BOISE — Many reservoirs in southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon are still close to 90 percent full, despite a brutal July heat spell that has kept high temperatures near or above 100 degrees the entire month.

Irrigators who get their water from the Boise Project Board of Control get by on natural flow in the Boise River until the amount of water leaving the river’s reservoir system exceeds the amount entering.

Then the project starts using water stored in the system’s three reservoirs and sets an allotment for how much water irrigators can receive from the reservoir system. That didn’t happen until July 14 this year, well beyond the normal June time-frame for that switch.

The BPBC set its 2017 allotment at 2.45 acre-feet, which is slightly less than the 2.6 acre-foot allotment in 2016.

However, the project only got by on natural flow until June 15 last year and that means some farmers, such as Drew Eggers of Meridian, will end up receiving all the water they need this year.

Eggers said he used about 3 acre-feet of water for his mint crop before the allotment was set and he probably won’t need to use all the water he is entitled to this year.

“We’re having a good water year,” he said. “I’ll have enough water to finish the crop and water the mint back up after harvest.”

The water outlook is just as good for the 1,800 farms in Eastern Oregon and part of southwestern Idaho that receive their irrigation water from the Owyhee Reservoir.

The reservoir, which supplies water to 118,000 acres, is 86 percent full.

That’s quite a switch from many of the previous five years, when the reservoir was almost tapped out at this date and irrigators received as little as a third of their full 4 acre-foot allotment.

“It’s unbelievable,” Owyhee Irrigation District Manager Jay Chamberlin said about the difference. “It’s almost the complete opposite.”

Chamberlin said the reservoir is enjoying one of its top five water supply years in its 82-year history and it’s possible water managers will run water later into October this year to help farmers finish off their crops.

“It will be nice to help them on the tail end because for four or five years, they’ve been short on the tail end,” he said.

Irrigators on the Weiser River system are also sitting good this year in terms of water supply and the system will likely carry over a decent amount of reservoir storage water into next season, said watermaster Brandi Horton.

“It’s definitely one of the better (waster supplies) we’ve seen in several years,” she said.

The Payette River system didn’t enjoy the same type of near-record snowpack that other basins in the region did this winter but its snow pack was above normal and irrigators can expect a good water supply this year, said watermaster Ron Shurtleff.

“We’re in fine shape. We’ll have plenty of water this year,” he said.

MYRTLE POINT — Coos County Fair Culinary Department has category prizes sponsored by area businesses to go along with your potential "Blue Ribbon Pride."

Tuesdays

When the antiquated milking parlor at the Abiqua Acres dairy became obsolete, the farm’s owners opted not to replace it.

Instead, they installed a new state-of-the art barn equipped with two robots that milk the cows at their convenience.

The machines will allow the farm to eventually expand its milking herd from 90 to 120 cows without having to hire employees, said Darleen Sichley, who runs the farm with her husband, Ben Sichley, and her parents, Alan and Barbara Mann.

“Robotics made a lot more sense than building a parlor and hiring help,” she said.

The Sichleys and Manns operate the dairy entirely themselves, so delegating the milking to robots frees up hours they’d otherwise spend in the milking parlor.

“We get our lives back,” said Ben.

Milk prices have fallen since the family began planning for the project, but they’re confident the robotic milkers will pencil out over the long term by allowing the farm to remain employee-free.

“We’ve always been family-run,” said Darleen.

Dairy farmers’ average “mailbox” price per hundredweight of milk — the amount of the check they get in the mail, minus transportation and other costs — plunged from a peak of nearly $26 in 2014 to a trough of roughly $14 in 2016. The price has since risen to more than $17 per hundredweight.

Despite their leaner earnings, dairy farmers have continued to invest in robotic milkers because of the concern over worker shortages, said Mark Brown, a regional general manager for DeLaval Dairy Service, which makes and sells the machines.

“That’s what’s driving it, more than anything,” Brown said.

DeLaval has seen sales of robotic milkers grow through the milk price slump, though demand would likely be even stronger if the industry was experiencing an economic upswing, he said.

“If milk prices were high, I don’t think we could build them fast enough,” said Brown.

