NYSSA, Ore. — A proposed major rail reload facility in Eastern Oregon that could greatly help the region’s onion industry is on track to be built within three years.

The region’s onion shipping companies face constant transportation challenges. Industry leaders say the problem is getting worse and the reload facility is sorely needed.

“Transportation is a chronic problem for us (and) it’s as bad as I’ve ever seen it right now,” said Kay Riley, manager of Snake River Produce, one of 30 onion shipping companies in southwestern Idaho and Malheur County, Ore.

Riley said the planned reload facility is so important “it could keep us in business, and we could go out of business without it.”

The facility would allow shipping containers to be transfered between truck and rail. It could benefit a wide range of agricultural commodities grown as far away as southcentral Idaho.

Most onions produced here are sold to markets on the East Coast. Shippers must currently truck them 216 miles west to the nearest reload facility in Wallula, Wash, before they begin their journey east.

Eliminating that step will reduce the cost of shipping onions, improve timeliness of delivery and possibly open new markets, said Grant Kitamura, general manager of Baker & Murakami Produce, the region’s largest onion shipper.

“This is a major game changer for onion shippers,” he said. “It will help us maintain our viability as an industry. Transportation has been a real issue for onion shippers in Oregon and Idaho for many years and it’s been getting worse and hopefully this will help us turn it around.”

Bruce Corn, an Oregon farmer, said the facility could markedly speed up delivery times to East Coast markets.

“It can result in a substantial savings in transportation costs and also be a much more reliable source of transportation,” he said.

The $5.3 billion transportation package passed by the Oregon Legislature this year included $26 million for a reload facility in Eastern Oregon. A 400-acre piece of land just north of Nyssa was recently chosen as the facility’s location.

The plan for the facility is for it to include dry and cold storage, said Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, who is helping lead the effort to build the facility.

“All of a sudden, we become a regional location that can compete against anyone in the world,” said Smith, Malheur County’s economic development director.

The plan also includes building the infrastructure needed by food processors, Smith said.

“That way, agricultural food processors will have a one-stop location where they can produce and have a shipping hub right at their back door,” he said.

The biggest challenge now is making sure the facility is designed and built correctly, Smith said.

“I think our biggest challenge is expectation. Folks want this now,” he said. “We want to take our time and do it correctly, not do it quickly just to meet that expectation. This facility is going to be here for 100 years. Let’s do it correctly the first time.”

The change can happen overnight, a mutation at the microscopic level, causing otherwise healthy ornamentals such as daisies and chrysanthemums to sprout damaging growth defects.

Rhodococcus, a type of soil-borne bacteria, is to blame for the deformity, infecting mostly herbaceous perennial plants with leafy galls, a disease that burdens Oregon’s $900 million greenhouse and nursery industry.

But not all strains of rhodococcus are harmful, according to researchers with Oregon State University. In fact, some may be beneficial, helping to grow more root hairs and improve uptake of water and nutrients.

The transformation of rhodococcus from good to bad lies in tiny DNA molecules known as plasmids, according to OSU. Researchers are now developing tools that will allow nurseries to identify bad rhodococcus before it spreads, avoiding potentially serious losses.

Jeff Chang, associate professor for OSU in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, led a recent study published Dec. 12 in the journal eLife. He said plasmids are the switch that turns rhodococcus from beneficial to completely pathogenic, morphing from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.

“You can see how very subtle changes in a bacterial genome can change it from being benign to pathogenic,” Chang said. “The ease to which this transition occurs is rather unusual, and it presents a difficult challenge for nurseries.”

Nurseries are the leader in Oregon agriculture production, with most sales going out of state. Not only are ornamental plants produced for aesthetics and beauty, but they also need to be free of disease before they ship out, Chang said. Otherwise, they must be destroyed.

It was Alexandra Weisberg, a postdoctoral fellow in Chang’s lab, who observed plasmids moving between strains of rhodococcus. Plasmids are molecules within bacterial DNA that replicate independently of the cell cycle, giving bacteria new advantages in their environment.

Chang said the intensive hands-on management of plants in nurseries may encourage the rhodococcus bacteria to get together and transfer the disease-causing plasmid.

“So obviously, the key is to keep the nursery site as clean as possible,” he said. “They could have rhodococcus as a persistent pathogen-causing organism on their site.”

