined animal feeding operation regulations, said Jerome Rosa, executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

Livestock auctions must obtain a CAFO permit despite only having animals at the facility once a week, and they often don’t qualify for grants, making for a “very expensive situation,” Rosa said.

Smaller livestock producers tend to rely on auctions to sell their cattle, which makes having a nearby option important because it’s tough for them to drive for hours to a more distant location, he said.

“It’s much more convenient for them to have a local yard to go to,” Rosa said.

Leon Birky, the new owner, said he saw the auction yard as a good investment because it’s a strong local market for feeder cattle, sheep and goats and wanted to keep it as a sales outlet for local livestock producers.

“I’ve been around cattle and livestock most of my life,” said Birky, who worked as a ringman and part-time auctioneer at the facility before buying it.

Birky said the auction yard will continue to be run with honesty and integrity to keep people coming back, and the facility will continue to house a restaurant with “good down-home cooking.”

The couple plans to host an “open house” and feeder sale at the site on Sept. 8.

Aside from rebuilding some pens, fixing some gates and other improvements, the Birkys say they don’t plan on any major changes to the auction yard.

“We want to keep it the same as people are used to,” Chloe Birky said. “I don’t think livestock people really like a lot of change.”

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Vegetarian food-maker Tofurky filed a lawsuit in Missouri on Monday seeking to defend its right to describe its products with meat terminology such as “sausage” and “hot dogs,” as long as the packaging makes clear what the ingredients are.

The Hood River, Oregon-based company and The Good Food Institute, an advocacy and lobbying group for meat alternatives, say a Missouri law set to take effect Tuesday that bars companies from “misrepresenting” products as meat if they’re not from “harvested livestock or poultry” is too vague and could be used to go after a range of vegetarian products that use such terminology. Tofurky says if the law is allowed to stand, it would have to change its packaging.

The Missouri Cattlemen’s Association, which supported the statute, said its concern isn’t with products like Tofurky that make clear they’re from plants. Mike Deering, the group’s executive vice president, said the worry is the emerging science of meat grown by culturing animal cells in a lab, and whether they’ll disclose how they were made once they’re on the market.

As companies push newer meat substitutes, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has also said protecting “beef nomenclature” is a priority. The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, a smaller group, petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture in February to enforce that “beef” and “meat” only be used for animals “born, raised and harvested in the traditional manner.”

Mary Compton, a spokeswoman for Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, said her office will defend the law against Tofurky’s challenge.

Pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pie are synonymous with autumn, but as the season draws closer, researchers at Oregon State University are targeting a complex of diseases that have hampered winter squash in recent years.

Winter squash is a $7 million industry in Oregon, with 4,000 acres grown in the Willamette Valley near Corvallis. The crop is a close pumpkin relative used for making fall favorites like “pumpkin” soup, seeds and pie filling.

But farmers began noticing something was infecting their plants, and in some severe cases causing entire fields to wilt and die. Oregon State received a grant from the USDA Western Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education program to study the problem in 2014.

Hannah Rivedal, lead researcher and graduate student studying botany and plant pathology at OSU, said they have honed in on five distinct soil-borne fungi at the root of the trouble — literally — including one species never before found in cucurbits in Oregon.

“We’ve had a couple of years where there have been more significant reductions in yield, and more instances of this disease problem occurring,” Rivedal said. “This is a really complicated problem with multiple pathogens and multiple different environmental factors.”

Between 2014 and 2016, Rivedal surveyed around 60 fields, randomly sampling both healthy and diseased plants. She took thousands of disease cultures, with five species of soil-borne fungus consistently showing up — Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium solani, Fusarium culmorum, Plectosphaerella cucumerina and Setophoma terrestris.

Setophoma terrestris was unexpected, Rivedal said, since it has never been seen before in squash in Oregon, though it is more widely known in other crops such as onions and garlic. The fungus can cause a disease known as pink root rot, which is exactly what it sounds like, attacking the roots and turning them an unhealthy shade of pink.

“It’s one piece of the puzzle here,” Rivedal said. “These all work together.”

Rivedal, along with OSU faculty Alexandra Stone and Ken Johnson, have published their findings in the journal Plant Disease. The next step, Rivedal said, is to develop a set of recommendations and best practices to help farmers break the disease cycle.