While the lowest-cost milking systems will cost $1 per hundredweight or less to operate — compared to $2 or $3 per hundredweight for robotic milkers — farmers still see the automated systems as worthwhile, said Larry Tranel, an extension dairy specialist at Iowa State University who’s studied the economics of the machines.

Robots aren’t so much more expensive than many conventional milking parlors as to deter dairies from investing in the technology, since farmers are drawn to the reduced dependence on hiring workers, he said.

“They’re trading labor for technology,” Tranel said.

If immigration enforcement gets more strict, dairies also face the prospect of having to pay higher wages to attract U.S.-born employees, said Brian Gould, an agricultural economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“If the dairy industry is going to have to pay more for labor, it’s going to make robotics more attractive,” he said.

Aside from cutting labor, robotic milkers automatically collect data about cattle productivity and other traits that improve dairy management, said Brown of DeLaval Dairy Service.

New features and software are constantly being developed, including infrared cameras that regularly photograph each cow’s body to track how it’s responding to feed rations, he said.

“The machines are designed so that any future technology can be retrofit onto them,” Brown said.

Data analyzed by robotic milking systems can also alert farmers to any developing health problems before they’re readily noticeable, said Bob Russell, director of DeLaval Dairy Service North America.

“All those metrics can help give you an advance indication the cow may be becoming ill,” he said.

Robotic milkers have grown popular enough that cattle breeders are aiming for “robot ready” cows with characteristics such as square, uniform udders that make teats easier for the machine to locate, Brown said.

Manufacturers are trying to build robots that milk cows on rotating “carousels,” which are prized by large dairies for their efficiency.

As of now, though, those robots are still being perfected because it’s tougher for them to milk cows that are moving, said Brown. “It needs to be fast and in motion.”

Who says a grocery run is boring? Shoppers on the Wild Rivers Coast Farm Trail get a destination experience while they stock up on fresh, local grub.

PORT ORFORD — Hike with the South Coast Striders to Blacklock Point from Floras Lake on Sunday, July 23.

2017 WILD RIVERS COAST FARM TRAIL

ONTARIO, Ore. — A planned rail transload facility in Oregon’s Malheur County could reduce transportation costs for onion shippers in the region but, perhaps more importantly, it could also speed up delivery times and open up new markets.

Speeding up the time it takes the Spanish bulb onions grown here to reach markets on the East Coast would be the main advantage of a transload facility, said Eddie Rodriguez, director of sales for Partners Produce, one of 30 onion shippers in the Treasure Valley of Idaho and Oregon.

“Getting our product to the market sooner is the biggest benefit to us,” he said.

Because onions produced here and shipped by rail to the East Coast have to first be trucked West to the nearest transload facility in Wallula, Wash., before beginning their journey East, Washington onion shippers beat their Idaho and Oregon competitors to the market at every turn, Rodriguez said.

“Because we’ll be able to get to the market sooner, that will open up more markets for us,” he said of the planned transload facility, which would be built near Ontario or Nyssa.

The Oregon Legislature’s recently passed $5.3 billion transportation bill includes $26 million for the transload facility, which will allow shipping containers to be transferred between truck and rail.

Freight rates change constantly and are impacted by many factors, but “it is fair to estimate a transload facility (here) would provide an avenue to ship more onion volume via rail out of our growing region at a cost savings versus trucking, and faster than traditional rail service,” said Tiffany Cruickshank, transportation manager for Snake River Produce.

In an email, she told Capital Press that the facility would be “transformational for our area and will ideally allow Snake River Produce and other area shippers to maintain and improve competitiveness, reduce transportation costs and grow business throughout the rail network.”

Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, vice-co-chair of the 14-member committee that put the transportation bill together, told onion growers and shippers last week that the money for the transload facility could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he said it’s critical for the community to do it right.

He said the facility could benefit a lot of farm commodities grown in the region but that it would focus on the onion industry.

The legislation that provides the $26 million for the facility requires the community to submit a plan to the Oregon Transportation Commission by Jan. 1, 2020, that shows how it intends to spend the money.

One of the most important first steps is for the onion industry to form a committee that can offer significant input on the plan and help guide its formation, Bentz said.