Vigilance is crucial, Chang said, since there is no spray known to control rhodococcus. OSU is working to develop a test kit, he added, that will help nursery managers distinguish between the good and bad bacteria and avoid destroying non-infected plants.

The product is still under development, though Chang described it as resembling a pregnancy stick test.

“The hard part is extracting DNA from the bacteria,” he said.

Melodie Putnam, director and chief diagnostician at the OSU Plant Clinic, said the difference between benign and harmful rhodococcus has led to some misdiagnoses of pistachio trees, which were submitted to the university in 2014.

The trees were short and bushy, had knobby stems and would not properly graft, Putnam said. After testing, however, she found only non-pathogenic rhodococcus in the samples.

She hopes the university’s study and testing tools will help growers to accurately identify and diagnose rhodococcus themselves.

“Education is the primary thing that I’m hoping for,” Putnam said.

The project may also lead to better management tools for the harmful strains of rhodococcus, she added.

“Right now, there aren’t any good options,” she said.

Chang said his lab has pre-applied to the USDA for additional funding to continue the research, and possibly figure out what conditions cause plasmids to transfer in the first place.

“This is a huge problem in the nursery industry, which produces plants for their beauty and aesthetic values,” he said.

ONTARIO, Ore. — Bulb onion growers in southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon are enjoying much higher prices than this time last year, the result of a production year that was well below average.

The price for a 50-pound bag of jumbo yellow onions has hovered between $8.50 and $10 in recent weeks, compared to about $3.50 this time last year.

About 90 percent of the Spanish bulb onions grown in this region are yellows and most of those are jumbo size.

The onion market is extremely volatile but growers are riding a hot streak as far as prices go, said Cameron Skeen, an Oregon grower and chief operating officer for Baker & Murakami Produce Co., one of the largest onion shippers in the Idaho-Oregon growing region.

“Our market is historically higher than it’s been in awhile,” he said. “We’re having one of the best markets up to this point that we’ve had in a long, long time.”

Onion growers in this region typically produce more than 1 billion pounds of bulb onions a year but yields were off 25 to 30 percent this year due to a late start to planting and unfavorable weather, Skeen said.

The current market “is a darn good price for this time of year (and) it’s a result of lower yields,” said Grant Kitamura, general manager of Baker & Murakami Produce.

Malheur County Onion Growers Association President Paul Skeen said jumbo prices have fallen slightly from a high of about $10 per 50-pound bag to about $9-9.50 recently, but he anticipates they will increase again soon.

“I think there’s going to be a movement in the market, up,” he said. “How much up I don’t know. The onion market (has) come down a little bit but we’re anticipating that it will go back up”

Some of the 300 onion growers and 30 shippers in the area were significantly impacted by last year’s harsh winter, which resulted in about 60 onion storage sheds and packing facilities collapsing or sustaining major damage under the weight of snow and ice.

The event caused a lot of damage but the current uptick in prices is helping, Paul Skeen said.

“Onion prices are a lot better than they were last year,” he said. “We hope we can recoup some of the damage caused by Snowmageddon.”

The storage onions grown in this area are typically marketed through March and into April.

Cameron Skeen said that while it’s hard to predict what the onion market is going to do, he believes prices could increase some in January and should remain healthy through mid-March.

“It’s a manageable amount of inventory and I believe we’re going to continue to have a healthy market,” he said. “I’m bullish on the onion market.”

PERRYDALE, Ore. — It was a windfall of good news this fall for Perrydale High School’s ag education and FFA programs.

In addition to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Food For All drive benefiting families in need with a record collection of 350,000 pounds of food, the Perrydale FFA Chapter adviser, Christina Lorenz, recently brought home a national ag award and helped secure a substantial state-funded grant for the school’s ag education program.

Perrydale’s ag program was awarded $372,286 in Revitalization Grant funds from the Oregon Department of Education and fourth-year teacher Lorenz was awarded a Turn the Key Scholarship during the recent National Association of Agricultural Educators convention in Nashville.

The grant will be used to upgrade the school’s ag education program and Lorenz’s award is meant to be “a means of encouraging young teachers to remain in the profession and recognize their participation in professional activities,” according to the NAAE.

Perrydale’s iconic Food For All program has evolved into a concerted effort by the FFA students in all of the Lower Willamette FFA District — including Central, Dallas, Willamina, Sheridan, Perrydale, Amity, Dayton and Yamhill-Carlton high schools — in making a massive effort in gathering, packaging and distributing donated produce to needy families.