First off, Rivedal said growers should rotate their fields out of squash for at least four years, if possible. As for which rotation crops will work best, she said that has yet to be determined.

“If they plant onions right before squash, the next year they have really bad pink root rot in their field,” Rivedal said. “We’ve been looking into management strategies.”

Another tip is irrigating less at the beginning of the growing season, since damp, humid soil conditions are more conducive to fungi. Because the pathogens are soil-borne, Rivedal said applying chemicals will not help. Any fungicide would need to fumigated.

“All of these things are acting really interestingly here,” she said. “And we think it has a lot to do with the environmental factors and the rotation practices ahead of the squash that we (grow).”

McMINNVILLE, Ore. — Sitting face-to-face with organic dairy farmers from around the Willamette Valley, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley pledged their support for organic agriculture, an industry that Merkley called “an exciting opportunity for our food and our economy.”

Brown and Merkley, both Democrats, visited the Organic Valley creamery in McMinnville on Friday, one year to the month after the plant opened with $350,000 in funding from the state’s Strategic Reserve Fund.

The creamery now has 42 full-time employees and brings in 500,000 pounds of organic milk every day to process into butter and powdered milk. Organic Valley is the nation’s largest organic farming cooperative, with more than 2,000 members in 35 states — including 75 organic dairy farms in Oregon and Washington.

One of those members is Sar-Ben Farms in Saint Paul. Steve Pierson, a fourth-generation family farmer, also serves on the Organic Valley board of directors. He talked about the process of going organic, shifting from a confined feeding operation to a grass-based operation, which helped to improve the health of his cows.

“We felt that herd should have been healthier,” Pierson said, and though it was intimidating to change their production model, “We found that working with Mother Nature, instead of against it, was really better for us.”

Pierson’s daughter, 22-year-old Sara, will become the fifth generation, along with her brothers, to work at Sar-Ben Farms. While Sara Pierson said she originally thought she might be interested in a more traditional 9-to-5 job, she ultimately missed the fast-paced work.

“I really love the way I grew up on the farm,” Pierson said. “I don’t think I could have an office job.”

Organic Valley has been a key partner in helping those dairy farms remain in business, cutting $59 million in milk checks for Oregon members in 2017. The McMinnville creamery is the co-op’s only brick-and-mortar facility outside of Wisconsin.

Brown said she was pleased to see the creamery has created new jobs in the community, and will be talking with Department of Agriculture Director Alexis Taylor on programs to support further growth in organic farming.

Getting into the organic business is no easy task. For dairy farmers, cows can only eat organic feed, cannot be given any additional hormones or antibiotics, and must have at least 120 days to graze on open pasture. For farmers growing their own feed, it takes three years without spraying chemicals before the land can be certified organic.

At the end of the day, Pierson said organic farmers must maintain consumer trust and credibility, which is why they are willing to work with lawmakers on new guidelines and regulations.

“It’s all about integrity, really,” he said. “We need to meet that (customer) expectation.”

Adam Warthesen, who heads government relations for Organic Valley, said the co-op feels “pretty good” about where organics stand in the 2018 Farm Bill, which is scheduled to go to conference committee Sept. 5.

Merkley, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, pointed to several provisions in the Senate’s version of the Farm Bill intended to invest in organics — such as creating permanent mandatory funding for organic research, providing mandatory funding for cost-share programs to help farmers transition to organic practices, and strengthening enforcement tools under the USDA National Organic Program to protect against fraudulent imports.

Last year, the USDA Office of Inspector General issued an audit claiming that the agency could not provide reasonable assurance that the National Organic Program required documents at U.S. ports to verify that labeled organic products, in fact, came from organic sources.

Chris Schreiner, executive director of Oregon Tilth, a nonprofit organization accredited to certify organic farms, said that report served as a call to action.

“The organic label rests on consumer credibility and trust,” Schreiner said. “It’s really our job as certifiers to make sure that integrity is there.”

The USDA Risk Management Agency has agreed to temporarily change its policy to allow farmers in Wasco and Sherman counties that were affected by wildfire to plant cover crops without affecting their crop insurance.

