Oregon’s hazelnut industry appears headed for turbulence as harvest begins, with domestic production projected to drop while global factors may weigh down prices.

Meanwhile, packers and growers haven’t been able to agree on an initial price for the crop, potentially requiring them to undergo mediation and arbitration.

Hazelnut production in Oregon — the foremost domestic producer — is forecast to be 36,000 tons in 2017, down 18 percent from last year, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Meanwhile, the global hazelnut crop is expected to increase 15 percent over 2016, said Terry Ross, executive director of the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association, which negotiates with packers on behalf of growers.

“There’s downward pressure on the kernel market,” he said.

The Chinese New Year, a major holiday for in-shell hazelnut consumption, will begin late next year in mid-February, allowing buyers in China to procrastinate with their purchases, Ross said.

Generally, such delayed buying doesn’t bode well for strong in-shell hazelnut prices, he said.

Another unknown is how much increased Chinese hazelnut production will affect its appetite for Oregon’s crop, Ross said. “We don’t how big of an impact that’s going to have.”

Conflicting views about supply and demand in the hazelnut market have stalled efforts among growers and packers to agree on an initial price, Ross said.

Unless the deadlock is soon broken, it’s likely the parties will enter into mediation, he said. If that process fails, they’ll present their evidence to an arbitrator who will then determine the price.

The current impasse is “very unusual” in Oregon’s hazelnut industry, which hasn’t been forced to enter mediation or arbitration for roughly 35 to 40 years, Ross said.

“It could prolong (arriving at an initial price) by two weeks to a month, maybe more,” he said.

The diverging opinions on hazelnut market conditions could be due to some packers having more inventory leftover from last year than normal, said Jeff Fox, CEO of the Hazelnut Growers of Oregon cooperative.

Last year, packers paid an initial price of $1.18 per pound of hazelnuts, and the final price ended up at $1.24 per pound.

Fox said he expected a similar initial price in 2017 but some packers are proposing a per-pound price in the range of 90 cents.

“We haven’t seen those kinds of prices in about six years,” he said.

Due to the large kernel crop in Turkey, the world’s predominant hazelnut grower, a price reduction would help domestic packers to be more globally competitive, he said.

The push for a lower price is unfortunate, though, since rising prices have inspired Oregon farmers to invest heavily in planting more hazelnut trees recently, Fox said.

“I was really happy with that trend and would like to see that continue,” he said.

As for the 18 percent decrease in Oregon’s hazelnut production, farmers attribute the change to “our normal ups and downs,” said Jeff Newton, a grower near Amity, Ore.

Growth was hindered in spring by cold, wet weather, which impaired flower retention and slowed the development of nuts, he said.

Periods of high heat during summer caused moisture stress, which also brought yields down, said Bruce Chapin, a farmer near Salem, Ore.

A “blow up” of Eastern Filbert Blight, a fungal disease, two years ago prompted heavy pruning in hazelnut orchards, which has temporarily lowered production as well, he said.

Despite the expansion of hazelnut orchards in recent years, those young trees aren’t yet mature enough to substantially affect Oregon’s overall production, Chapin said.

It’s probably going to take another couple years before the impact of new plantings is significantly felt, Chapin said. “We haven’t yet seen a big increase, obviously.”

HILLSBORO, Ore. — Money from a successful 2016 tax levy for the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District will allow Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom to expand in Washington County.

“We are so pleased with this opportunity for agricultural education to reach some of the most urban schools in our state,” said Tammy Dennee, president of the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, in a press release.

Washington County is the second most populous county the state, behind Multnomah County, with over 250 schools.

“We work to reach urban audiences who typically have the least interaction with agriculture,” Jessica Jansen, executive director of Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom, said. “This expansion is huge for the program and the urban area of our state. Washington County has agriculture industry in it already. It’s a unique urban and rural blend, and an easy position to bridge.”

In November 2016, Washington County voters approved a tax levy to secure funding for an expansion of resources provided by Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District. Education was “a high priority for development with funding from the tax base,” John McDonald, chairman of the district, said.

“When we learned about Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom and the great work that they are already doing, we thought a full-time position and programming dedicated to Washington County would be a great way to leverage existing resources and make an impact in our local schools,” McDonald said.

Jansen said the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation is appreciative of their partnership with the district, as well as for putting its trust in the program.

The funding from the district will sponsor a full-time position, as well as funding for a lending library available to Washington County teachers.

Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom is a statewide nonprofit organization that provides resources for educators to help bring agriculture, the environment and natural resource topics into their classrooms.

The program has about 100 lessons on its website, and uses a hands-on approach to integrate agricultural topics into the existing curriculum.

Dennee said that it’s important to not add “one more thing” for the educators to teach, but rather provide the tools to make the topics more engaging and effective.

“We use agriculture as a lens to teach science or math,” Jansen said. “Science is a natural fit for agricultural topics.”

She used an example of talking to students about the changes in matter through making ice cream or butter.

“We want to provide teachers with a resource to help them inspire students and make learning fun for students,” Jansen said. “That’s our ultimate goal: To help bring class to life in a fun and unique way and help students become familiar with agriculture. We find after familiarization it becomes interesting and engaging, and lends itself well to starting conversations.”

Regular commuters on Interstate 84 started their week with a return to normal driving routines. 

The Oregon Department of Transportation opened the eastbound lanes of I-84 Saturday afternoon. A portion of the highway from Troutdale to Hood River had been closed since Labor Day because of the Eagle Creek Fire burning in the Columbia River Gorge.

Fire activity continues near Shellrock Mountain and ODOT is diverting eastbound traffic onto westbound lanes near milepost 52.

The highway reopening was big news for Mark Stoffer, an electrician who lives in Corbett, Oregon, and commutes to work in The Dalles. He has spent the past three weeks waking up at 3 a.m. and says his daily drive of about an hour had more than doubled during the highway closure.

“It was just really eating away at your regular routine and daily life,” Stoffer said.

On Monday morning, he was happy to finally set his alarm clock for the usual time.

“It’s like a breath of fresh air,” he said. “Even a lot of the guys that were coming through [Washington] Highway 14, they were all happy.  Because everyone was just getting really tired last week. That extra time in the morning really eats away at you.”

ODOT is still monitoring the highway and warns the rainy season puts the burned area at high risk of landslides.

Meanwhile, four Columbia River Gorge State Parks have reopened. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department announced Dabney State Recreation Area, Portland Women’s Forum State Scenic Viewpoint, Rooster Rock State Park and Starvation Creek State Park suffered no major damage in the fire. 

