Imperial Stock Ranch, a small Oregon wool producer that has carved out a niche in high-profile markets, is the first U.S. farm to gain the Textile Exchange’s Responsible Wool Standard certification.

The certification is overseen by the Minnesota-based NSF International, which describes itself as a global public health organization. Certification means the ranch “practices the highest levels of animal welfare and land management, and that the wool is fully traceable throughout its supply chain.”

According to NSF International, the Responsible Wool Standard means sheep are treated under a “Five Freedoms” concept. That includes freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury or disease; freedom to express normal behavior; and freedom from fear and distress.

The standard also requires farms or ranches to follow land management practices that protect soil health, biodiversity and native species. The certification process required audits throughout the supply chain, from the ranch to the manufacturers.

On her ranch blog, Imperial co-owner Jeanne Carver said meeting certification standards is not new to the business, but the latest may be the most comprehensive. Auditors were at the ranch over the course of three months, checking the operation, she said.

“It requires a little more record keeping, and the willingness to open our books, records and operation to inspections, but it is one of the best tools I know to share a true and positive story of agriculture,” Carver wrote.

The Oregon wool producer has sought out new markets among high-fashion companies, and in 2014 provided material for the U.S. team’s Winter Olympics uniform sweaters. Yarn made from Imperial Stock Ranch wool has also been picked up by companies such as Ralph Lauren and Patagonia.

Last year, conservationists made a big push to convince President Obama to create a national monument in a vast area in Southeast Oregon known as the Owyhee.

It’s a vast, rugged sagebrush steppe landscape with red rock canyons and unusual geology. But the proposal faced fierce resistance from ranchers and other locals in Malheur County. At the end of his term, the Owyhee was left off of Obama’s list of new and expanded monuments.

But the specter of a monument designation may trigger groups on opposite sides to get together and start a collaborative plan for the Owyhee. Tim Davis, with the grassroots conservation group called Friends of the Owyhee, said he believes it’s possible to work with groups that opposed the monument.

“If it was a collaborative effort I think they’d be would be willing to sit down at the table and work it out,” he said. “There are areas that both sides can agree on for protection. Jordan Craters, for example. It’s a big lava field. Why not start there?” 

This wouldn’t be the first time that a potential presidential designation has spurred monument opponents to come to the table. On the Idaho side of the Owyhee, the possibility of a national monument designation by President Bill Clinton kick-started a decades-long collaborative process between conservationists, off-road vehicle groups, ranchers and the government. The effort led to new wilderness and wild and scenic river designations in 2009.

A similar process led to the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area in southeast Oregon in 2000. And more recently, the possibility of an Obama designation in Central Idaho led to the hastening of a Republican-championed wilderness area for the Boulder White Clouds mountains. 

But there’s no exact formula for getting diverse groups together in the wake of such proposals.

“Each place is unique,” said Brent Fenty, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association. ONDA has been talking about wilderness designations for the Owyhee for more than a decade, and Fenty said his group plans to hold town hall meetings across the state to further the conversation.

“That’s what we’re focused on — continuing that dialogue to ensure that the people who know and love this place have their voices heard,” Fenty said.

Although there’s no official collaborative process in the works yet, groups that opposed the monument have hinted that they’d be willing to have such conversations.

“We’re still kind of in awe that we made it past the national monument designation,” said Malheur County rancher Elias Eiguren, a spokesman for the Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition. But with the threat of a monument behind them, he and other ranchers have been busy with calving season.

“Spring work is hitting us in the face,” Eiguren said. “We’re trying to just hold together at this point and really decide where we need to go from here.” 

Eiguren said he’s yet to see a federal designation that improved a landscape. He’d like to focus on what he sees as the biggest threats to the Owyhee: invasive weeds and major wildfires. But he wouldn’t necessarily try to block a wilderness designation, depending on the circumstances. He said that any collaborative process would need to start with assurances from environmental groups that litigation is off the table.

“I don’t know that a wilderness designation wouldn’t necessarily change what is out there already so I wouldn’t necessarily understand the purpose of that,” he said. “But if somebody had to have that, there’s always that possibility.”

PORT ORFORD - Ever wonder why, when you read a poem, or listen to one, you can't understand what the poem is saying? Have you written your own poetry and wondered why it never seemed fit to print?

The Langlois Lions Club is more than pleased to announce that our recent spaghetti feed and dessert auction was a huge success - going beyond all expectations. As a result, we are able to fund our Pacific High School senior…

SALEM — A bill directing $5.6 million to Oregon’s farm-to-school food program has won unanimous approval from the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Now, House Bill 2038 must compete against other spending bills in the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, which is prioritizing requests for funding in the next biennium amid a projected state budget deficit of $1.6 billion.