Grant Kitamura, general manager of Murakami Produce, an onion shipper, told Capital Press the onion industry has already formed a group that will meet and begin formulating possible plans for the facility.

“We’re going to get the ball rolling on this and get it done right,” he said.

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A 19-year-old firefighter died after being struck by a falling tree while responding to a small blaze in western Montana, officials said Thursday.

Trenton Johnson, a Missoula resident, was a member of a 20-person attack crew for a Merlin, Oregon-based private firefighting contractor called Grayback Forestry Inc., Grayback and Missoula County Sheriff’s Office officials said.

Johnson and nine other members of his crew were called in Wednesday afternoon to help U.S. Forest Service firefighters responding to a lightning-caused fire burning about a half-acre along a ridge near Florence Lake in Lolo National Forest, northeast of Seeley Lake.

They had just arrived when the top of a tree split off and fell toward four firefighters, striking Johnson, Grayback President Mike Wheelock said in a news conference.

“They just heard a crack and that was it,” Wheelock said. “Three of them were able to get out of the way and Trenton did not.”

Johnson was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Missoula, where he was pronounced dead, said Missoula County sheriff’s spokeswoman Brenda Bassett.

The rest of the Grayback crew was pulled from the fire, Lolo National Forest spokesman Boyd Hartwig said.

Johnson graduated from Hellgate High School in Missoula, where he was a member of the National Honor Society and a captain of the lacrosse team that won the state championship all four years he played.

“He was my favorite player that I ever coached,” former Hellgate lacrosse coach Kevin Flynn told the Missoulian. “He turned into a great player, a great teammate and a captain for us. He was well-liked by everybody.”

Johnson was attending Montana State University with several of his high school teammates, Flynn said.

Johnson was new to firefighting, and the Montana fire was only his second, the Missoulian reported.

Grayback spokeswoman Kelli Matthews said Johnson had completed all of his training, which included 40 hours of classroom time, up to six hours of field training and a physical fitness test.

At least a dozen large fires have ignited across Montana amid a heat wave that has dried out timber and grasslands. National Weather Service officials said gusting wind and low humidity will mean critical fire conditions are likely to continue through Friday evening.

Opponents of expanding the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southern Oregon say the move was rushed through with little public notice. Supporters point to a series of well-attended public meetings and a comment period in which more than 5,000 written comments were received.

But Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s visit to the monument last weekend showed that the community divide over the monument is far from resolved.

Last October, just a couple of weeks before the presidential election, more than 400 people crammed into an auditorium at Southern Oregon University in Ashland to offer their opinions on the proposal to expand the nearby Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Biologist Pepper Trail was on the science team that had studied the monument and recommended roughly doubling its size to nearly 130,000 acres.

“Based on a foundation of solid science,” he said, “now is the time for the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument to enable spatially comprehensive, cohesive and consistent protection of this unique and precious landscape.”

The science team concluded the monument wasn’t large enough to safeguard the exceptional biodiversity at the convergence of the Klamath, Siskiyou and Cascade mountain ranges. The monument was created in 2000 by President Bill Clinton expressly to protect that biodiversity.

While most in the SOU auditorium last fall supported the expansion, Klamath County Commissioner Tom Mallams spoke for many when he said expansion would hinder ranching, farming, timber harvest and recreation.

“As a citizen and as a Klamath County commissioner,” he said, “I’ve consistently opposed this ever-increasing overreach from our state and federal governments.”

Most of Oregon’s statewide elected officials — as well as city councils in Ashland and Talent — spoke in support, while commissioners in Jackson, Klamath and Siskiyou counties opposed the expansion.

In January, barely a week before leaving office, President Barack Obama added nearly 48,000 acres to the monument, about 20 percent less than had been proposed.

A group of 17 western Oregon counties sued, as did a pair of timber companies, saying the expansion illegally limited logging on public land.

Fast forward to mid-July: President Trump tasked Zinke, a former congressman from Montana, to review 27 national monuments established by previous administrations with an eye toward scaling back or revoking them.