“We’re grateful that Vista House still stands as well as other iconic features well-loved by Oregonians and visitors to our state,” said Park Manager Clay Courtright, with the West Gorge Management Unit.

As of Monday morning, the Eagle Creek Fire has burned 48,668 acres and is 46 percent contained. Fire officials estimate the fire will be fully contained by Sept. 30.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — State officials are asking for the public’s help to find the person responsible for the unlawful taking and wasting of a bull elk in eastern Oregon.

The Oregon State Police say on Saturday morning Oregon Police Fish and Wildlife troopers were notified of a dead bull elk on the Silvies Valley Ranch property in Harney County.

Police say a ranch employee discovered the bull elk near Buffalo Reservoir. Police say a trooper found that the bull appeared to have been shot with a high-powered rifle during archery season.

Police say the bull was left to waste and was possibly shot a day or two before being discovered.

The ranch is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — Slowing growth in the craft brewing industry has contributed to a greater stockpile of hops in the Yakima Valley, which grows the vast majority of that key ingredient in beer.

As of Sept. 1, growers, suppliers and brewers had an estimated stockpile of 98 million pounds of hops, an increase of 15 percent from the same period in 2016.

That’s according to figures released last week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The Yakima Herald-Republic says industry officials say a lot of breweries purchased hops based on 15 to 18 percent growth rates, which have been the norm. But last year there was just 5 to 6 percent craft brewery growth.

Craft brewers are defined as those who make under 6 million barrels of beer.

Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences is working on a project that will help some Houston residents determine if they’ve been exposed to chemicals stirred up by Hurricane Harvey.

An OSU team traveled to Houston in mid-September and distributed three dozen silicone wristbands that absorb chemical molecules. Project volunteers were to wear them for seven days and then mail them back to OSU for analysis. They’ll receive back an individualized chemical exposure report plus an aggregated report of the Houston results.

Kim Anderson, an OSU professor in the College of Ag’s Environmental and Molecular Toxicology Department, cautioned against reading too much into the analysis.

“It’s not a health report,” she said. “It’s a report of chemicals in the wristband.”

The porous wristbands can sample more than 1,500 organic chemicals, including pesticides and hydrocarbon from wood or fossil fuel combustion, and benzene and toluene found in industrial solvents. They don’t pick up inorganic material such as carbon monoxide, lead or chromium, however.

In recent years, the wristbands have been used to study pesticide exposure among farmworkers and producers in the Southeast, California and Peru, Anderson said. Those studies are continuing.

Hurricane Harvey, however, provided a unique opportunity to measure chemical exposure. Houston has 13 “Superfund” cleanup sites, plus oil refineries and other industries that may have been swamped to some degree by the massive amount of rain dumped during the storm. Residents may have been exposed to chemicals washed out by flooding or in the air, especially as people were involved in cleanup work. But the impact of that is unclear.

“We hear it’s a toxic soup, but we don’t have data to say it’s a toxic soup,” Anderson said. “What are the exposures?”

The public believes chemicals are all tested for toxicity, but most have never been tested, she said. Beyond pesticides, most chemicals don’t have regulatory exposure limits assigned to them.

OSU’s department of environmental and molecular toxicology is collaborating with Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas on the project.

“Community members were asking for some way to measure their chemical exposure after the flooding from Harvey,” Anderson said in an OSU news release. “We were all geared up and ready to go, so we offered to come down, and they said, ‘Yes, please.’”

Anderson and OSU colleagues Peter Hoffman, Lane Tidwell and Holly Dixon flew to Houston Sept. 19 and distributed wristbands after explaining the project at a community meeting held near some of the Superfund sites.

Online

A video explaining the chemical-detecting wristbands developed by OSU

http://fses.oregonstate.edu/wristbands

The Oregon Court of Appeals has affirmed that a prohibition against genetically engineered crops in Josephine County is pre-empted by state law.

Voters in Josephine County approved the ban in 2014, nearly a year after state lawmakers passed a bill barring local governments from regulating genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Farmers Robert and Shelley Ann White, who wanted to plant biotech sugar beets, convinced Josephine County Circuit Judge Pat Wolke that the local GMO ban was unlawful in 2016.

Oregonians for Safe Farms and Families, a nonprofit, and Siskiyou Seeds, an organic farm, intervened in that case as defendants, allowing them to challenge Wolke’s decision before the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The appeals court has now upheld the ruling without comment, but GMO critics vow to continue the battle in the legislative arena.

“We’re still firm in our resolve to protect farmers in Josephine County,” said Mary Middleton, executive director of Oregonians for Safe Farms and Families. “We’re not giving up, we’re not giving in.”

Middleton said her organization has decided not to pursue further litigation but will instead focus on persuading lawmakers to invalidate the pre-emption statute or otherwise allow Josephine County’s ordinance to be enforced.

“The will of the people is being ignored,” she said.

When passing the GMO pre-emption bill, lawmakers vowed to create a statewide system for overseeing GMOs, but instead they have left a “regulatory void,” Middleton said.

The Oregon Legislature passed the pre-emption bill to avoid a county-by-county patchwork of restrictions for genetically engineered crops, said Scott Dahlman, policy director for Oregonians for Food and Shelter, an agribusiness group that opposed the GMO ban.

“We think the legislature has spoken very clearly on this issue,” he said. “Farmers should be allowed to choose what crops they grow.”

Repeated attempts to overturn the pre-emption law have been made since it was originally enacted in 2013, but none have gained much traction, Dahlman said.

Because the Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed Wolke’s ruling without opinion, the ruling doesn’t set a binding precedent that other courts must follow, said John DiLorenzo, attorney for the Whites.

However, the decision is likely to be “persuasive” if the pre-emption issue should arise in other counties, since existing case law would support the same outcome, DiLorenzo said.

“They don’t need further precedents. They’ve already got several,” he said.

Josephine County’s experience will probably dissuade similar ballot initiatives in other jurisdictions, since the legal arguments defending the GMO ban did not pass legal muster, DiLorenzo said.

“I think it would be very difficult to persuade anyone to put resources into an initiative that’s destined to be a fool’s errand,” he said.

A misty rain fell on a recent Wednesday morning in the Blue Mountains east of Pendleton, where Greg Rimbach drove the muddy forest roads scanning for wolf tracks.

“Once you see one, now you’re an expert,” said Rimbach, district wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “When they want to go somewhere, they like walking along roads down ridges. It’s just easier.”