The bill would provide nearly $4.6 million for grants to help school districts buy foods grown and processed in Oregon and more than $900,000 for food-, garden- and agriculture-based education.

The committee’s chairman, Brian Clem, D-Salem, noted that existing farm-to-school funding would be eliminated under the 2017-2019 budget recommended by Gov. Kate Brown and halved under the proposal by the co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means.

Lawmakers have been advised to be selective in their requests for funding to the Ways and Means Committee, given budget constraints, he said.

If farm-to-school funding is significantly reduced from the amount requested in HB 2039, Clem recommended that the program revert to a competitive grant system.

Currently, all school districts receive non-competitive grants to buy Oregon food products, but this approach wouldn’t provide enough incentive if each received only a small amount of money, he said.

“No one school district will find that worth doing,” he said.

The history of Oregon’s farm-to-school program goes back a decade, when lawmakers created the position of a farm-to-school coordinator in 2007.

A competitive grant pilot program armed with $200,000 was created in 2011, with funding expanded to $1.2 million in 2013. During the 2015 legislative session, another $3.3 million was added to the program and grants for food purchases were made non-competitive.

Aside from voting to approve HB 2038 during its April 4 meeting, the House Agriculture Committee also considered another bill that would increase tax credits for farmers who donate crops to food banks and similar institutions.

Under House Bill 3041, the tax credit would increase from 15 percent to 25 percent of the value of crops donated.

Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the organization understands Oregon’s tight budget situation.

If resources are available, though, lawmakers should support the bill because it would help farmers overcome financial barriers to donating crops, Dresler said.

Tax Fairness Oregon, a group that opposes tax breaks to preserve state revenues, doesn’t believe the tax credit increase is justified, said Jody Wiser, its founder.

“Why are we doing it? We don’t have any statistical analysis to show the need is there,” she said.

Restaurants and grocery stores also donate food, but must content themselves with a deduction to their taxable income, rather than a tax credit, Wiser said.

“It’s hard to explain why farmers should be treated so differently than other food donators,” she said.

SALEM — Solar power facilities on high-value farmland in Oregon would have to clear a new hurdle under a bill being considered by state lawmakers.

Commercial developers would first have to demonstrate that alternative sites aren’t available under House Bill 3050, a requirement that currently applies to solar facilities larger than 12 acres.

Proponents of the bill, including the Oregon Farm Bureau and the 1,000 Friends of Oregon conservation group, say the new test would discourage conversion of the state’s most productive land.

An uptick in commercial solar power proposals in Oregon’s Willamette Valley has raised concerns that clusters of developments will change the agricultural character of affected areas, supporters say.

Such close groupings of solar facilities effectively undermine the current 12-acre exemption to the alternative analysis, according to proponents.

The growing popularity of long-term leases of farmland for commercial solar projects has prompted the Oregon Board of Agriculture to ask for a review of land use regulations for such sites.

Supporters of HB 3050 say that solar developments drive up rent prices for farmland even while long-term leases for solar panels may permanently take land out of agriculture.

The Oregon Farm Bureau was alerted to the problem by “mass mailings” from solar companies to farmers, said Mary Anne Nash, public policy counsel for the group.

Developers should first look for other options before seeking to lease high-value farmland, she said.

Wind turbine projects are already subject to the alternatives analysis requirement, so it should also apply to commercial solar facilities, said Meriel Darzen of 1,000 Friends of Oregon.

Critics of the bill countered that the new requirement is overly broad and ignores existing rules that protect farmland.

Marty Dozler, a farmer near Aumsville, Ore., said some of his property is considered high-value farmland even though the soils aren’t of the highest quality.

It’s tough to break even financially on this land, so solar development provides a new revenue source that makes the farm viable for the next generation, he said.

“We believe every farmer should be allowed to place solar facilities if they choose, regardless of where they live in the state,” Dozler said.

Dozler said he’s installed solar panels in the corners of fields and other areas that don’t interfere with farming practices.

“It’s a steady income with very little impact to our land,” he said.

Large power utilities are required by Oregon law to buy 8 percent of their electricity from small-scale renewable producers within 10 years, which HB 3050 will impede, said Damien Hall, attorney for Cypress Creek Renewables, a solar firm.

Clusters of solar projects greater than 48 acres in a one mile radius must already prove they don’t disrupt land use patterns, and current proposals would only build facilities on a tiny fraction of Oregon’s high-value farmland, he said.

“The impacts identified by supporters of this bill are hypothetical at this point,” Hall said.