“We will make changes where we modify the definition of summer fallow in a way that will not invalidate their summer-fallow designation, even though they planted a cover crop in the fallow year,” said Ben Thiel, director of the Spokane Regional Office of the agency, in a phone interview on Aug. 22.

The agency changed its policy after hearing concerns from farmers about leaving ground exposed to the elements in the 2019 fallow year and checking with agricultural experts, Thiel said.

“Pretty much the consensus was, yes, this would be a good farming practice and that you would help reduce yield loss for 2020 by planting a cover crop, as long as it is terminated in the spring and doesn’t continue to grow later in the spring and through the summer where it would deplete moisture,” Thiel said.

Normally, growers are restricted from planting cover crops in a fallow year under the USDA summer-fallow crop insurance program. The provision is in place to ensure farmers are optimizing yield potential in crop years, Thiel said.

“Generally, you get better moisture retention if you leave a field fallow every other year, and that will produce a better crop in low rainfall areas, such as Sherman and Wasco counties,” Thiel said.

Brian Tuck, field crops extension agent for Wasco and Sherman counties, said RMA’s decision could be critical in helping protect soil left bare by wildfire from wind and rain erosion. Typically, wheat stubble protects ground in fallow years, he said.

“The stubble is a big deal,” Tuck said. “Having that surface stubble on there provides biomass to the soil for nutrient cycling and is a huge factor in keeping the soil cooler and protecting it from both wind and rain erosion.”

“Now we just have to hope we get some fall rains here” to help establish the cover crops, he said.

He advised growers to check with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and their local Soil and Water Conservation District for cost-sharing opportunities potentially available to help offset the cost of purchasing and planting cover crop seeds.

Three wildfires, the Substation, South Valley and Long Hollow fires, burned approximately 135,000 acres in the two counties in a two-week span beginning in mid-July, just when wheat harvest was kicking off.

The fires cost growers millions of dollars in lost crop, particularly given that growers were looking at above-average yields. “This was looking to be a pretty good year,” Tuck said. “We had some really good rains in some places, so the yields were looking very good.”

Growers with crop insurance are eligible to recoup losses based on average yields.

Also, while prices “haven’t been the greatest,” Tuck said, they are up from the previous three years, with wheat at $5.92 a bushel in Portland on Aug. 23.

Many growers also lost equipment, fencing, structures, pasture and rangeland to the fire, Tuck said, and the fire cost the life of Wasco County farmer John Ruby, 64, who died digging a firebreak to protect a neighbor’s property.

PORTLAND — A retired Oregon State University professor has cast doubt on claims of excessive water usage at a controversial Oregon dairy that farm regulators seek to shut down.

Lost Valley Farm of Boardman, Ore., entered into a settlement with the Oregon Department of Agriculture in March to limit its water usage to 65,000 gallons per day.

Since starting operations in 2017, the second-largest dairy in Oregon has been cited repeatedly for wastewater problems by ODA, which led to the lawsuit.

The agency now alleges that Greg te Velde, the dairy’s owner, has committed contempt of court by exceeding the agreed-upon amount by up to 375,000 gallons per day, thereby contributing to wastewater management problems at the site.

To sanction the dairy, ODA is requesting that a judge order the facility to stop generating wastewater, which would effectively shut it down.

During an Aug. 24 court hearing in Portland, Ore., defense witness Mike Gamroth — a retired OSU professor with extensive experience in the dairy industry — said he doubted ODA’s estimates of water usage.

Gamroth testified that he doesn’t see how hundreds of thousands of additional gallons could be used without a glaringly obvious “Olympic-size swimming pool” of excess water at the facility.

“I can’t find where that water goes, I really can’t,” Gamroth said.

One factor that could figure into ODA’s estimate is an inaccurate water meter that varies in its flow rate and total usage data, he said.

“It’s simply not realistic, and it’s got to relate to that meter,” he said.

State officials also based their estimate on the changing levels of water in manure lagoons, which are difficult to measure, Gamroth said.

A variation of just one inch in lagoon levels equates to 160,000 gallons of water, he said. “I don’t have confidence in those measurements, basically.”

Gamroth said he has probably visited every dairy in Oregon and does not believe Lost Valley Farm’s water usage is abnormally large.