Since wolves dispersed from Idaho and returned to northeast Oregon in the late 1990s, more of the predators are settling and forming packs in the Walla Walla and Mount Emily wildlife units. The district is now home to seven packs or groups of wolves totaling at least 36 animals — nearly one-third of the state’s known wolf population.

Rimbach figures he spends a quarter of his workdays managing wolves, from trapping and collaring to investigating claims of livestock predation. His latest project involves finding and re-collaring OR-11, a male wolf from the Walla Walla pack that initially split to form the Mount Emily pack, and has split once again and paired up with a new mate at the south end of the Mount Emily Unit.

The trajectory of increased wolf activity comes as no surprise to Rimbach.

“This is absolutely what we expected,” he said. “It certainly is tracking with what other states have seen.”

The presence of wolves, however, remains a polarizing issue as ranchers content with livestock losses. Most recently, ODFW determined the Meacham pack was responsible for attacking cattle four times in eight days last month on the same 4,000-acre private pasture owned by Cunningham Sheep Company.

Predations occurred less than a mile from Interstate 84, and two miles from the community of Meacham. In response, ODFW issued a limited duration wolf kill permit, allowing Cunningham Sheep to shoot two adult or sub-adult wolves on sight within the densely forested pasture.

One of the wolves, a non-breeding female, was shot Sept. 7. The action sparked a wave of anger on both sides of the debate, with environmental groups criticizing ODFW for allowing any wolves to be killed and the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association arguing the entire pack should be removed.

Wolf-livestock conflicts were anticipated when wolves reentered Oregon, Rimbach said. That is why ranchers and environmentalists were both included at the table when the state wrote its Wolf Management and Conservation Plan, to balance conservation with protection of livestock.

“This is exactly what came out on the back end of those discussions,” Rimbach said.

ODFW is still in the process of revising the plan, which it hopes to present back to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission by December or early 2018.

Personally, Rimbach said he sees wolves as another part of the local ecosystem that needs to be managed.

“Hopefully someday, we can start normalizing wolves into our fauna,” he said.

When wolves do prey on livestock, the state has a mechanism to compensate ranchers for their losses.

The Oregon Wolf Depredation Compensation and Financial Assistance Grant Program is administered by the state Department of Agriculture with funds allocated by the Legislature, distributed to counties and awarded to producers.

Jerry Baker, a part-time wildlife biologist who lives in Athena, serves as chairman of the Umatilla County Wolf Depredation Advisory Committee. He said the group meets two or three times a year to apply for funding and consider requests for compensation.

“We know (wolves) are here,” Baker said. “We’re trying to deal with them.”

In February, the committee awarded nearly $50,000 in state money to ranchers for livestock compensation, including non-lethal deterrents for hazing wolves away from their property. Baker said the committee will meet again sometime in November or December, and has received about a half-dozen requests so far this summer.

In the case of Cunningham Sheep, the company satisfied its requirements for non-lethal deterrence prior to asking for lethal control, according to ODFW. That includes removing dead or weakened animals from their herd that may attract wolves, and hiring a range rider five days a week to monitor the pasture.

“We’ve had depredations before,” Rimbach said. “For whatever reason, it really ramped up this year.”

Cunningham Sheep would normally graze cattle on the pasture until October. Instead, the company is rounding up the animals to move to another location. It also gave up using its adjacent sheep allotment two years ago to avoid wolf conflicts.

Larry Givens, Umatilla County commissioner and liaison to the wolf compensation committee, said he sympathizes with ranchers, and will continue to lobby Salem for greater support.

“That’s a tremendous financial loss to these folks,” Givens said. “We know we can’t just go out and get rid of the wolves. So we have to have a way to mitigate those losses.”

Driving along Summit Road near Fox Prairie, Rimbach can point in the direction of multiple areas of wolf activity within just a few miles.

The Meacham pack can be found four or five miles to the west. OR-11 — the Walla Walla pack disperser — is now about four miles to the north with a new mate. To the south is OR-52, recently paired up with a mate outside the Union County town of Perry.

The Blue Mountains is a popular spot for outdoor recreation, and Rimbach insists wolves do not change that dynamic. Wolves tend to avoid humans, he said, and locals should not have any concerns for safety.

“The chance of people having any adverse effect with wolves is almost zero,” he said. “They might sit on their haunches and watch as you walk by, but that’s about it.”

Rimbach did caution against letting dogs run off leash in wolf territory, as the predators do become territorial with other canines. As for folks who live in the area, the presence of wolves is nothing new.

“I don’t think it’s a big surprise to the few people who live there year-round,” he said. “They’ll see wolf tracks there. They’ve been seeing those for five years.”

If the latest documented wolf pairings become full-fledged packs, Rimbach said he could see where wolves in the district start running out of room to function, and the population naturally begin to level off.

Baker said he believes wolves have fared better in the area than anybody expected, and he is interested in seeing how they affect the local ecosystem in the coming years.

“We’re going to have to work together on this, all of us, to try and make the best situation we can,” Baker said. “Because (wolves) are here to stay. No doubt about it.”

He still gets chills recalling the first time Oregon wolves answered him.

It was mid-July, 2008, near the Wallowa-Union County line in the northeast corner of the state. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife knew wolves would eventually disperse from Idaho and had prepared a management plan. Wildlife biologist Russ Morgan, appointed to implement the plan, was checking to see if they had arrived.

Over weeks, on intermittent nights, he and Chase Brown, then an intern and now an ODFW wildlife unit manager, drove dirt logging roads in the Wenaha Unit. They’d stop, get out, howl, and listen for replies. Wait five minutes, howl again, listen, move on. For weeks, nothing.

But that night, as they turned to get back in their vehicle, came the long and low response of a male wolf somewhere in the darkness, within a couple hundred yards. The men returned to the spot an hour later and tried again.

This time a wondrous chorus of howls rose in the night, adults and pups answering from the all about them in the forest. They were in the middle of what came to be known as the Wenaha Pack.

Wolf howls have always had that effect on Morgan. “I’d almost rather hear a wolf howl than see one,” he said.

The chorus of argument, claim and accusation erupting from some rural livestock producers and from some urban environmentalists, however, is something he could have done without.

“Wolf management is the ultimate balancing act, there are extremes on both sides,” Morgan said. “I always viewed my job as trying to walk down that middle line.”

He calls himself an “advocate of thoughtful management,” which comes with the recognition that every wolf decision is going to be controversial to someone.