LANGLOIS - The Langlois Public Library presents an Interesting Langlois event, ‘Cat’-astrophe with Nancy Stokes from 6-7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 26, at the Langlois library.

SALEM — A proposed fund dedicated to protecting farmland from development in Oregon has come under fire from critics who say the state government can’t afford it.

The Oregon Agricultural Heritage Fund would buy easements from farmers that limit their ability to develop property, thus preserving the land for agricultural production.

Organizations that “hold” easements by enforcing such constraints, such as land trusts, would also receive money and technical assistance from the fund, as would farmers who need help with succession planning.

Investment decisions would be made by a 12-person commission under House Bill 3249, which creates the fund without directing a specific amount of state dollars to it.

Kelley Beamer, executive director of the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts, said the new fund is needed because roughly two-thirds of Oregon’s farmland is expected to change ownership in the next decade, but about 80 percent of the landowners don’t have a plan for the transition.

“We do see conversion and fragmentation as a real threat to those values we have as a state,” she said during an April 4 legislative hearing.

However, critics argue that Oregon’s projected $1.6 billion budget deficit in the 2017-2019 biennium precludes a new program aimed at helping agriculture, which already receives much government support.

Farmers already benefit from property tax breaks, inheritance tax exemptions and other programs that will add up to about $550 million in the next biennium, said Gerritt Rosenthal of Tax Fairness Oregon, a group that seeks to preserve government revenues from tax breaks.

“In this time of budget shortfall, it’s not the time to create new programs that may cost significant amounts of money,” he said.

The fund would primarily serve farming interests by spending public dollars, even though Oregon’s protections for agricultural water quality are insufficient, said Jim Myron, a natural resources consultant testifying on behalf of several environmental groups.

“While there may be positive aspects to the bill, it isn’t ready for prime time yet,” Myron said.

Proponents of HB 3249 claim the fund is a wise investment because state dollars will be matched by contributions from the federal government, conservation groups and the farmers themselves.

It’s likely that as much private money would be used to buy easements as public money, said Doug Krahmer, a farmer from St. Paul, Ore., who helped devise the program.

“This particular proposal is part of a piece of a puzzle,” he said.

Farmland would be preserved in perpetuity while the state would pay for only a fraction of its appraised value, said Woody Wolfe, a Wallowa County farmer and rancher who sold an easement on his property.

Conservation groups would be more willing to invest in further restoration efforts if they know the land is permanently protected from development, he said.

“I would ask what the cost would be if those lands become concrete or developed,” Wolfe said.

A limited amount of funds dedicated to the program would be awarded to easements and other projects after careful deliberation by the commission, he said.

“You’re concentrating your efforts on the most valuable property,” Wolfe said.

Tuesdays

A large-scale Northwest farmer claims in a new lawsuit to have bought out full ownership of a Washington processing facility from his partner, the J.R. Simplot Co.

Simplot, however, characterizes the transaction as “nothing more than a sham” that’s part of a deliberate scheme of mismanagement by farmer Frank Tiegs.

The allegations are part of a legal battle between Tiegs and Simplot over the operations of Gem State Processing in Heyburn, Idaho, and Pasco Processing in Pasco, Wash., both of which they own jointly.

Simplot filed a lawsuit last year accusing Tiegs of running the processing facilities into the ground financially to benefit his own farming affiliates.

The complaint claimed that Tiegs’ farm companies sold excessive amounts of inferior-quality crops to the processing plants at above-market prices, resulting in millions of dollars in losses.

Simplot has asked a federal judge to appoint a receiver to take over management of the processing companies while Tiegs has requested the case be thrown out.

Tiegs has now filed a lawsuit asking another federal judge to declare that he’s purchased Simplot’s half of Pasco Processing — including its National Frozen Foods subsidiary — as permitted under an operating agreement between the partners.

The complaint alleges the two companies reached a deadlock about whether to each infuse the processing plant with $3 million in capital to ensure it complied with loan covenants.

According to Tiegs, the deadlock triggered “buyout” provisions entitling him to purchase Pasco Processing for a pre-arranged price based on its financial performance.

Because that price was a “negative number,” Tiegs was “not required to tender cash or other available funds” for Simplot’s shares, the complaint said.

Simplot has alleged this an “attempted conversion” that’s “the latest act in a pattern of willful, reckless and grossly negligent misconduct.”

The deadlock was manufactured by Tiegs to take over Pasco Processing “at an artificially low price — resulting from a devaluation caused by defendants’ bad acts,” according to Simplot.

Simplot argues that Tiegs could not actually force the sale in this manner but has nonetheless claimed to be the sole owner of Pasco Processing to its employees and lender.