The vegetables and produce collected and distributed range from local rutabagas, beets, parsnips and other root vegetables to pears from the Hood River area, potatoes from Hermiston and even oranges and fruit from area distributors.

Food For All was begun in 1998 by former Perrydale FFA adviser Kirk Hutchinson with one donated tote of potatoes. In 2015, over 260,000 pounds were collected and last year the students collected and distributed 320,000 pounds.

All of Perrydale School District’s students, from preschool to 12th grade, participate in the Food For All program’s activities each year, Lorenz said. What they get out of the effort is much more than just a chance to do some hard work.

Students make about eight to 10 trips to reach out to partners prior to collection efforts, Lorenz said.

“The trips are beneficial for a number of reasons,” she said. “Students are getting out from a school environment and into a business setting and are able to see how those businesses operate and to make a sales pitch to them.

“They get to translate what they learn in the classroom to real life.”

Food For All works with community outreach groups to identify families in need and distribute 40- to 50-pound bags of food to them each year. Food banks, local organizations such as the Knights of Columbus, the Elks Club and churches that adopt families in need are all put into the distribution mix.

“This project is amazing in so many ways,” Lorenz said. “But the most obvious way is that it gives to families in need and teaches students to serve their communities and pay it forward.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Campbell Soup will spend $4.87 billion in cash for Snyder’s-Lance, gorging on a snack market that has grown increasingly competitive.

The soup maker said Monday that the acquisition will allow it to expand its distribution channels in the crowded field.

Campbell Soup Co., based in Camden, New Jersey, is paying $50 per share, a 6.8 percent premium to Snyder’s-Lance’s closing price Friday. That’s about a 27 percent premium to the stock’s close last Wednesday, just before rumors of a deal began to circulate.

Snyder’s-Lance, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, makes pretzels and chips. Its most well-known brands include Snyder’s of Hanover, Kettle Brand and Pop Secret. It will join the Campbell’s division that makes Pepperidge Farm and Goldfish crackers.

The Snyder’s-Lance purchase marks Campbell’s sixth and largest acquisition over the last five years. It bought beverage-maker Bolthouse Farms in 2012, baby food company Plum and biscuit company Kelsen in 2013, hummus and salsa maker Garden Fresh in 2015, and soup maker Pacific Foods in 2017.

In midday trading, Campbell Soup shares added 36 cents to $49.95. Snyder’s-Lance gained $3.10, or 6.6 percent, to $49.89.

Tuesdays

Nick Nelson, an animal science instructor at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, is set to become the first teacher from Oregon and first from a postsecondary institution to serve as president of the National Association of Agriculture Teachers.

Nelson was chosen during the NAAE annual convention Dec. 5-9 in Nashville. The group represents more than 7,800 members and 12,000 agriculture teachers across the country.

As NAAE president, Nelson said his primary focus will be working to solve the agriculture teacher shortage nationwide. According to the association, there were 770 open teaching positions in 2016, and 98 schools were forced to eliminate their agriculture programs due to budget cuts, low enrollments or inability to find a qualified instructor.

“Ag teachers are truly dynamic individuals that wear numerous hats,” Nelson said in a statement. “They teach in the classroom, serve as the FFA advisor and then make project visits to students’ homes all year long.

“They are also very active in the community, doing numerous tasks, all the while raising a family and farming on the side,” Nelson said. “It is no wonder why we are seeing an increase in the number of schools that want ag programs, but not enough ag teachers to fill the positions.”

Nelson said the biggest thing is to get more states participating in the NAAE Teach Ag campaign, which helps to recruit, retain and mentor more young agriculture teachers.

Nelson is a second-generation teacher, whose father, Veril Nelson, taught agriculture in Roseburg, Ore. Together, they also raise Red Angus cattle and market bulls through the Lorenzen Red Angus program.

Before arriving at BMCC, Nelson taught high school in Clackamas and Hermiston. He will serve one year as NAAE president, and travel to Washington, D.C., for board meetings as well as the National Policy Seminar, hosted by the Association for Career and Technical Education.

“It’s a service job, and the Western states really pushed me to continue that on,” Nelson said. “That’s really why I did it, to represent them.”