“I got a lot of arrows lobbed my way,” he said.

People often told him to not take criticism and scrutiny personally, but he couldn’t help it. Being a wildlife biologist wasn’t a job to him and others, it was a lifestyle.

“Everything I do I take as a success or a failure, and it made it very stressful,” he said. “You wake up in the middle of the night with the wheels going. When we have to do things like kill wolves, that’s a personal thing for a lot of people. One thing I will gladly shed is having that responsibility and having that load.”

Carter Niemeyer, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who Morgan considers a mentor and friend, said the work is emotionally draining.

“This wolf stuff can eat you alive if you let it,” said Niemeyer, who lives in Boise and oversaw or consulted on wolf recovery work throughout the West, including Idaho.

Morgan, he said, was a “natural self-starter” who was cool, calm, collected and self-confident. Morgan asked for advice and training, and prepped himself every step of the way, Niemeyer said.

“I’m very proud of Russ,” he said. “I think he’s the ultimate professional, without a doubt.”

Jerome Rosa, executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, one of the chief protagonists in the wolf debate, said Morgan was “thoughtful, gracious and sincere.”

“He worked hard to find common ground on the wolf plan, which is very contentious in Oregon,” Rosa said by email. “The collaborative process is often very difficult and yet Russ navigated it quite successfully.”

Steve Pedery, conservation director for Oregon Wild, a Portland-based group usually on the opposite side of wolf issues, had a similar response.

“We have not always agreed with him, but Russ has always been a person of tremendous integrity and commitment to conservation,” he said by email.

He said Morgan’s retirement is a major reason why Oregon’s wolf plan needs a clearer set of rules.

“Without Russ, it is hard to trust ODFW to do the right thing when they come under pressure from livestock interests or anti-wildlife politicians.”

Morgan said it helped immensely that Oregon had a management plan in place when wolves arrived.

“I can’t imagine coming into this job without a wolf plan,” he said. “It gave me the ability to have the backbone of a program already. The wolves came and we put meat on it.”

Morgan said he purposefully announced the department intended to implement the plan. The simple clarity of the statement was crucial.

“The people who wrote the plan did it before we had wolves,” he said. “That’s why this wolf plan is important. Wolves are not that complex, but it becomes our agreement with the public.”

Morgan said that stance was backed or at least accepted by the majority of the public, the stakeholder groups, the department and up through the governor’s office.

“I’m very proud of that, we kept things on track,” he said. “Maybe I’m most proud of following through to do what we said we were going to do.”

At Morgan’s last appearance before the ODFW Commission on Sept. 15, members praised his work. Commissioner Gregory Wolley, from Portland, said constituents and stakeholders agreed.

“They recognize what a tough spot you’ve been in,” he told Morgan. “What I’ve found is respect for your professionalism and objectivity. That reflects on the whole department and on all of us.”

Morgan certainly will miss work. He loved catching and collaring wolves, either by darting them from a helicopter or drugging them with an 8-foot injector pole after they’d been caught in a foot-hold trap.

He counts three favorites.

OR-2 was the first female wolf he captured, and she had previously been captured and tagged in Idaho, where she was known as B300, by his mentor, Niemeyer. Morgan called him and said, “Carter, I think we’ve got one of your wolves here.”

OR-3, a large black male, was “The prettiest wolf I ever saw,” Morgan said.

But his favorite, and the most impressive, was OR-4, the longtime “alpha” or breeding male of the infamous livestock-killing Imnaha Pack of Wallowa County. Among OR-4’s progeny is OR-7, which dispersed into Northern California after a criss-cross journey across Oregon from Wallowa County, then returned to the Southern Oregon Cascades to establish a pack of his own.

OR-4, his longtime, limping mate and two sub-adult wolves were shot and killed by ODFW staff — not Morgan — in 2016 after a series of livestock attacks. OR-4 was 9- or 10-years-old by then, old for a wolf in the wild.

“We caught that wolf four times, five times, in his lifetime,” Morgan said. “All the predations — that guy was an incredible wolf, and his skill is what ultimately ended him.”

Much of what the department knows about non-lethal ways to deter wolves, it learned because of OR-4, Morgan said.

“OR-4 and the Imnaha Pack,” he said. “That single wolf and the pack he was in charge of occupied 90 percent of our time and resources for many years. I admired that wolf.”

Russ Morgan

Occupation: Retiring coordinator of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s wolf program. Roblyn Brown has been appointed interim coordinator; a formal hiring process will occur.

Personal: Age 54; lives in La Grande, Ore., with wife Dana Reid, a fire management specialist with the U.S. Forest Service. Two grown sons, Seth and Cole. Enjoys bow hunting, hiking, birding and photography.

Career path: Grew up in Bend, Ore., earned a wildlife science degree at Oregon State University. Started with a seasonal position at ODFW and worked for the department 31 years at a series of regional offices. Spent the last 10 as wolf program coordinator.

Demands of the job: Every wolf decision potentially angers one side or the other, ranchers or environmentalists. “I’ve said a million times, wolves are the only species I’ve ever worked with where there’s more misinformation available than factual information. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s almost like an intentional misinformation campaign.”

On wolves and livestock predation: “There are some people who like to think maybe we can just get wolves to change their minds, but that goes against what a wolf is. It’s a predator first; as long as something is made of meat, there’s going to be take.

“We always think there must be something that can just stop this, but predatory behavior is exactly why wolves exist.”

Now it can be told: He admires wolves and likes bears, but birds are his favorite animal.

The long view: “I really believe wolves will become kind of a normal and expected part of Oregon’s fauna again. They were once, and will be again. But there will always be conflict.”

AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho — Farmer Kamren Koompin said quality testing by his potato processor, Lamb Weston, consistently confirms Umatilla Russets make the best McDonald’s french fries, and growers willing to raise the variety are paid a slight premium.

But Koompin has found many growers in his area have given up on Umatillas, having failed to keep their vines alive long enough to yield crops with good size profiles.

Koompin — who raised his best Umatillas ever this season — believes he’s finally found effective Umatilla management guidelines for producing large tubers. Umatillas should be his most profitable russet variety this season. He also convinced some of his neighbors to give the variety another try.

According to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, the number of Umatilla acres has increased slightly in Idaho, from 2.1 percent of the state’s total spud crop in 2016 to 2.9 percent of the crop this season. Umatillas comprised 14 percent of Washington’s planted acres this season, and 13.1 percent of Oregon’s potato acres.