“I don’t see any difference for a dairy of that size,” he said.

Similar conditions exist at other dairies, for which they haven’t been cited, Gamroth said.

“I think it’s a fairly clean dairy. Compliance issues are quite minor in most cases,” he said.

Overflow problems have been “minor,” wastewater storage is no longer a problem and the facility poses no greater environmental risk than other dairies, Gamroth said.

During cross-examination by the state’s attorney, Lisa DeFever, Gamroth acknowledged that he submitted a declaration in Lost Valley’s bankruptcy proceedings in May stating that the facility used nearly an acre foot of water per day, or roughly 320,000 gallons.

DeFever said the dairy hasn’t properly tested the nitrogen content of wastewater applied to fields, potentially causing groundwater contamination.

She also said the facility’s manure storage problems will likely resume once summer is over, which will “come back and bite us” when the rainy season begins.

“We will end up with them in the winter full and overflowing,” DeFever said.

The search for a new Port of Morrow manager spanned several months and drew applicants from around the U.S., but the role will go to a homegrown candidate.

Ryan Neal, the current Port of Morrow Warehousing manager and son of longtime port manager Gary Neal, was selected on Aug. 7 from a pool of about 33 total applicants, after the port commission and several panels conducted interviews with Neal and three other finalists.

While the panels made suggestions, the five port commissioners unanimously made the final call to extend the job offer to Neal.

As Neal prepares to assume the job this fall, he said he plans to build on the rapid growth the port has seen, with both existing and new industries.

“We’re definitely an ag resource-based economy, but we’ll continue to diversify,” Neal said. “Obviously technology will continue to be a major part of it. But we’ll see — we seem to get leads all the time.”

Neal will step in at a time when the port has seen a boom in business, both from tenants and its own operations, in the last few years. He said his background in business, as well as his recent experience in Boardman, has given him skills he feels will serve the port.

“I think I have a lot of structure in my management style,” he said. “Working for companies that have corporate cultures, I understand the good and the bad that comes with that.”

He added that he’s developed an understanding of the interpersonal relationships with port clients and employees during his time with POM Warehousing.

“I think bridging those gaps in relationships is important to focus on, both at the state agency and at the business level,” he said.

A graduate of Riverside High School and Oregon State University, Neal started his career with Knight Transportation in Portland, where he worked for 10 years. After various roles in operations and business development, he moved to their corporate office in Phoenix.

He moved to Yakima in 2012 to become the director of operations at Haney Truck Line — a business he said had about 500 trucks and employees.

Looking to return to his hometown, Neal said he jumped at the opportunity to work at Port of Morrow Warehousing when the facility opened in 2015. The facility stores frozen vegetables before food processing companies ship the product to stores.

After working as the operations manager under director Jim Barnes, Neal took over the general manager position when Barnes retired in late 2016.

In that position, Neal said, he oversees about half of the Port of Morrow staff — about 61 people. He reports directly to his father.

“Our operating budget is approximately one-third of the port’s budget,” he said.

Board president Jerry Healy said the commissioners hired George Dunkel from the Special Districts Association of Oregon to recruit candidates. After the initial recruitment period, they asked Dunkel to expand the search to a wider geographic region, and ended up with 33 applicants.

Neal was selected after a search that started in late spring of this year, and ended with a day of interviews with three panels of community members and people from regional businesses and industries. Neal and the three other finalists went through the panel interviews. One was eliminated, another chose not to move forward, and Neal and finalist Stephanie Seamans were interviewed by the port commission.

Seamans is a Certified Public Accountant and the community and economic development manager for Benton-Franklin Council of Governments in the Tri-Cities. She worked for many years as a CPA and business development manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Seamans declined to comment for this story.

Port commission vice president Rick Stokoe said Seamans had many of the qualifications they wanted, but she did not have experience with ports.

Healy said Neal’s background, both with the port and at other businesses, made him a compelling candidate.

“He’s had a very successful marketing career,” Healy said. “He’s grown the businesses he’s worked with.”

Stokoe said the commission didn’t talk to the panels directly, but all the information was relayed to them through Dunkel.

“The panel didn’t make a recommendation to us — they told us their thoughts,” he said.