SALEM — Members and employees of Wilco gathered Thursday evening to celebrate the retirement of longtime president and CEO Doug Hoffman, who led the farmers’ cooperative based in Mt. Angel, Oregon for 23 years.

Hoffman, 65, will officially retire Dec. 31, but first the co-op sent him off with a party at the Salem Convention Center featuring hors d’oeuvres, speeches and a 13-minute video tribute.

Sam Bugarsky, president of retail farm stores for Wilco, also presented Hoffman with more than $91,000 in donations raised by the co-op, which will go toward charities supporting Hoffman’s missionary work overseas.

The money, Hoffman said, will go around the world to help those in need.

“That’s the aspect which I believe we need to our live our lives,” he told the crowd seated in the Willamette Ballroom.

Throughout the event, Hoffman was described by friends and employees as humble, generous and driven. Steve Keudell, former chairman of the Wilco board of directors, praised Hoffman for establishing a team-building culture at the co-op.

“Doug gets the job done,” Keudell said.

Bugarsky said it wasn’t always smooth sailing during Hoffman’s nearly quarter-century at Wilco. Over the years, he was faced with a number of difficult, often unpopular decisions that saw the co-op divest itself of several businesses, including the tire sales, grass seed cleaning and gas stations.

Hoffman made those decisions with the long-term future of Wilco in mind, Bugarsky said.

“We definitely wouldn’t be where we are today without Doug,” Bugarsky said.

Today, more than 3,000 agricultural producers from across the Willamette Valley are members of Wilco, and the co-op has grown during Hoffman’s tenure from 70 to 900 employees.

Hoffman said he could not have accomplished what he accomplished at Wilco without the support of his employees.

“It’s a team effort. I could work 10,000 hours a day and not get done what we’ve gotten done,” he said.

Hoffman and his wife, Jan, will continue to live in Keizer and serve on humanitarian missions overseas in Africa. His first trip is already scheduled for March 2018 in Kenya and Togo. He said he will also continue to support local organizations including FFA, Corban University and the Resource Education and Agricultural Leadership Program of Oregon.

“I’ve enjoyed my career here at Wilco, no doubt about that,” he said. “It’s because I enjoy working with farmers. You’re the salt of the earth. You’re the seed.”

Tim Ramsey, the former CEO of Oregon Cherry Growers, is poised to become the next president and CEO at Wilco, and will oversee the organization’s recent merger with Hazelnut Growers of Oregon

But Thursday was all about Hoffman, whom Bugarsky described as the hardest worker in the company and a man who was never satisfied with business as usual.

Bob May, who has served on the Wilco board since 1995, said Hoffman’s intention was always to do what’s best for Wilco.

“Thank you for your leadership and your friendship for the last 23 years,” May said.

There’s no shortage of confusion over Oregon’s cannabis rules.

Establishing a regulatory regime for the crop has been compared to building an airplane while it’s in mid-flight, said Sunny Jones, cannabis policy coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

“When you’re trying to start an industry from the ground up, there are going to be some learning curves and bumps in the road,” she said.

Jones is charged with helping cannabis producers navigate the byzantine regulatory system they must traverse to legally grow the crop.

Consider the complex layers of its legal status.

Varieties of the plant with minuscule levels of THC, a psychoactive substance, can be grown for research purposes as hemp under federal law, but cultivars with higher levels of THC, which are considered marijuana, remain federally prohibited.

Nonetheless, Oregon has legalized marijuana for medical and recreational purposes, with both uses regulated differently under state law.

Several state agencies are involved in overseeing marijuana’s cultivation and sale, including the Liquor Control Commission, the Health Authority and the Department of Agriculture.

Regulating pesticides used on marijuana is within ODA’s jurisdiction, as is the food safety enforcement of edible marijuana products and the testing of scales used for weighing the crop.

Meanwhile, the state’s licensing system for industrial hemp is also administered by ODA.

If all this wasn’t complicated enough, Oregon lawmakers are also continually revising the state’s cannabis laws as the industry finds its legs.

“We’re only a few years in. It’s going to continue to change,” said Jones, who began working as the agency’s cannabis policy coordinator in 2015, a year after Oregon voters legalized recreational marijuana.

Some aspects of the cannabis industry have evolved in unexpected ways.

When Oregon lawmakers legalized industrial hemp, they expected the crop would be primarily cultivated for oilseed and fiber.