“Out of the original ones who started growing them in the American Falls area, we were the only ones that kind of stuck with it, and then a few others jumped back in,” Koompin said.

Before the 2015 season, Koompin managed his Umatillas similar to Russet Burbanks. Then a crop adviser showed him management guidelines developed by Washington State University potato specialist Mark Pavek for raising Umatillas in the Columbia Basin. According to Pavek’s recommendation, the variety needs 400 pounds of nitrogen per acre, with two-thirds of the fertilizer applied in the early season. Russet Burbank, by comparison, requires just 360 pounds, which is insufficient for maintaining good vine health in Umatillas.

Koompin said he tweaked Pavek’s guidelines based on Idaho’s shorter growing season, but believes his size-profile problems have become a thing of the past.

Pavek said his father, Joseph, made the initial cross for Umatilla in 1982 at University of Idaho’s Aberdeen Research and Extension Center, and it was released in 1998 by the Tri-State Potato Breeding Program. Pavek made his first Umatilla management guidelines in 2008 and updated them from 2010 through 2012, specifically increasing the nitrogen requirements.

However, Idaho farmers have been slow to learn of the changes and implement them in their fields.

Rupert farmer Duane Grant, who has been raising Umatillas four years, learned of the guidelines two seasons ago, while attending a WSU potato school. After struggling with Umatillas in his first two seasons, Grant said he has been “reasonably happy” with them since changing his nitrogen rates.

“I think there’s been a lot of bad experiences with Umatillas,” Grant said. “People try to raise them like a Burbank.”

Pavek said his Umatilla guidelines are available online at the Potato Variety Management Institute website, PVMI.org. In July, PVMI also posted his nitrogen-management guidelines for 15 varieties, including Umatillas. Pavek, however, acknowledges agricultural extension programs must do a better job of using modern media to quickly disseminate information to the industry.

Pavek believes raising Umatillas is “an art,” requiring careful attention to irrigation, fertilizer and planting depth. It’s also sensitive to white mold, black dot and early vine death. Though Pavek acknowledges it’s a “bit dangerous to grow,” he said farmers who produce good Umatilla crops are rewarded with better returns.

“This year, we’re seeing very large yields with Umatillas because the vines stayed alive,” Pavek said.

PULLMAN, Wash. — Amazon maybe heading for a food price war with its acquisition of Whole Foods, and initial cuts have targeted the organic produce sector that’s becoming more important to the Washington tree fruit industry, an industry expert says.

Seattle-based online giant Amazon closed a $13.7 billion deal Aug. 28 to buy Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market Inc. and the same day cut prices of bananas 38 percent, organic baby kale 12 percent and tilapia 33 percent. In a news release, Amazon said its vision is to make “Whole Foods Market’s high-quality, natural and organic food affordable for everyone.”

“The big problem for competitors is Amazon doesn’t appear to be worried about debt. It’s stock is $1,000 a share and keeps rising and as long as it does they can borrow from all sorts of markets,” said Desmond O’Rourke, retired Washington State University agricultural economist and world apple analyst in Pullman.

What items Whole Foods carries is being decided centrally instead of locally and brand representatives no longer may promote products or check displays in-store, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Brooke Buchanan, a Whole Foods spokeswoman, had no comment on whether there will be price wars. She said Whole Foods will continue to discover and sell local products while selecting the best national products possible.

“This improves the customer experience and also ensures local supplier are represented in categories where they will be successful and positioned for growth,” Buchanan said.

With 460 Whole Foods stores, Amazon is estimated to be the fifth-largest grocery retailer in the country behind Walmart, Kroger, Costco and Albertsons, according to Cowen financial analysts.

“What worries the retail food industry is that Whole Foods will indiscriminately cut prices and companies like Walmart and Kroger will have to borrow the money or generate it from their own sales to cut prices,” O’Rourke said.

They’re not growing as fast and can’t borrow as much, he said.

Retailers will pressure suppliers such as tree fruit companies for lower prices but suppliers can only go so low given production costs, especially with organics, he said.

“I think retailers are very concerned. They are poised to compete at the retail level. Markets will settle where markets settle,” said Tom Riggan, general manager of Chelan Fresh Marketing in Chelan.

“The question is whether Whole Foods is willing to lower its overall margin. Any retailer will put pressure on suppliers to be as low as they can, but they have to keep supply and quality so it’s a fine balance,” Riggan said.

Bob Mast, president of Columbia Marketing International in Wenatchee, said Whole Foods has a “deep thinking group” that understands consumers.

“When Amazon speaks the world listens right now. They are a powerhouse. The day they made the purchase stocks of big retailers took a big dip,” Mast said.

Whole Foods is “aggressively” pricing fresh crop organic Gala apples at $1.49 per pound and other apples at $1.99 versus $2.49 to $2.79 every day pricing at this time last year, he said.

Whole Foods is “aggressively challenging” suppliers on price and appears to be passing the savings on to consumers, he said.

“We’re obviously concerned because on organics you have to have a premium over conventional because of cost of production,” Mast said.

Organic fruit costs more to grow and yields are lower, he said. Fruit is smaller and each drop in size equates to a 10 percent loss in volume of packed fruit, he said.

Organic fruit is also more perishable and doesn’t store as well as conventional fruit so its sales season is shorter, O’Rourke said.

Yet large Washington tree fruit companies — including Zirkle-Rainier, Domex Superfresh Growers and Stemilt Growers — are moving heavily into organics, O’Rourke said.

This fall’s Washington apple crop is forecast at 130.9 million, 40-pound boxes, and 13 million of that, close to 10 percent, is organic, Mast said. That’s up 20.8 percent from last year, he said.

Stemilt announced Sept. 21 that 30 percent of its apples this year will be organic and that it will continue the three-year process of converting more acreage from conventional to organic.

Despite higher costs and risks, companies are moving to organics because they and managed varieties are the two largest areas of growth with consumers, Mast said.

Kroger and Walmart are positioned well to compete and tree fruit companies are concerned a spread of lower pricing on organics could hurt their viability, he said.

O’Rourke said it may take two to five years to play out and that the situation may not be as threatening as other retailers perceive.

“I think Amazon is taking a huge gamble moving into the retail food business because it’s not familiar with it and it’s completely dispersed from the business model they run now,” O’Rourke said.

Amazon sells products online and ships them from large distribution centers where they have tight control of operations, he said. There are more operational variables with greater human factors in retail stores that companies like Kroger have had 100 years to master, he said.