He said the commission asked the candidates an identical set of about 20 questions, including questions about their leadership style, and their willingness to move to Morrow County.

Though Neal will succeed his father in the position, both commissioners said the relationship ultimately had nothing to do with their decision.

“I was very concerned, as was SDAO, and Gary,” Healy said. “He’s been pretty walled-off from the process. He was not involved in any special meetings or phone calls regarding the hiring.”

Stokoe agreed.

“His relationship to Gary didn’t have anything to do with my decision,” he said. “We didn’t exclude anybody. We wanted input, we invited panelists from all over. If our sole intention was to hire Ryan, we didn’t have to open it up.”

Ryan Neal said he understands the scrutiny that comes with a public position, but didn’t feel the relationship had to do with his hiring, and said his father had no input or involvement in the process.

“I feel like my background in business development shows that I have the skills that align with what the executive director at the port needs,” he said. “I followed the process just like everybody else.”

Don Russell, a Morrow County commissioner and former Port of Morrow commissioner, has known Ryan Neal for many years, through his early career and time at the port.

“It seems like a bunch of guys from Morrow County ended up at Knight in Portland,” he said, noting that Neal was promoted quickly and rose through the ranks of the company.

He said the port works with the county regularly, including on the Enterprise Zone committee. That committee has two voting members each from the Port of Morrow, Morrow County and the city of Boardman. He said Neal will likely fill his father’s spot on that board.

Russell said he thinks Neal’s qualifications will speak for themselves.

“I believe in the next two years, Ryan Neal will make us all forget who his father is,” he said.

–——

Contact Jayati Ramakrishnan at 541-564-4534 or jramakrishnan@eastoregonian.com

Ron Pearmine describes himself as a “broccoli ambassador” for the Willamette Valley.

This year, Pearmine is growing 175 acres of broccoli at his family’s farm in Gervais, Ore. But the crop, while desirable, has declined significantly in the area due to labor shortages and rising production costs.

Broccoli is harvested today almost exclusively by hand, with crews of about 20 people going over fields two or three times to maximize yields. Without enough workers, local farmers are growing just half as much broccoli as they were six years ago, according to NORPAC Foods, a farmers’ cooperative and food processor based in Salem.

Ever the engineer — he has a bachelor’s degree in computer science engineering — Pearmine began tinkering with machinery to come up with a solution. He created a mechanical harvester out of a 1976 Chisholm-Ryder bean picker that he believes could promote increased acreage, while replacing hand crews entirely.

“I’m excited about it,” Pearmine said. “It does create a new opportunity for broccoli here in the valley.”

Pearmine’s goal is to machine-harvest 80 acres of broccoli at his farm this season. Other growers have also shown interest, allowing Pearmine to harvest several smaller plots in their own fields.

On Aug. 2, Pearmine mounted the harvester and began a trial run at Obersinner Farms on Howell Prairie between Salem and Silverton. It took 20 minutes to make one pass down a quarter-acre row, filling four large wooden crates with broccoli bound for NORPAC.

“It works. It’s effective,” Pearmine said. “We could pick our broccoli mechanically if we choose to. It’s a viable option.”

Pearmine is not the first to conceive of a mechanical broccoli harvester — though nothing has been developed so far commercially.

Pearmine was inspired to come up with his own design after a trip to Case Equipment Manufacturing in North Dakota, where he saw robots welding parts for machinery. If robots can weld, then he figured they can also pick broccoli.

The first attempt came in 2013, or what Pearmine calls “the big fail.” Nothing about that system worked right, he said, and the setback lingered for several years before he went back to the drawing board.

“I have an engineering brain, I guess you could say,” Pearmine said with a chuckle.

By sheer innovation — or insanity, as Pearmine jokes — he assembled a working prototype last year by rigging the old bean picker with three rows of spinning blades in front, similar to a corn harvester. Once cut, the broccoli is carried up a conveyor belt over a series of metal rollers that pinch off the leaves, and dropped into bins on a flat trailer.

Pearmine gave a presentation on the harvester at a NORPAC grower meeting in December 2017, where he caught the attention of fellow growers like Tom Fessler, of Fessler Farms in Woodburn, who agreed to participate in field trials.

“There’s been talk we need to move in that direction,” Fessler said. “Ron took the bull by the horns, and developed a machine.”