Instead, most Oregon hemp growers are focused on cultivating hemp flowers, which produce cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive substance thought to possess healthful qualities.

At this point, Oregon hemp farmers lack nearby processing facilities for fiber and oilseed, Jones said. “We don’t have a lot of infrastructure for other uses.”

The production of cannabidiol extract from hemp is also becoming intermixed with the marijuana industry, as cannabis entrepreneurs are seeking to create novel products by combining the substance with THC extract.

Such developments require Oregon lawmakers and regulators to clarify how these interactions are regulated, Jones said.

Jones often fields questions about pesticides and cannabis, which is a tricky subject because the crop is illegal under federal law.

Because no pesticides are specifically labeled for cannabis, growers can only use products that aren’t subject to federal residue tolerance rules. The pesticides must also be labeled for use on a broad plethora of plants, as opposed to distinct crops.

The federal illegality of cannabis imposes a problem for growers seeking agronomic advice, since Oregon State University’s Extension system is prohibited from advising on the crop.

“Not having extension services is hard,” Jones said. “Who do you look to for the best practices?”

The solution may be found in cannabis farmers working together.

Jones believes it may be wise to form commodity commissions for hemp or marijuana, which would allow growers to pool resources and steer research.

The cannabis community isn’t limited to the “Birkenstock, tie-dye crowd,” and includes engineers and others from diverse backgrounds, she said.

“It’s really cool the wide group of people I get to work with on a regular basis,” Jones said. “Community is a core value for me as a person, and I get to put that value into action in this position.”

Community interactions have played a significant role in Jones’ career since she graduated from OSU in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in bioresource research.

She initially advised people on pesticides at the National Pesticide Information Center, then was hired by ODA to run its pesticide use reporting system.

The system never worked well due to the disparity between needed information and farmers’ privacy interests — the data was too general to be useful while growers chafed at reporting requirements.

When the program was eventually scrapped, Jones remained at ODA as a pesticide investigator before taking the cannabis policy coordinator job.

Though the pesticide use reporting system wasn’t successful, the experience has proven valuable in her new role.

“I’m used to jumping into a position that hasn’t existed before,” Jones said.

Sunny Jones

Occupation: Cannabis policy coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture

Age: 36

Education: Bachelor of science in bioresource research, Oregon State University in 2003

Hometown: Salem, Ore.

Family: A partner and two children

March 9, 1922 – Nov. 29, 2017

Donald Holmes Tate- 86, of Langlois, passed away Dec. 7, 2017. Arrangements are pending with Redmond Memorial Chapel, 541-548-3219.

FRIDAY, DEC. 15

Fridays

Oregon regulators are working to finalize a proposal that would protect farmworkers from drifting pesticides by allowing them to take shelter indoors.

The rule, developed by the Oregon Occupational Health and Safety Administration, or OSHA, seeks to address “application exclusion zones” introduced by the Environmental Protection Agency in its 2015 update of the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard.

Application exclusion zones require farms to evacuate workers within 100 feet of where trucks or planes are spraying pesticides, returning only after the equipment passes. The measure is intended to add another layer of protection against drift, which itself is illegal though it does sometimes occur.

Grower groups, however, argue the EPA did not account for worker housing on the farm when it came up with the exclusion zones, and called for a compliance alternative rather than having to rouse workers from their homes.

Michael Wood, Oregon OSHA administrator, said the issue is especially problematic for tree fruit growers in the Columbia River Gorge, where orchards may spray pesticides at 2 or 3 in the morning when the air is most calm.

“The growers came to us and said, you know, this is going to be something that’s a problem in our labor camps,” Wood said. “The challenge for us is to come up with an alternative that would protect the workers, but not be as disruptive to them and the growers.”

Statewide, Oregon has 309 labor camps registered under OSHA, including 1,262 buildings and 9,283 residents. Nearly two-thirds of those camps are in Wasco and Hood River counties.

For the last two years, Oregon OSHA has worked with growers and farmworker advocates to come up with a workable solution. The current proposal would allow workers to remain indoors while pesticides are sprayed, unless the chemicals pose a respiratory hazard. If the label requires use of a respirator, Oregon OSHA would enforce a 150-foot exclusion zone — stricter than what is required by the EPA — and would not allow workers to return home for 15 minutes.