Another danger for Amazon and Whole Foods is alienating its core consumers, who prefer to pay more for superior product, O’Rourke said.

But the key thing, he said, is the cost of organic production. Walmart tried to go heavily into making organics more affordable and it didn’t work, they lost supply, he said.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service and Idaho have forged 10 agreements for logging and restoration projects on federal land in what officials say could become a template for other Western states to create jobs and reduce the severity of wildfires.

Under the deals, Idaho foresters will administer timber sales on about 10,000 acres the federal agency has on its to-do list but can’t complete because the money for the work is instead going to fight wildfires.

So far this year, the cost of that fight has surpassed $2 billion — more than half the federal agency’s annual budget — during one of the worst fire seasons on record in the West.

The state work involves managing timber sales to a lumber company after determining how much is available and sometimes even marking what can and can’t be cut.

Money generated from the sales goes into accounts in the national forest where the timber was harvested, less expenses incurred by the Idaho Department of Lands for administering the sales.

The federal money is held in accounts to be used for additional work, which can include thinning projects to reduce wildfire threats and projects to improve habitat for fish and wildlife.

The federal-state partnership is possible under the Good Neighbor Authority passed by Congress more than a decade ago that initially involved Colorado and Utah. The 2014 Farm Bill expanded the measure to include other states.

Michigan, Wyoming, Oregon, Nevada and in particular Wisconsin have moved ahead with the partnership. But officials say Idaho — where 38 percent of the land is managed by the U.S. Forest Service — has made rapid progress.

“Idaho has really stepped up to fully embrace that ability for us to work with our state partners to get more work done,” said Intermountain Region Forester Nora Rasure, whose area includes 53,000 square miles of forest lands in Utah, Nevada and portions of Wyoming, Idaho and California.

Government, industry and environmentalists have developed a collaborative approach in Idaho following years of stalemated litigation over forests that were sometimes consumed by flames as decisions were delayed.

“They’re building agreements on being able to manage the forest in such a way that you can get timber off of them but you don’t compromise environmental values,” said John Freemuth, a Boise State University environmental policy professor and public lands expert. “It’s not a panacea, but it’s better than forest wars. That exhausted a lot of people.”

Watchdog groups say they’re concerned the policy might have more to do with avoiding environmental regulations than enhancing forest health. But for now, they are cautiously supportive.

The Idaho Department of Lands manages 2.4 million acres of state endowment land it received at statehood to primarily benefit public schools. About a million of those acres are forested.

Tom Schultz, director of the Idaho Department of Lands, said the work with the Forest Service helps Idaho by reducing the threat of giant wildfires spilling onto state and private forest land, and removing stands weakened by insects or disease to help prevent the spread of those problems to state and private lands.

Another major benefit is jobs. Shultz said an analysis suggests 12 to 15 direct and indirect jobs will be created for every million board feet of lumber harvested.

The watchdog groups wonder how well Idaho can mesh its forestry program, which is geared to maximize revenue over the long term, with the Forest Service’s multiple-use mandate that includes timber sales, recreation and wildlife habitat.

“We’d like to see them recognize that you can still have a profitable timber sale while protecting some of those sensitive resources,” said Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League.

The Idaho Department of Lands has received a three-year grant for $900,000 from the Forest Service for the program and Idaho lawmakers have authorized $250,000 from the state general fund. State officials say the goal is to have the program paying for itself with profitable timber sales in three to five years.

“We want to significantly increase the number of acres being treated,” Idaho State Forester David Groeschl told Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and other elected officials during a Tuesday meeting of the Idaho Land Board, which previously approved entering into the agreements with the Forest Service.

The 10 projects in Idaho are in various stages, with two currently being logged and a lot of curiosity about how state-managed timber sales on federal land will turn out.

“There’s probably a natural tension between agencies, but I think that we’re making real progress in getting beyond some of that,” said Jane Darnell, a deputy regional forester with the Forest Service whose area includes northern Idaho. “We’ll get there.”

YAKIMA, Wash. — Even before this fall’s harvest, U.S. hop stocks are up substantially from a year ago, reflective of an oversupply that’s putting pressure on dealers and growers.

Stocks were up 15 percent at 98 million pounds on Sept. 1 versus 85 million pounds a year ago, according to a report released Sept. 20 by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

It is the largest percentage increase in inventory of the four reports showing supply increases dating back to March 1, 2016. The new report shows dealers and growers with 64 million pounds of hops and brewers with 34 million pounds.

“It’s actually a pretty good-sized overage and it was expected. We knew craft (beer) was slowing while aroma variety hop acreage is still increasing,” said Pete Mahony, director of supply chain management and purchasing for John I. Haas, a major processor and grower in Yakima.

Previous overages, years ago, were high alpha commodity varieties that keep for years, he said. This year’s overage is of aroma varieties for craft beer. Aroma varieties need to be used in a year or two, he said.

This past summer, 47 Hops of Yakima, a hop broker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to shield itself from creditors while developing a restructuring plan to pay more than $7.4 million in debts and remain operational.

Doug MacKinnon, company president, blamed the bankruptcy on craft brewers contracting for more hops than they needed.

“There definitely will be pressure on the entire supply chain, whether growers or dealers. And will there be other casualties? I don’t know,” Mahony said. “Larger dealers are pretty solid. We’ve lived through these markets for decades. Smaller ones may struggle. It’s all about proper management of inventories. Aroma varieties are expensive inventories.”

For years the proliferation of small, craft breweries fueled the demand for more aroma hop varieties. While still growing, the rate of craft brewery growth has slowed, resulting in some breweries renegotiating contracts that were based on expectations of higher growth, said Ann George, executive director of Hop Growers of America and the Washington Hop Commission in Moxee.

That returns the hops to dealer and grower inventories, she said.

George said the U.S. produces more than 80 hop varieties, and while there’s an excess supply of some, demand for others is still growing.

“The key is re-balancing by changing varieties in response to new contracts,” she said.

It takes a couple of years to bring new hops into full production and for the past five years the industry has been trying to catch up to brewer demand, she said.

“Now it appears hop acreage has exceeded current brewer demand, so it will be important to take the foot off the gas pedal until brewer demand catches up with hop acreage,” she said.

Another factor in the oversupply of hops, she has said, is big brewers are losing market share worldwide because of increased competition from other beverages. The top 10 breweries in the world decreased production by 11.4 million hectoliters — about 301.2 million gallons — from 2014 to 2015, she said.