From a technical standpoint, Fessler said the harvester works well. The problem: It cuts everything all at once, though broccoli often does not mature at the same rate.

That means potentially sacrificing yield with machine harvesting, for the sake of efficiency.

“You’re going to have some (plants) that are slightly over-mature, some that are just right and quite a few that are on the small side, based on our experience right now,” Fessler said.

Pearmine acknowledges that, unless broccoli fields are uniform in maturity, the harvester has its drawbacks.

“That’s part of the reason why I want to get it out, so guys can have that experience,” Pearmine said. “How much do you want to give up on yield? If you don’t want to give up anything, you’ll continue picking by hand.”

Pearmine is nonetheless bullish that mechanical harvesting will eventually prove to be a boon for the industry, reversing the trend of lost acreage brought on by mounting labor shortages.

Randy Lyons, vice president of agriculture services for NORPAC, said fewer workers combined with Oregon’s rising minimum wage have driven the decline in broccoli production from 2,000 acres in 2012 to just 1,000 acres this year.

To make up the difference, Lyons said the co-op is buying twice as much broccoli from Mexico to process into its line of soups and frozen vegetables. NORPAC is excited about the potential of Pearmine’s harvester, Lyons added, though crop quality will be the ultimate test.

“We’re working with him real closely to make sure what he’s bringing into the plant, we can make the best use of,” Lyons said. “It has to be as good as what’s in the marketplace, or better.”

In addition to NORPAC, Pearmine said he has received support from Wilco and Marion Ag Services. After harvest, he intends to compare machine-harvested yields to those of hand crews, and continue working with partners to fine-tune the system.

“People are interested. They’re supportive, and they’re excited,” Pearmine said. “It creates a new future, I think, for NORPAC and broccoli.”

Ron Pearmine

Age: 68

Occupation: Farmer, Pearmine Farms

Hometown: Gervais, Ore.

Family: Wife, Pat, and kids Ernie, Molly, Alli and Grey

Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science engineering, Oregon State University, 1972

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon has issued $43,200 in fines to a Seattle-based seafood company after environmental regulators found wastewater violations at its surimi factory in Newport.

The Statesman Journals reports the recent fine is the third time since 2015 the state Department of Environmental Quality has fined Trident Seafoods for polluting Yaquina Bay.

The factory, which processes fish into imitation crab meat, is allowed to discharge a certain amount of treated fish-processing wastewater into the bay.

According to the department’s penalty order, the company exceeded the limits of various pollutant amounts dozens of times between July and October 2017.

Plant manager Bill Olivera did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.

Department spokeswoman Katherine Benenati says the agency doesn’t anticipate finding additional violations because the facility is under new ownership.

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Authorities say a new wildfire in southwestern Oregon has prompted mandatory evacuations and an emergency conflagration declaration.

The Mail Tribune reports a fire erupted Wednesday afternoon north of Medford near Gold Hill.

The Ramsey Canyon fire is burning around Hull Mountain south of the Garner fire, which has been 85 percent contained after burning through about 14 square miles.

Governor Kate Brown on Wednesday night approved an emergency conflagration declaration for the fire. At the time of the declaration, the governor’s office said up to 200 homes were threatened, with some of those residents under mandatory evacuation orders.

The Governor’s declaration authorizes the Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal to mobilize additional help for local crews battling the fire.

Oregon hazelnut growers can expect a record-high crop in 2018, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The latest production forecast issued Aug. 21 calls for 52,000 tons of hazelnuts, surpassing last year’s total of 32,000 tons and the previous record of 49,500 tons set in 2001.

Meredith Nagely, manager of the Hazelnut Industry Office in Aurora, Ore., said the report comes as little surprise. Hazelnuts tend to be alternate bearing, meaning low yields one year are usually followed by higher yields the next.

Overall hazelnut acreage is also on the rise, with 72,353 acres of orchards across the state — including 40,000 acres of mature, nut-bearing trees. Total acreage has more than doubled in the last 10 years, Nagely said, and rose from 66,980 acres in 2017.

“I think interest has (been) piqued,” Nagely said. “We have a high-quality product, and there’s just a huge potential.”