He’d arrived in southern Oregon to tour Cascade-Siskiyou and to confer with stakeholder groups. After hiking a trail and meeting with snowmobilers, Zinke stood near Hyatt Lake with Rep. Greg Walden and gave clues about how he’s approaching his review.

“I think that going forward, the biodiversity — the protection of the biodiversity — can and should be done incorporating traditional use, based on best science, based on good practices,” he said.

By “traditional use,” Zinke means not only commercial uses such as logging and grazing, but recreational uses such as snowmobiles.

That was a big concern for 82-year-old Doyle Hutchison. He told Zinke elderly people who can’t hike or ride horseback anymore don’t have access to the monument.

“We used to be able to drive in there with our four-wheelers or whatever,” he said. “And now, it’s all … They got everything gated up and cameras all over the place.”

Medford resident Cliff Massey told Zinke public land should be open to everybody.

“With the monument, it’s not for everybody. Because I won’t be able to snowmobile no more here because it’ll be cut off,” he said.

The next day, about 200 monument supporters set up a party, complete with live music and barbecue, in the parking lot of the federal office building in Medford where Zinke was meeting with a pro-monument contingent. A smaller group of opponents was there, as well. Emerging from that meeting, Lanita Witt said Zinke seemed inclined to defer to traditional land management values, which frustrated her.

“It is not the same,” she said. “The world is changing. And the vision needs to change of how do we take care of the earth.”

Witt co-owns Willow-Witt Ranch, a 440-acre property that lies within the monument expansion. She said she and her business partners have been restoring woodlands and wetland on the property for more than 30 years and feels the monument should reflect that approach.

Dave Willis was also in that meeting. Willis heads the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, which works to preserve land in and around the monument. He thinks Zinke’s meeting schedule gave an indication of where the administration’s priorities lie.

“Congressman Walden, and the timber people and the grazing people and others I think got a lot more time than the pro-monument people were given, by far,” he said.

Zinke has already announced he’ll suggest no changes to the Hanford Reach monument in Washington and the Craters of the Moon monument in Idaho. He’ll make his recommendations to President Trump on Cascade-Siskiyou and the other monuments he’s reviewing in late August.

Legal experts are divided on whether the president has the legal authority to repeal or modify monuments declared by previous presidents. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has warned Zinke that if the administration tries it with Cascade-Siskiyou, she stands ready to challenge that in court.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says he is removing Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients from a list of national monuments being reviewed nationwide.

Zinke said Friday that when he and President Donald Trump launched the review of 27 national monuments designated by previous administrations, “we absolutely realized that not all monuments are the same and that not all monuments would require modifications.”

Zinke called Canyons of the Ancients “gorgeous land,” but said its Native American archaeological sites were even more important. The site spans thousands of years, and Zinke said federal protections “will help us preserve this site for a thousand more years.”

Last week, Zinke removed two other monuments, in Idaho and Washington state, from his review of monuments created since 1996. A full report is due next month.

June 22

IONE, Ore. — Wheat harvest is already a busy time of year for Eastern Oregon farmers, but for Virgil and Debbie Morgan, the stress was compounded by an unexpected family emergency.

On June 13, the couple’s daughter-in-law, Larissa, gave birth to a healthy baby girl in El Paso, Texas. However, Larissa developed a rare obstetric disorder known as amniotic fluid embolism, in which amniotic fluid enters the mother’s bloodstream and triggers a serious allergic-like reaction.

For the next two weeks, Larissa was fighting for her life in a medically induced coma. Virgil and Debbie rushed from their farm in Ione to be by Larissa’s side, though Virgil was soon pulled back home to prepare for harvest by himself. Or so he thought.

It was Brent Martin, a neighbor and fellow farmer, who first suggested the community roll up its sleeves and give the Morgans a helping hand. A meeting was held June 29 at the Ione Fire Department, where 16 people organized a team of 12 combines, eight bankout wagons and 20 grain trucks.

Together, they harvested all nine of the family’s wheat fields — 1,600 acres in all — in a single day, working from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 16.

“It was really great for them to take a day off and bring everything to my place,” Virgil Morgan said. “We just had a wonderful response.”

Morgan, 68, has been farming outside Ione for 40 years. He also serves as chief of the all-volunteer Ione Rural Fire Protection District.

Melissa LaRue, who works with Morrow County Grain Growers in Ione, was one of the residents who helped plan the harvest-in-a-day. She said the entire party consisted of about 50 workers, all of whom were eager to give back to the Morgans.

“Virgil and Debbie have done so much in our community,” LaRue said. “When someone needs anything in our town, they’re usually the first to step in.”

Harvest is usually a three-week affair on Morgans’ farm. With the job finished, Virgil was able to leave for El Paso Thursday morning to rejoin Larissa on the road to recovery.

Amniotic fluid embolism is rare, occurring at a rate of 1 in every 20,000 childbirths, but can result in potentially life-threatening complications.

After 16 frightening days in intensive care, Virgil said Larissa has since come out of her coma and been transferred to a rehabilitation center where she is undergoing physical therapy. She is once again able to talk, walk with some assistance and hold her new baby, named Natassia.

“Everything is getting better so far,” Virgil said. “She still has a long road to go. We don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

A community fundraiser is scheduled for Sunday, July 30 from 5-7 p.m. at the Ione Legion Hall, according to the Heppner Gazette-Times. Volunteers will be preparing and serving a dinner of pulled pork or chicken sandwiches, baked beans and salad. Plates are $10 for adults and $7 for children.

Virgil Morgan said he still gets emotional thinking about all the community support they’ve received from their neighbors.

“For everyone to come together to help out ... I don’t know how to thank them for it,” he said, choking back tears. “That’s what this community is about.”

THURSDAY, JULY 20

ONTARIO, Ore. — A bill passed by the Oregon Legislature this month will create a special economic development region in Eastern Oregon with the goal of helping farmers and businesses here better compete with their counterparts across the Snake River in Idaho.

It also provides $5 million to invest in loans, grants or other projects to encourage workforce and economic development in the region.

A seven-member board created by the legislation will also be tasked with recommending changes to rules and regulations that could help Eastern Oregon businesses compete on a more level playing field with Idaho businesses.

Idaho has a much lower minimum wage than Oregon and businesses in that state enjoy a more favorable business climate when it comes to land-use and other regulations, said Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, the bill’s co-sponsor along with House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland.

He said a major focus of the board would be to help create more value-added agricultural jobs.

The bill is the second major win for the region’s agricultural industry this month.

The Legislature’s recently passed $5.3 billion transportation package includes $26 million for a rail transload facility in Malheur County that is expected to lower transportation costs and speed up delivery times for the region’s farm products.

Bentz said the region’s agricultural industry played a major role in both those successes.

When Oregon legislators were debating whether to significantly increase the state’s minimum wage last year, farmers in the area organized a bus tour to Salem so Malheur County residents could explain to lawmakers how doing that would impact the region given its close proximity to Idaho.

The fact that 50 people took the time to travel 400 miles over icy, snow-covered roads “raised the profile of the area dramatically,” Bentz said.

Then at Bentz’ invitation, Kotek made a three-day trip to Eastern Oregon last June and saw first-hand the challenges farmers and other businesses in the region face.

In an email to Capital Press, Kotek said that while she was in Eastern Oregon last year, “I saw first-hand how local businesses and communities are struggling to compete with the fast-growing metro area across the border.”

The idea for HB 2012 came out of the trip, she said.

When Gov. Kate Brown toured the region in February to get a close look at the damage to dozens of onion packing sheds and hundreds of other structures caused by the harsh winter, she was accompanied by farm industry leaders.

Add all those events up and “it made a huge impression” on lawmakers, said onion grower Paul Skeen, who accompanied Brown and Kotek during their tours of the region.

Eastern Oregon residents have been trying to get Salem’s attention for a long time and this year those efforts paid off to the tune of a $31 million economic development investment for the region, Bentz said.

That didn’t happen by accident and local farmers and other residents have themselves to thank, he said.

“It’s so much opportunity all of a sudden, but it didn’t happen all of a sudden,” Bentz said.