The company has asked a federal judge to either dismiss Tiegs’ lawsuit or merge it with the previous case.

PORT ORFORD — If when you read a poem, or listen to one, you can't understand what the poem is saying, or your poetry never fits to print, then you must attend the annual Poetry Roundup for some advice April…

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Voters in Oregon’s most populous county might be voting on a soda tax this fall.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that the health advocates behind the proposal must gather 17,381 valid signatures from Multnomah County voters to get the item on the November ballot.

Voters would decide whether to add a tax of 1.5 cents per ounce on sugary drinks, including soda, energy drinks and sweetened teas. That means an 18-cent tax on a 12-ounce can of soda.

The proposal suggests using the tax revenue to help pay for early childhood education, and programs in schools to promote healthy food and lifestyle choices.

The American Heart Association has helped passed similar measures in several California cities as well as Philadelphia and Boulder, Colorado.

LANGLOIS -- The Crow Quill Night Owls will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8, at the old Langlois Cheese Factory in Langlois.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5

Shawn Campbell, a veteran of the food processing industry, is the new president and CEO of NORPAC, the venerable Willamette Valley farmers’ cooperative.

Campbell replaces George Smith, who retired after heading the co-op for more than a decade and working at the company 38 years.

Campbell was hired as NORPAC’s chief operating officer in 2016 as part of a strategic succession plan, and he’s not new to the workings of farmers’ cooperatives. He worked more than 10 years at Darigold, the dairy products co-op, where he was most recently the senior vice president of consumer products.

He also has food brokerage and business development experience in the U.S. and Canada, according to a NORPAC news release.

Campbell was not immediately available for comment on his appointment.

NORPAC was established as Stayton Canning Co. in 1924 and now operates processing and packaging facilities in Stayton, Salem, Brooks and Hermiston, Ore., and in Quincy, Wash.

The co-op was among the first processors to use quick-freezing units to produce what are known as Individually Quick Frozen, or IQF, products. NORPAC is best known for its FLAV-R-PAC brand frozen vegetables and fruit and for its Santiam brand canned products.

More than 200 farmers grow on contract with NORPAC, raising 27 different crops ranging from strawberries, broccoli and cauliflower to zucchini, corn, beans and peas.

According to the co-op website, NORPAC is Oregon’s largest vegetable and fruit processor and the largest unionized agricultural employer in the state. The co-op has about 1,000 full-time workers and employs up to 3,500 people during the peak harvest and processing season.

ONTARIO, Ore. — Owyhee Project patrons will pay $4 an acre more this year for their irrigation water, with the additional money being used to make repairs on the aging system that provides water to 1,800 farms.

The project, which is managed by the Owyhee Irrigation District, provides water from the Owyhee Reservoir to 118,000 irrigated acres in Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho.

The annual assessment that irrigators pay to receive that water was raised from $58 to $62 an acre this year, a 6.9 percent increase. In the past 30 years, the assessment has risen by an average of 4 percent a year.

The OID’s total budget is $4 million and the additional $268,000 in funding from this year’s assessment increase will be used to continue to repair the Owyhee Project’s aging infrastructure, said OID Manager Jay Chamberlin.

The project, completed in 1932, includes hundreds of miles of canals and drains. The 71-mile-long system has six pumping stations that pump supplemental water from the Snake River.

When the project was built, it had a 100-year life expectancy; it is now 85 years old.

That doesn’t mean the system has 15 years left — “It certainly is going to last a lot longer than that,” Chamberlin said — but it is in need of some major repairs.

“The system is getting older faster than we can keep up with the repairs on it, honestly,” he said. “There is much more that needs to be done.”

This year’s assessment includes a $2.50 an acre increase in the regular operations and maintenance fee and a special $1.50 fee to help pay engineering costs for a project designed to fix the failing Malheur Siphon, work that will cost upward of $2 million.

Major repair work recently completed on the system includes a $450,000 project to repair the Ring Gate, an 80,000-pound spillway, and a $250,000 project to stabilize part of the Snively Siphon that was in danger of sliding down a mountain.

Close to eight miles of new pipeline was installed in the system this past year.

A ditch break costs about $30,000 to fix on average and the system has those every year, Chamberlin said.

The OID received some phone calls about the increase and OID board members regularly answer questions about the assessment, said Bruce Corn, a member of the board and a local farmer.

“If you don’t actually go out and see it and understand what’s going on, it’s hard to comprehend,” he said. “It’s an engineering marvel but it requires maintenance to keep it going and it’s very, very expensive.”

Corn said it is going to require a lot more work to keep the system in a reliable condition and that’s going to cost money.