Tom Klevay, CEO of Willamette Hazelnut Growers in Newberg, said he anticipates greater harvests for the foreseeable future as growers continue gravitating toward hazelnuts, and new plantings reach maturity in the coming years.

“Hazelnuts, you don’t have to plant them every year,” Klevay said. “In the eyes of the grower, it’s a crop that represents a good opportunity, so that’s where they’re placing their bets.”

Oregon is responsible for growing nearly all U.S. hazelnuts, but accounts for less than 4 percent of the world’s supply. Nagely said industry leaders are working hard to develop new markets, both domestically and overseas, though higher tariffs in China and lower prices offered by Turkey have combined to heighten trade anxiety.

In Turkey, the world’s predominant hazelnut producer, the lira has dropped about 60 percent compared to the dollar so far this year, which could potentially depress global hazelnut prices. Meanwhile, China slapped a 15 percent tariff hike on U.S. hazelnuts in April following the Trump administration’s increased tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum.

While the prospect of selling more hazelnuts may not seem appealing at first glance, Klevay said a larger — and more predictable — supply of Oregon-grown hazelnuts may actually increase demand, opening new avenues to sell the crop.

“We feel that as the supply gets larger, the demand will follow, similar to what’s happened with pistachios and almonds,” Klevay said. “Our crop is known to be very high quality, and those markets that are looking for quality are opportunities for us going forward.”

Nagely said the recent developments in China and Turkey have brought the Oregon hazelnut industry to the forefront, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

“Our hazelnuts have been in a lot of discussions recently,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for us to make some things happen.”

While hazelnut yields may experience record highs, the same USDA forecast noted a record low average nut size. Nagely said the hot, dry weather may at least be partially to blame.

The Willamette Valley, where most hazelnuts are grown, has received just 85 percent of its normal precipitation for the current water year, and the entire region is now listed in severe to extreme drought.

The weather may also push the beginning of harvest season up to mid-September, Nagely said. It is expected to run through October, possibly into early November.

SEATTLE (AP) — Washington state plans to sue the Trump administration over its proposal to dismantle pollution rules that would have increased federal regulation of emissions from coal-fired power plants, Gov. Jay Inslee said Wednesday.

The Environmental Protection Agency plan threatens lives, props up an old technology and is illegal, the Democrat told reporters. “It’s an affront to people who want to breathe clean air.”

The state will file a lawsuit — likely joining with other states — but it must first wait for the EPA rule to be formally proposed and finalized, which could take months, said Bill Sherman, the attorney general’s counsel for environmental protection.

The EPA announced Tuesday that it plans to replace President Barack Obama’s 2015 Clean Power Plan, his signature climate policy. It says its Affordable Clean Energy rule “empowers states, promotes energy independence and facilitates economic growth and job creation.”

It also acknowledged that the increased emissions from aging coal-fired plants could kill hundreds more people annually and cost the country billions of dollars.

Sherman said it’s too early to discuss details about the state’s legal challenge but they’ll likely argue, among other things, that the EPA is acting beyond its authority under the Clean Air Act and contrary to science and facts.

The EPA proposal broadly increases the authority given to states to regulate existing coal power plants.

While Washington can act through legislation to control its own pollution, Inslee said, state residents are breathing smoke from other places and “we have an interest in reducing coal smoke from all over the U.S.”

Inslee, who has made climate a key priority, has pushed to phase the state off electricity from coal.

The state’s only coal-fired power plant in Centralia is already scheduled to stop burning coal entirely by 2025. Two older units at the Colstrip coal plant in Montana supplies coal-fired electricity to Washington state and are scheduled to close by mid-2022. No date has been set to close two newer units at that plant.

Several proposals to bring coal through Washington for export also have been defeated.

Washington is facing a legal battle over its decision to reject permits for a massive proposed coal-export terminal on the Columbia River in Longview. On Tuesday, a federal judge allowed California, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Oregon and Massachusetts to file a joint amicus brief supporting the state in the case.

The state Department of Ecology denied the project a water-quality permit last fall, saying there were too many major harmful impacts.

Utah-based Lighthouse Resources, which operates coal mines in Montana and Wyoming, sued Washington in federal court in January, alleging officials violated federal laws in denying approvals for its $680 million Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview project.

The company accuses the governor and state regulators of being anti-coal and discriminating against it by blocking the movement of coal mined in other states from being exported.

Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, Utah, South Dakota and Nebraska and several national industry groups have filed legal briefs backing project developers, saying the case has broad implications for the export of commodities that are important to many states.

EAGLE POINT, Ore. (AP) — Livestock producers are feeling the effects of drought at an intensifying rate.

On the heels of two sparse rain years, pastures are drying up and herds might follow suit if the trend continues into next year.

Fourth-generation Eagle Point rancher Ron Anderson figures plenty of his fellow ranchers are in a world of hurt.

“We had no snowpack to speak of in comparison to what we used to,” Anderson said. “So when the snow’s gone, you know the runoff slows down. If you’re in the right place, you still get some runoff. There are places in Oregon where once that snow is gone, they don’t get nothing. If we don’t get a wet winter, or a lot of snow this year, then we’re really in for it. That could be a disaster.”

Anderson said it is reminiscent of the climate shift in the late 1970s.

“If you’re not in the right place, you can’t irrigate,” Anderson said. “You might only get one or two irrigations, well that don’t grow any feed, so that makes it difficult. You take a dry year on dry-land farming, you might get nothing.”

While herd sizes have remained stable over the past decade, they’re much smaller than they were 40 years ago, Anderson said. At the same time, there are fewer acres devoted to hay and feed production.

With pastures drying up this summer, farmers and ranchers resort to buying hay, more than likely from outside of the Rogue Valley.

“People will have to buy some hay to survive this drought,” Anderson said. “The price is pretty high right now compared to last year ... good alfalfa will be $200 and something a ton.”

The Klamath Basin has long been an option, but that’s not a given this year.

“There was quite a little rain damage there on the first cutting,” he said.

Anderson is among the cattlemen whose herds graze locally, then are moved across the state line in the winter.

“There’s worse drought in California than there is here,” Anderson said.

Last week, Jackson County livestock producers gained eligibility to apply for 2018 Livestock Forage Disaster Program benefits for small grain, native pasture and improved pasture.

The program provides compensation for producers who suffer grazing losses for covered livestock due to drought on privately owned or leased land, or fire on federally managed land.

“We’re so far behind on water that we won’t catch up,” said Phillip Morton, local executive director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, which administers the disaster relief program. “But if we don’t have a good fall, winter and spring going into next year and the rain stops in February like it did this year, it’s going to be much worse.”

The lack of ready forage and high cost of hay could hit hard, Morton said.

“Local herds disappear,” he said. “Producers can’t afford to feed them, and it becomes cost-prohibitive to feed your herds, so folks start selling off cattle. We’ll see less livestock in the county, and producers will get a setback in their herd development. Of course, if a lot of cattle start showing up on market, the natural thing is for prices to come down.”

Until the most recent farm bill was passed, the Farm Service Agency awaited a presidential declaration. Now, the agency follows the U.S. Drought Monitor. Adjacent counties were previously included, so if Klamath County had a dry year, Jackson County was eligible.

While the drought assistance is welcome to livestock owners, it’s not a sure thing.

“They’re usually pretty good at helping you fill out the paperwork. Then you’ve got to wait and see if there are funds available, passed by Congress, where it goes and how much,” Anderson said.

Often it turns into a waiting game.

“The biggest complaint I hear is these guys meticulously fill out the forms and they never hear anything,” said Applegate Valley farmer Warren Merz.

“When you figure all the farmers trying to raise dryland hay crops, or dryland grain,” Anderson said, “you’ve got the irrigated crops, so they’re not quite so bad, as long as you don’t run out of irrigation water in these districts.”

While this isn’t the worst summer in his recollection, John Dimick of Eagle Point said the string of dry summers is taking a toll, and wildfire smoke is creating additional woes.

“The smoke is heavy enough that the second-cutting hay crop is not growing,” Dimick said. “Those guys that have actually cut some hay have had a real hard time getting it dry, because of the lack of direct sunlight. Pastures are not growing like they should be, so if you are a dryland pasture guy, you’re in big trouble. There are some people that are really hurting for feed because it’s so dry. There’s just not a lot of green grass growing out there.”