DAYTON, Ore. — It’s 2 p.m., two hours short of quitting time, when the pickup trucks roll in from the vineyards. Workers, all Latino, hop down from the truck beds; 10, now two dozen, 44 in all. They take seats in the shade of the Stoller Vineyards maintenance shop, chatting, laughing, still wearing their field garb: hats, hoods and head scarves to protect from the sun, long sleeves despite the heat, many with pruning shears in holders on their belts.

The green and white ¡Salud! Services van before them is a familiar sight by now. It is from Tuality Healthcare, which operates hospitals and clinics west of Portland and for more than 25 years has brought basic medical care to Willamette Valley vineyard workers. The van, staffed by bi-lingual nurses and medical assistants, provides blood pressure and cholesterol checks, vaccinations, treatment and referrals — about 5,000 patient visits annually. “¡Salud!” is like a toast in Spanish, meaning “cheers” or “good health.”

Oregon vineyards recognize a broader translation, and it is the reason they pay for the mobile medical service. The industry raises an average of $700,000 annually — including a record $928,000 in 2016 — with a two-day auction of their best Pinot noir wines.

The vintners’ broader interpretation of ¡Salud! is part of the van’s logo, which shows a kneeling worker tending a grapevine. It includes the slogan, “To Our Health,” because everyone in the industry benefits.

Leda Garside, a registered nurse who manages ¡Salud! Services, is from Costa Rica and counts herself lucky. She came to the U.S. with an American husband, the proper papers and an education. Many of the patients she sees at the mobile clinic lack those advantages, yet they are the “backbone” of Oregon agriculture, she said.

It’s fair to say Garside’s work is widely admired within the wine and medical professions. One vineyard owner described her as “the rock of the whole place.”

Garside said the work is rewarding. Routine blood pressure and cholesterol checks provide early warning of hypertension, cardiovascular problems and diabetes. Flu shots and tetanus vaccinations aid people who routinely work outdoors and handle sharp tools, wire and the soil.

Some workers migrate to jobs depending on what is in season, others juggle two or three jobs, both of which complicate the time and expense of traditional doctor appointments. Some put off seeking help with medical problems, which can become worse with lack of intervention. For others, hospital emergency rooms, open all hours, become the treatment option for even minor injuries or illnesses.

When she was asked to advise and then take over ¡Salud! in 1998, Garside insisted the service had to be holistic to be effective.

“For some workers, this is it,” Garside said of ¡Salud! “Bringing the services to them fills the gap on that.”

Treatment and examinations at the mobile clinic are free. If the patient is referred to a partnering clinic or agency for further care, a stipend is paid to the provider by ¡Salud! on behalf of the patient and the patient is responsible for the balance. Those treated at a facility designated as a federally qualified health center can pay on a sliding fee scale based on income.

¡Salud! partners with Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., which sends a motorhome to accompany the Tuality Healthcare van. University students and faculty provide vision, dental and physical therapy exams and treatment. Tuality pays Pacific a stipend for its help; the students gain practical experience as they prepare for medical careers. Other partners receiving stipends include community clinics and Medical Teams International.

“We collaborate with other agencies to bring services,” Garside said. “We stretch that dollar until it’s ready to snap.”

Jose Reyna, a physical therapy professor at Pacific University, regularly accompanies the ¡Salud! van each summer. Vineyard workers often have lower back pain from stooping and lifting, and sore wrists and shoulders from repetitive picking or pruning motions are a common ailment. Reyna and his students provide massage and demonstrate stretching techniques.

The wine industry’s financial support for the service shows it is invested in the people who do “very taxing labor,” he said.

“Who else is going to harvest the grapes and tighten the lines?” Reyna asked.

Local solution

A 2014 survey by the National Center for Farmworker Health, based in Texas, showed poverty is “pervasive” among the nation’s 3 million migrant and seasonal agricultural workers. About 30 percent of families reported total family income below national poverty guidelines.

“One of the biggest dichotomies with the agricultural worker population is that despite providing the hard work behind the foods that sustain us, they are a group that receives very few benefits and protections, and are frequently excluded from regulatory labor protections,” the center concluded in a 2017 report.

Access to healthcare is a major problem, with workers hampered in some cases by language or cultural barriers, a lack of money or transportation, low literacy and frequent mobility, according to the farmworker health center.

In the Pacific Northwest and California, agricultural workers had higher rates of asthma, hypertension and obesity than elsewhere. The Midwest had the highest prevalence of diabetes among farmworkers. Tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, and sexually transmitted diseases are problems to varying degrees nationally.

¡Salud! grew from discussions in the early 1990s between a handful of vineyard owners and Tuality Healthcare doctors who had become acquainted due to a shared interest in fine wine.

Nancy Ponzi, of the pioneering Ponzi Vineyards in Sherwood, Ore., said the idea of a fundraising event percolated and emerged as a commitment to “do something to help our workers, especially the field workers who are at the bottom of the heap in terms of having access to social programs.”

“To my great surprise and pleasure,” Ponzi said, “the wineries were all for that.”

Ponzi said she originally presumed family planning would be one of the most important things the industry could offer Latino workers, but soon learned otherwise.

“This culture does not want to discuss family planning,” she said. “What they need help with is health.”

Then, as now, the vintners heard angry grumbles about health care costs, immigration policies and illegal “aliens” taking “American” jobs. Providing them health care was controversial.

“We were aware it was a political statement at the time,” Ponzi said. “We knew it was political, which was the reason I was happy to see the wine industry step up in spite of possible repercussions.”

Convincing the cautious medical bureaucracy to go along also took some doing. Ponzi said she and the other advocates countered with, “Look, if we can give service to this population and keep them out of the emergency room, that’s a big help to the hospital.”

The industry’s two-day ¡Salud! auction and black tie gala, held in November, provides about 90 percent of the funding needed to staff and pay for Tuality Healthcare’s mobile clinic, the staff’s case management work and partner agency stipends. A “Summertime ¡Salud!” fundraising dinner and tasting has been added as well. It’s on July 27 this year at Stoller Family Estate, tickets are $175 per person.

Ponzi said the program could be adopted by other ag sectors, such as the nursery industry, but so far it hasn’t been replicated. She said the workforce deserves support.

“We respect what they do,” she said. “This is not charity. It’s an obligation to protect these workers and their families.”

Geoff Horning, who directed Oregon Aglink for the past 11 years, has been chosen CEO of Oregon Hazelnut Industries, which represents one of the state’s fastest growing agricultural sectors.

“Mom always said I was a little nuts, and I suppose that is official now,” Horning joked in an email announcing the change.

Horning starts Sept. 1. He replaces Polly Owen, who is retiring and applauds her replacement.

“I’m good with it,” said Owen, who will stay on for a time to help Horning transition into the position. She said hazelnut growers and processors did a national search and called Horning a “wonderful” choice.

He will be introduced Aug. 2 at the Nut Growers Society Summer Tour. The event includes an orchard tour in the Tangent area followed by hazelnut oriented trade show and luncheon at the Linn County Expo Center in Albany.

Horning is an Oregon native and a graduate of Linfield College. Before joining Oregon Aglink, a private non-profit that promotes agriculture and attempts to bridge the urban-rural divide with programs and events, he managed trade shows and publications for the Oregon Association of Nurseries.

In taking the hazelnut position, Horning joins a segment of Oregon agriculture that has grown dramatically in the past two decades and potentially could become more of an international player. Oregon produces an estimated 99 percent of U.S. hazelnuts and appears poised to grab a larger share of the world market from Turkey, by far the largest production area.

Horning cautioned that he faces a “huge learning curve” in his new job but hopes to help position the industry “to be what it should be on the international scale.” Oregon produces 3 to 5 percent of the world’s hazelnuts but the majority of production is of in-shell nuts, which are popular as a snack in markets such as China. Industry observers have mused for years about adding value by increasing kernel production; shelled, dry-roasted Oregon hazelnuts sell for $7.99 a pound in stores such as Trader Joe’s.

Conversations with growers and processors made it clear “an opportunity does present itself,” Horning said. He called hazelnuts “one of the most exciting segments of Oregon agriculture.”

“I don’t have big agenda to come in and change everything,” he said. “It’s fair to say the hazelnut industry is going through immense growth.”

Wednesday, July 19