“You have siphons, tunnels and all kinds of structures and they are aging,” he said. “In the foreseeable future, there is going to be one project after another and they are going to be fairly major.”

A federal judge has tacked on $785,000 in attorney fees and costs to a $1.2 million judgment against the H.J. Heinz Co. in a lawsuit over sweet potato processing.

The Bright Harvest Sweet Potato Co. filed a complaint in 2013 accusing Heinz of breaking a deal to buy sweet potato fries and instead producing them itself at a newly constructed facility in Ontario, Ore.

Heinz initially convinced a jury that it hadn’t violated the contract with Bright Harvest, but U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill ordered a new trial after overturning the first verdict for not being supported by the evidence.

The second jury found in favor of Bright Harvest, awarding the company $1.2 million in damages, which Winmill upheld last year.

The judge has now decided that under Idaho law, which governs the contract, Bright Harvest is entitled to more than $785,000 in attorney fees and costs because it’s clearly the “prevailing party” in the dispute.

Even though Bright Harvest didn’t recover the total amount sought in its lawsuit — the company asked for nearly $11 million during settlement talks — the $1.2 million judgment is “significant enough” to establish it as the prevailing party, Winmill said.

The judge also ruled the attorney fees sought by Bright Harvest were reasonable for the most part, though he refused to include nearly $11,000 in fees sought by one attorney who was a “possible fact witness” rather serving on the litigation team.

SATURDAY, APRIL 1

Saturdays

Capital Bureau

SALEM — State regulators on Friday approved a wastewater permit for a hotly-debated expansion of a large dairy farm in Boardman.

The Lost Valley Farm, on about 7,000 acres formerly belonging to the Boardman Tree Farm, is now due to start operating in the coming weeks. It’s a project of Greg te Velde, the owner of the nearby mega-dairy Willow Creek Farm, whose cows supply milk to local processors.

The proposed expansion drew criticism from environmental and animal-welfare groups, and state agencies say they have taken additional steps to address them.

Lost Valley Farm will be allowed to have up to 30,000 cows under a permit designated for confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The permit issued Friday is intended to protect surface and groundwater from contamination, officials say.

Leah Feldon, deputy director of the Department of Environmental Quality, said Friday that the department had done “extensive review and work” on the permit over the past year.

The departments say Lost Valley Farm will also be required to closely monitor its groundwater, soil and leak detection in areas where animal waste is stored. There will be eleven groundwater monitoring wells on the site.

The state also says that the only nearby surface water is a canal at a higher elevation than the farm, which would make it “improbable” that the farm’s wastewater or stormwater would end up there. Further, they say, the entire property is in a depression.

Large dairies such as Lost Valley Farm are typically subject to inspection by the state Department of Agriculture three or four times a year.

Lost Valley Farm expects to start with 16,500 cattle in the first year and gradually build the herd over several years, according to ODA and DEQ.

Although state regulators say it was not a factor in the permit decision, the state also touts the expected economic value of the project, which the dairy estimates will provide more than 100 jobs.

The farm also says that they will recycle about 75 percent of the water they use. In a statement, te Velde said the farm agreed to all the requirements of the permit and remained “committed to protecting the quality and quantity of groundwater in the critical groundwater area.”

The proposed dairy is located in the Umatilla Groundwater Management Area, which has elevated levels of nitrate.

The state’s water resources department is currently processing the dairy’s water use applications; an appeal period ends April 7.

The dairy currently has a temporary permit until April 30, which allows 450 gallons per minute of water for construction.

Through a water rights transfer, the farm is requesting 1,037 acre feet of water per year.

State officials said Friday that the state received a protest filed by the Crag Law Center on behalf of a coalition of environmental groups, who oppose the transfer and called the operation a “major threat” to water and air quality.

The permit does not regulate air quality, which was a concern raised by environmental groups and by a group representing small and mid-sized farms.

The Lost Valley Farm plans to build and use a methane digester in two to three years, if it is “economically feasible.”

A bill currently before the Oregon Legislature would require the state’s Environmental Quality Commission to adopt a program regulating air contaminant emissions from confined animal feeding operations such as Lost Valley.

Ivan Maluski, of Friends of Family Farmers, called the decision by state regulators “disappointing but not unexpected.”

Maluski argues that large dairies like Lost Valley push small and midsize dairy farms out of business, and points to a 2013 report from the state’s employment department that shows that the number of small dairies in Oregon shrank between 2002 and 2007.

State Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, said in a statement that the project was a “win” for the region and the state, and demonstrated “we can welcome projects without compromising our high standards for protecting the environment.”

The Oregon Dairy Farmers’ Association could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.