“Obviously, the exposure potential is real,” Wood said.

Public comment on the rule was scheduled to end Dec. 15, but has been extended through the end of January. Wood said he expects a decision sometime in February.

The rule is being criticized on both ends of the spectrum of opinion, with some groups saying it does not do enough to protect workers and others saying it goes too far.

Mike Doke, executive director of the Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers, said remaining indoors is more safe for workers compared to moving everyone outside in the early morning hours. He said housing in the area is subject to high building standards, capable of withstanding harsh winters and plenty of rain.

Doke said the 150-foot exclusion zone, however, is not based on any scientific evidence, and may result in growers pulling trees, which will result in lost production and lost wages.

“I think it just makes people feel good, but there’s no data to support that,” Doke said. “The whole process hasn’t shown us any data that this (requirement) is going to make anybody safer.”

Lisa Arkin, executive director of the environmental justice group Beyond Toxics based in Eugene, said the exclusion zones do not do enough to protect workers and do not consider pesticide residue left over after spraying. She is advocating for a no-spray buffer zone to safeguard labor camps.

“Science tells us over and over again, when pesticides are sprayed, there is a drop-off the farther you get away from the spray operation,” Arkin said. “The need to increase the distance from humans to spray is critical for minimizing exposure.”

Concerns about disturbing workers at night misses the point that, without a buffer, workers will potentially be exposed to pesticides where they eat, sleep and play, Arkin said.

Doke reiterated that a buffer zone would force growers to pull out acres of trees, which may actually hurt workers more in the long-term.

Jenny Dresler, director of state public policy for the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the organization is “very concerned” about the Oregon OSHA proposal.

Furthermore, Dresler said, the Trump administration has signaled it may pull back or withdraw parts of the federal Worker Protection Standard. If that happens, Oregon would be the only state to have such stringent rules, and would make farms in the state less competitive.

A spokesman for the EPA in Washington, D.C., said much of the regulation is already in effect, and the rest will be phased in by Jan. 2. He did not indicate whether the administration is planning any changes in the standard.

Wood said the potential risk to workers from pesticides is real, regardless of what the EPA is doing.

“We’re certainly not bound to wait and see what decision the EPA makes on it before deciding whether or not to adopt a rule that applies in Oregon,” he said.

Nearly 35,000 acres of farmland and forestland in Oregon’s Douglas County would become available for rural housing under a plan that may be approved in January.

The county’s commissioners are considering changing the designation of these acres from farm and forest zones to “non-resource transitional lands” where 20-acre home sites could be developed.

While the county believes this revision is needed to meet demand for “rural lifestyle” dwellings in the area, state land use regulators and farmland preservation advocates are concerned by the proposal.

The alleged need for rural housing isn’t actually backed up by analysis, said Greg Holmes, Southern Oregon advocate for the 1,000 Friends of Oregon conservation group.

“There’s a lot of assertions that aren’t supported by material in the record,” Holmes said.

Douglas County currently has land that’s classified for agriculture and forestry uses but is actually of low quality for commercial production, said Keith Cubic, the county’s planning director.

“It’s not well addressed under current state law,” but the county believes it can make the “non-resource” concept fit within existing land use parameters, he said.

The 35,000 acres identified for minimum 20-acre rural lots have been selected because they’re not high-value farmland, rangeland or forestland, Cubic said.

Areas with wetlands and big game habitat have been excluded from the “non-resource” designation, as have properties two miles outside of existing cities and rural communities.

The county wanted to avoid new development in the “middle of nowhere” that’s difficult to reach for firefighters and other service providers, Cubic said.

In all, only about 1 percent of the county’s farmland and forestland would be eligible for rural lifestyle housing, he said.

The plan would allow for about 2,300 new 20-acre parcels, but the county expects only 25 percent to 50 percent would be developed.

Even so, Oregon’s Department of Land Conservation and Development has raised several concerns about the proposal that are shared by 1,000 Friends of Oregon.

Douglas County is misapplying a state land use provision that allows parcels to “go below” standard acreage sizes for farmland and forestland under certain circumstances, said Holmes.

This provision is appropriate for certain uses, such as vineyards, but not for rural housing, he said. “They’re not allowed to use that process.”

The county has also set the threshold too high for what is considered commercially feasible forestland and grazing land, allowing for rural housing development in areas where livestock and tree production are viable, Holmes said.

Surrounding existing cities with low-density rural housing is also problematic when those communities seek to expand, he said. Developers must then consolidate properties and work around or remove existing infrastructure, such as roads and septic tanks.

“When and if the urban areas expand, it’s inefficient,” Holmes said.

Compared to farms, which are inexpensive for local governments to service, smaller rural housing parcels can end up costing more than the added tax revenue they bring in, he said. “It’s a net loss to the county usually.”

Cubic, of Douglas County, said the plan relies on appropriate analysis of commercially-viable forestland and rangeland and complies with statewide land use planning goals.

Under Oregon law, counties must submit amendments to their comprehensive land use plans — such as the “non-resource” idea — to the Department of Land Conservation and Development for comment, said Tim Murphy, DLCD’s farm and forest lands specialist.

DLCD doesn’t approve or reject such plans, but they can be challenged before the state’s Land Use Board of Appeals, he said.

A new president is saddling up at the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

Nathan Jackson, general manager for sales and administration at K-Bar Ranches in Myrtle Creek, stepped into the position Dec. 2 during the organization’s annual convention in Bend.

Jackson, who served the last two years as president-elect, takes over for John O’Keeffe, who wrapped up his term. The OCA also tabbed Tom Sharp as the next president-elect and Todd Nash as treasurer, maintaining the line of succession.

O’Keeffe, a third-generation rancher from Adel in south-central Oregon, said he was honored to represent the cattlemen, and believes they made progress on key issues at the state and federal levels — including the removal of wolves from the Oregon endangered species list in late 2015.

The delisting applies to wolves east of highways 395, 78 and 95, though wolves in western Oregon remain protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

“We hope to shortly have these wolves delisted statewide,” O’Keeffe said. “They’re definitely here, and it’s time to manage them. We’re getting a lot of depredation, and quite a bit of hardship.”

The status of wolves remains a hot-button issue for cattlemen, as the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission considers a long-awaited update to the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. O’Keeffe said the plan needs to have reasonable criteria for lethal control of wolves that make a habit of preying on livestock.

“These wolves, if they get in a pattern of preying on livestock, it tends to accelerate,” he said. “We would like to get away from that.”

O’Keeffe said the new administration in Washington, D.C. is also working to fine-tune protections for sage grouse habitat while balancing the interests of ranchers.

As OCA president, Jackson said he recognizes that he will be the face of the organization and will work to ensure cattlemen have a strong voice at the Legislature. In particular, he said there are restrictions being pushed by groups that “aren’t interested in finding a compromise, but that want to put natural resource users out of business.”

“Those are the most egregious things we have to look out for,” Jackson said.

In addition to legislative work, Jackson said he hopes to strengthen the connection between the OCA and 26 county or regional cattlemen’s associations across Oregon.

“We’re going to do a fair amount of organizational stuff,” Jackson said. “Some of our county organizations need some support and capacity.”

The three-day OCA annual convention was held Nov. 30 through Dec. 2 at the Riverhouse on the Deschutes. The event drew more than 350 attendees, 45 trade show exhibitors and 50 presentations on topics ranging from wild horses to public lands.

Jerome Rosa, OCA executive director, said the wild horse program — led by Robert Sharp, supervisory wild horse and burro specialist with the Bureau of Land Management — was especially well attended.

“The room was packed,” Rosa said. It’s a real problem in some parts of our state, in particular southeast Oregon. They’re really causing a lot of problems on private and public lands, the way the population is really expanding.

Rosa said turnout at the convention was the best it’s been in a few years, which he attributed in part to a greater diversity of speakers.

“We tried to appeal to a little more of a broad spectrum of folks than we had in the past,” Rosa said. “There was a little bit of something for everybody.”

The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife has confirmed wolves killed an alpaca Sunday on private land in Union County.

Investigators found tracks and blood in the snow as evidence of an attack by three wolves in the Starkey area southwest of La Grande. GPS data also placed OR-30, a collared male wolf, about 130 yards from the carcass at 5 a.m. the same morning.

The incident comes just a few weeks after ODFW ruled that wolves “probably” killed a llama in a different area of Union County, which evoked sharp criticism from landowner and retired rancher Howard Cantrell about the investigation findings.