While craft, export craft and import U.S. beer sales were all up in 2016, overall beer sales were flat, according to the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colo.

In June, NASS estimated Pacific Northwest hop acreage at 54,135, a 6 percent increase over the previous year.

“Hopefully, we won’t see increased acreage in 2018,” George said.

Prices of certain varieties have decreased due to plentiful supplies on the spot market, she said.

However, varieties still seeing increased demand likely will see stable pricing, she said.

BOISE — Taiwanese leaders’ Sept. 20 signing of a “letter of intent” to purchase 66 million bushels of U.S. wheat over the next two years was much more than a ceremonial pledge, Idaho wheat industry leaders said.

Taiwan’s annual purchases of U.S. wheat are extremely vital to the state’s wheat industry and about 200 Idaho farms are in business because of that, said Idaho Wheat Commission Executive Director Blaine Jacobson.

The Port of Portland handles about half of all U.S. wheat exports and about 10 percent of those exports are to Taiwan, Jacobson said.

About half of Idaho wheat is exported, most of it through Portland.

Given those numbers, Jacobson estimated that 5 percent, or 5 million bushels, of all Idaho wheat is sold to Taiwan.

“Your business is keeping about 200 farmers in Idaho in business. That’s a big deal,” he told Taiwanese officials during a ceremony at the Idaho Capitol, where Taiwanese and Idaho officials signed an agreement that says the Taiwan Flour Mills Association will buy 1.8 million metric tons of U.S. wheat in 2018 and 2019 combined.

That combined purchase will be worth an estimated $576 million and “a very good portion of that procurement will be from the wheat farmers of Idaho,” said TFMA Chairman Tony Chen.

Jacobson also estimated that Taiwan’s annual U.S. wheat purchases are keeping 800 farmers in the Pacific Northwest — Idaho, Oregon and Washington — in business.

A Taiwanese agricultural trade delegation visits the U.S. every two years to sign the agreement in several wheat-producing states.

Although the signings occur every two years, members of Idaho’s wheat industry weren’t just going through the motions when they traveled to Boise for the 2017 event, said IWC Vice Chairman Bill Flory, a North Idaho farmer.

Idaho’s farmers wanted to make sure the Taiwanese trade delegation understood how much the state’s wheat industry appreciates their relationship, Flory said.

He was one of four IWC board members and farmers who traveled from different parts of the state to attend the event in Gov. Butch Otter’s office.

“This is a big deal,” he said. “The growers of Idaho appreciate this beyond description.”

Chen said Taiwan has other options around the world to purchase wheat but prefers to buy it from the U.S. because of the high quality.

Flory pledged that Idaho would do its part in continuing to provide Taiwan a high-quality product.

“This commission and other Northwest commissions are serious about quality. That’s not going to change,” he said.

The 66 million bushels of U.S. wheat the TFMA has pledged to buy in 2018 and 2019 is 4 million bushels more than it agreed to buy during 2015.

Otter, a rancher and farmer, said it was important for the state’s wheat industry to continue to deliver on its commitment to provide the high-quality wheat Taiwan is looking for and in a timely manner.

“It’s been great to watch this relationship grow, (and) it’s because we kept our promise,” he said. “We delivered on everything we said we would. And, by the way, so has Taiwan.”

Like much of the high desert landscape across central and Eastern Oregon, the community of Ritter in rural Grant County is dealing with a scourge of unwanted Western juniper trees, crowding out native vegetation for wildlife and livestock.

In response, a collaborative group of landowners known as the Ritter Land Management Team recently purchased a small portable sawmill to turn the pesky plants into valuable lumber, while also providing much-needed jobs for the area.

The first juniper logs were milled at Ritter last week, and the team expects to sell the finished product to Sustainable Northwest Wood, a Portland lumberyard owned by the nonprofit Sustainable Northwest where juniper sales have jumped to 50 percent annually.

Patti Hudson, executive director of the Ritter Land Management Team, said harvesting juniper will not only help ranchers keep their land healthy and productive, but may revitalize the local timber industry in a new way.

“We eventually hope to have a number of people employed doing both the restoration work and the mill work,” Hudson said.

The operation is a prime example of what University of Oregon researchers are calling the “new natural resource economy” in Eastern Oregon, where entrepreneurs and small businesses are finding innovative ways to complement traditional farming and timber production.

A new study by the University of Oregon Community Service Center and School of Planning, Public Policy and Management details how natural resource industries are changing in Eastern Oregon, and how economic development groups — such as the Greater Eastern Oregon Development Corporation and Northeast Oregon Economic Development District — can support the sector moving forward.

The study lumps this subset of the economy into one of four general categories: agriculture, forest products, tourism and recreation. Businesses tend to be very small, and create non-traditional products such as biomass fuel and lumber from alternative sources like juniper.

Over the course of a year, researchers interviewed 42 businesses to gauge their needs and goals. The study area spanned 10 Eastern Oregon counties, including Umatilla, Morrow, Union, Wallowa, Gilliam, Wheeler, Grant, Baker, Harney and Malheur counties.

On Tuesday, members of the research team met with a group of about 20 people at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport in Pendleton to discuss their findings. Susan Lurie, a research associate at the University of Oregon’s Institute for a Sustainable Environment, said the study was an opportunity to expand their understanding of what has happened to traditional Eastern Oregon industries, and define where the new natural resource economy is heading.

“It’s both defining it, and figuring out what these businesses need to thrive,” Lurie said.

Businesses raised a number of concerns in the study, ranging from complex government regulations to a lack of skilled and reliable workers. Participants at Tuesday’s meeting brainstormed ways to overcome those challenges locally, including pilot programs to engage students and compiling resources to navigate regulatory hurdles.

Susan Christensen, executive director of the Greater Eastern Oregon Development Corporation, said she sees collaboration as the key to success.

“To me, that means getting together partners that might not be the most obvious partners,” Christensen said. “The only way people learn about what the other person is doing is through communication and networking.”

The project in Ritter first took shape in 2013 when a group of about 30 landowners formed the Ritter Land Management Team, promoting sustainable development and environmental stewardship. Landowners soon identified the spread of Western juniper as one of the biggest threats to their farms and ranches.

Fully grown Western juniper can consume as much as 30 gallons of water a day, taking over rangeland and cutting into native forage. The trees are also susceptible to wildfire, exacerbating fire conditions on the range.

“It’s not just a range issue. It’s a forest health issue as well,” said Hudson with the Ritter Land Management Team. She noted that Western juniper can grow 30-40 feet tall in stands of ponderosa pine.