The OR-30 pair was most recently documented in 2016, occupying a large territory spanning the northern Starkey and Ukiah units south of Interstate 84. OR-30 originally dispersed from the Snake River pack and spent most of 2015 in the Starkey, Ukiah and Mount Emily units of northeast Oregon.

This is the first livestock predation attributed to the OR-30 pair.

An Oregon State University professor and department head has been named dean of the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences at South Dakota State University.

John Killefer, who created the Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences at OSU by merging the departments of animal sciences and rangeland, ecology and management, will begin working at South Dakota State in late March 2018.

“I am truly appreciative of the many opportunities that have been provided me at Oregon State University,” Killefer said in a statement. “I am honored to have worked with so many outstanding professionals and colleagues that have allowed us to make tremendous progress within our programs.”

As a researcher into production animals and beef products, Killefer’s programs have secured more than $6.3 million from federal and industry sources. He was inducted into the Oregon Beef Council Hall of Fame in 2014 and served as a fellow from 2013-15 for the Food Systems Leadership Institute.

“It has been exciting to see the individual and programmatic growth throughout our department and I anticipate a bright future moving forward,” Killefer said. “I thank the many colleagues that I am now able to call friends.”

Killefer came to OSU in 2011 after working at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and West Virginia University. He has a doctorate in animal science with an emphasis in growth and development from OSU.

Several farm groups have filed protests against the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s proposal to obtain instream water rights in the Hood River Basin.

Fourteen of the agency’s applications for instream water rights, which are meant to protect flows, were met with objections from the Oregon Farm Bureau, Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers, local irrigation districts and county Farm Bureaus.

The Oregon Water Resources Department had proposed approving the applications, but the protesters argue the agency wrongly determined the instream water rights served the public interest.

Farmers are concerned that new ODFW-owned instream water rights could prevent the development of irrigation water rights under the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s 83,000 acre-feet of “water reservations” in the basin, said Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for Oregon Farm Bureau.

“We’re not clear on how they stack up with these instream water rights,” Cooper said.

When Oregon lawmakers passed a law to protect instream flows 30 years ago, they also allowed the Oregon Department of Agriculture to “reserve” water for economic development.

Last year, the Hood River Basin’s water reservations were renewed for another two decades, as they generally haven’t yet been used to develop water rights.

However, such water reservations may play an important role in storing irrigation water if the Hood River Basin sees lower future snowpack accumulations.

Another concern is that instream water rights may impede the transfer or lease of senior water rights, said Cooper.

New instream rights would be junior to those of existing water users, but Cooper said problems can arise when those irrigators want to move a point of diversion further upstream.

In such a situation, ODFW may claim injury because the water remains instream for a shorter distance, she said.

If water rights within Hood River Basin were canceled, the water would be “swallowed up” by the instream rights instead of becoming available to other irrigators, according to the protesters.

Conversations about these worries did not take place “on the front end,” before the agency sought new instream rights, which necessitated the protests, Cooper said.

“At that point, our only recourse was to file the protest,” she said.

Capital Press was unable to reach Anna Pakenham Stevenson, ODFW’s water program manager, for comment.

WaterWatch of Oregon, an environmental group, also lodged protests against four of the proposed instream rights in the basin.

Contrary to the irrigators, the organization complained the amount of water protected by instream rights would be insufficient to guarantee a healthy habitat for fish.

When a protest is filed, the Oregon Water Resources Department can still approve an instream water right or modify it, said Dwight French, administrator of the agency’s water right services division.

The other two options are to move forward with a contested case hearing or allow the parties to settle the case, he said.

If OWRD issues a final order after a contested case process, the decision can be challenged before the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which oversees the agency, and then the Oregon Court of Appeals, he said.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Authorities have released recovery plans for federally protected Snake River chinook salmon and steelhead with the goal of making sure each species is self-sustaining in the wild.

The plans released Tuesday by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries include spring and summer chinook, fall chinook and steelhead. Authorities listed the three runs as threatened in the 1990s.

Strategies in the 366-page fall chinook plan include reintroducing them above Idaho Power’s Hells Canyon Complex of hydroelectric dams.

The 284-page recovery plan for spring and summer chinook and steelhead include protecting existing tributary habitat and restoring degraded habitat.

Salmon and steelhead are important as both a commercial and sport fishery, and are also important to tribes in the region that hold treaty rights concerning salmon and steelhead.