Last year, the team reached out to a consulting company based in California to determine if a juniper sawmill would be feasible. The final report showed that, within the total 105.650-acre study area, the group had enough juniper to feed the mill for 21 years.

The team was then able to tap into the Western Juniper Industry Fund, which was made available by the 2015 Legislature. The Oregon Community Foundation stepped up with matching funds, and a sawmill was finally delivered to Ritter about three weeks ago.

The mill is currently set up on the property of rancher Caleb Morris until they can find it a permanent home.

“We knew we had a lot of juniper, but we weren’t sure we had enough to keep the mill going,” Morris said. “But the study showed there’s at least a 20-year supply here, and more if we expand beyond the Ritter area.”

Hudson said juniper markets appear promising. Juniper wood is harder than ponderosa pine and highly resistant to rotting, which makes it ideal for landscaping.

Ryan Temple, president of Sustainable Northwest Wood, said they are looking forward to collaborating with the Ritter mill.

“Our customers will enjoy supporting the group’s rangeland restoration projects through the purchase of this lumber,” Temple said.

The biggest challenge, Hudson said, will be finding additional wood markets to ensure the mill can remain profitable.

“Everybody’s interested in juniper. A lot of people want it,” she said. “But we have to have a bigger market.”

However, she said the market is there and they are ready and willing to begin supplying logs.

“We’re optimistic we can make this work,” she said.

PORTLAND — Student researchers asked to find “clean tech” solutions to pressing problems came up with agricultural answers in this year’s Oregon Best Fest challenge.

The entries included NexGarden, a system of growing vegetables with a nutrient-rich mist circulating amid bare roots in a closed container while the plants grow out the top.

Presenters Hugh Neri and Skyler Pearson envision such systems producing food on building roofs or elsewhere. Neri, of Portland State University, said they could become “hyper-local” urban food systems serving stores, restaurants or homes within a mile or so.

Brett Stoddard, of Oregon State University, displayed the Hydrone, a soil moisture monitoring system. Sensors stuck in the ground take readings and transmit them by antenna to an overhead drone. Stoddard said the system can be built and deployed for $1 per sensor.

Four Portland State University engineering students formed an enterprise they call Aquarian Provisions, essentially a mobile hydroponics system for growing vegetables.

Students Greg Sakradse, Tyler Bray, Sarah Smith and Ryan Crist were driven by a particular problem: Rising ocean water flooding and salting crop land in the Marshall Islands. Sakradse said the team envisions their food production system mounted on barges to aid the Pacific islanders. For Best Fest, they put a working model on a small utility trailer and hauled it to the competition.

All were part of the Best Fest PSU Cleantech Challenge, in which students and faculty from Oregon universities and community colleges compete for $50,000 in development grants and prizes. In the initial round, students pitch their ideas to a panel, with winners receiving $2,500 to develop prototypes that are judged in the finals.

Oregon BEST, the hosting agency, connects startups and entrepreneurs with university scientists and state and federal funding sources. The annual Best Fest includes the clean technology competition and presentations from industry and academic experts.

In one panel discussion, “Eat, Drink and be Sustainable,” David Stone of OSU’s Food Innovation Center said there is a four-fold value increase when Oregon crops are processed into final products.

“Oregon is about ag in the middle, the small farms and companies,” he said. “The big deal for us is making the products we grow here into something value-added.”

Stone drew a laugh when he talked about consumer markets for Oregon products.

“Millennials will try anything,” he said. “Cricket powder or whatever it is, they’re going to try it. They all want protein, they’re looking at all sources. Oregon has a real stake in this game.”

The Food Innovation Center, OSU’s outpost in foodie Portland, helps entrepreneurs with product development, food safety issues and sensory evaluation.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Hispanic members of the Legislature vowed Wednesday to defend Latinos in the state, including those who entered the country illegally.

In a ceremony marking Hispanic Heritage Month in Oregon, Brown denounced U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ comments he made to law enforcement officials in Oregon. Sessions urged locales whose police don’t cooperate with federal immigration agents to reconsider their policies, and said federal grant money cannot be given to sanctuary cities.

“The comments that Attorney General Jeff Sessions made yesterday while in Portland do nothing to make America great,” Brown said. “Instead, they incite fear and chaos, and undermine Oregon’s workforce and our economy.”

Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, the first immigrant to be elected to the Oregon Legislature, said the state’s Latino population has increased 72 percent since 2000 and the number of businesses owned by Latinos rose by 44 percent between 2007 and 2012, with Latinos in Oregon owning over 6,000 businesses.

“We are growing. We are powerful, and we are here to stay,” said Alonso Leon, adding: “It is important to build a better future for those who come after us.”

Alonso Leon, a Democrat who is from the predominantly Latino town of Woodburn, was brought to the U.S. illegally from Mexico as a child. Her family gained permanent residence status under a Reagan-era amnesty. She became a U.S. citizen in 2012.

Rep. Diego Hernandez, a Democrat representing Portland, told those gathered in Brown’s ceremonial office, including the consuls from Mexico and Guatemala, that there is “a lot of hate and xenophobia in our communities, especially here in Oregon.”

Hernandez said he has gone through a rough period. Hernandez was recently cleared of a rumor that he maintained a list of female lobbyists, ranking them by “attractiveness and certain physical attributes,” Willamette Week, a Portland newspaper, reported Tuesday. Hernandez has said the rumor was due to racism, prompted by his Latino heritage and because he advocates for immigrant rights.

He had requested the inquiry to verify the allegations and identify the source of the rumor. The office of the legislative counsel said in a letter that the investigation had shown the rumor was false, but that investigators were unable to identify the source.

Meanwhile, a group called Oregonians for Immigration Reform is seeking signatures of registered Oregon voters to place a measure onto the November 2018 statewide ballot that would seek to repeal a 30-year-old statute that made Oregon America’s first sanctuary state. The law prohibits law enforcement from detaining people who are in the U.S. illegally but have not broken other laws.

Oregonians for Immigration Reform said it needs 88,184 signatures.

“Illegal aliens can and do harm the American citizens to whom Oregon owes its foremost responsibility,” the group’s website said. “For this reason, enforcement of U.S. immigration law is central to the duties of Oregon’s police departments and sheriff’s offices.”

However the ACLU of Oregon says the law means immigrants can go to police, without fearing deportation, when they are a victim of a crime or witness one.

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Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky