After roughly four decades in operation, the Custom Meat Co. of Eugene, Ore., shut down on June 17.

While employees and clients still hope the mobile custom slaughter and meat processing company will be bought and re-opened, they acknowledge the business fell into disarray after owner Victor Hastings succumbed to cancer in January.

Hastings didn’t leave a will and key licenses for the facility lapsed, contributing to its closure, said Shannon Hughes, the company’s manager.

Unless an investor takes over the company, Keith Cooper, who raises hogs at nearby Sweetbriar Farms, is worried about traveling much greater distances to process carcasses.

The facility and its workers were instrumental in helping Cooper prepare meat for his customers, often when time was in short supply.

“I probably couldn’t have existed or grown my business to the extent I had without the assistance of Custom Meat or Vic Hastings,” he said.

The problems encountered by the Custom Meat Co. provide an example of the pressures faced by Oregon’s slaughter and meat processing facilities.

As the owners of such companies retire or die, finding replacements is difficult — both because their skills are rare and because fewer people are willing to do such work, said Lauren Gwin, an Oregon State University professor and director of the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network.

“It is a brutal job to go out and kill things all day long,” Gwin said. “It’s not the kind of thing younger people are interested in doing.”

Since 2000, the number of mobile and stationary custom slaughter facilities in Oregon has dropped more than 30 percent, from 93 to 63, according to data from the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Such operations kill animals for their owners, rather than for meat resale.

In that 15 years, the number of USDA-inspected slaughterhouses — which can process livestock for the wholesale meat market — has fallen 25 percent, from 16 to 12.

Apart from the physical hardship of killing, bleeding out and skinning livestock, the job is often financially challenging as well, said Gwin.

An owner of a mobile slaughter truck, for example, must pay for its fuel and upkeep as well as disposing of offal and maintaining the appropriate licenses, she said.

“It’s hard to make it pay,” Gwin said.

Changes in the overall beef industry have also affected slaughter facilities, said Jerry Haun, owner of Haun’s Meat and Sausage and executive secretary of the Northwest Meat Processors Association.

Cow-calf producers often prefer to sell cattle in large lots instead of selling individual animals at auction to local landowners, he said. With fewer locals raising beef, the demand for local slaughter facilities decreased as well.

As the price of cattle has weakened recently, though, more cow-calf producers are again willing to sell “oddball calves” to backyard farmers, Haun said.

Interest in organic, grass-fed and farm-to-table beef also indicates that the local slaughter industry will remain viable, he said. “They’re not just catch-words, it’s reality. It’s something we’ve been doing for decades but its now the hip thing.”

Not all types of meat facilities in Oregon are on the decline.

The number of custom meat processors who don’t kill animals but cut up carcasses has stabilized at above 80 operations in recent years, though it’s still down from roughly 100 operations in the early 2000s, according to ODA data.

Poultry and rabbit slaughter facilities, meanwhile have more than doubled since 2000, from seven to 19 plants.

Gwin of OSU attributes this increase to growing enthusiasm among farmers and consumers for pasture-raised poultry. A state-licensed facility can process and sell up to 20,000 birds a year without USDA inspection.

This exemption was included federal poultry inspection law because lawmakers were aiming to regulate the slaughter industry rather than flocks raised by farmers, she said.

However, efforts to enact similar exemptions for other livestock haven’t gained traction, Gwin said. “Congress doesn’t want to be seen as rolling back food safety laws.”

STAYTON, Ore. — Littau Harvester is expanding its production capabilities and preparing for an expected growth spurt by moving its assembly operation to a large warehouse it recently purchased several blocks from its main production facility.

Frank Brown, production and purchasing manager, said the addition of the new site will free up the main facility to focus on building modular components and will open the company up to the opportunity to produce significantly more harvesting equipment to more customers.

Littau purchased a 150,000-square-foot warehouse here on Wilco Road in January. The warehouse was formerly a mobile home production facility and sits on 10 acres.

Brown said he hopes the expansion will allow Littau to continue to innovate at a higher level and come up with machines that will cater to the upcoming labor shortage for farmers.

“We see another major hurdle for the farmers coming with some of the new laws that are in place,” Brown said. “Ten years ago, machines were just for clean up after crops had been picked. Now you have farmers who are picking 100 percent of their berries with a machine.”

Brown said Littau is working with individual customers on a prototype basis to develop machines that will meet their needs given recent labor shortages.

Littau builds approximately 60 harvesting machines a year. Brown said when assembly shared the same space as all the other departments, production was cramped and he had to turn away customers because the company did not have the space or manpower to take on more projects.

Brown said the assembly facility is still early in its development and is currently more of a crude assembly line. He would like to see it become the storage facility with racks and parts staged to be convenient as well as the new trucking facility.

This most recent facility is not the first big step toward expansion Littau has made since it was founded in Eugene Littau’s garage 50 years ago.

Littau bought his first industrial facility after his neighbors suggested he move the harvesting equipment he lined up down the street to a separate location. Since then, Brown said the company has experienced continuous growth and moved to and purchased several pieces of property as it has expanded.

In 2000, Littau sold the company to one of his employees, Norman Johnson, who had been working at the company since 1987.

Since buying Littau, Johnson has purchased three buildings.

“Norman has an exceptional vision of where the company needs to go to stay ahead,” Brown said. “Whatever it takes to keep ahead of the competition.”

NEWBERG, Ore. — Oregon is known for its specialized agricultural production, but Jim and Bonnie Kiser may occupy the state’s narrowest market niche.

Their entire crop this year, seeded in February and March, consisted of 990 milkweed plants. By mid-June, about 800 survived to be given away and planted in yards, parks or gardens.

The plants, Asclepias speciosa, or showy milkweed, are intended as forage for a migratory insect: the monarch butterfly.

The brightly colored monarch has become something of a poster-bug in the debate over pesticide and herbicide use, agriculture’s impact on wildlife habitat, and the role of voluntary conservation efforts in staving off potential regulatory or legal action.

The Kisers are among a cadre of people who have taken it upon themselves to aid monarchs. They’ve been at it since 1998, when they dug up and rescued milkweed plants from a Costco store construction site in Eugene, Ore. They’ve also rescued plants from construction at a Tektronix electronics plant in the Portland area, and at a highway interchange near Rickreall. They have a couple dozen milkweed plants growing in their yard, in addition to the hundreds of seedlings growing in plastic tubes. Last year, they planted 300 milkweed plants at Champoeg State Park.

“This is an amateur operation, but it’s effective,” said Jim Kiser, a semi-retired consulting engineer.

The monarch population has steeply declined; one estimate puts the population loss at 90 percent over the past two decades, although they bounced back this year.

Critics say farming practices, especially in the Midwest, have killed off milkweed, the only plant on which butterfly larvae feed. In March 2016, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect monarchs under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The two groups blamed planting of genetically modified corn and soy for loss of milkweed in the Midwest. They said farmers spraying Roundup, Monsanto’s trademark herbicide, kill milkweed while leaving “Roundup Ready” corn and soy unscathed.

The groups asked USFWS in 2014 to list monarchs as “threatened” under the ESA, but the agency has not taken action. The March 2016 lawsuit asks a court to set a deadline for a decision by Fish and Wildlife. George Kimbrell, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety, said settlement negotiations are underway.

In the meantime, USFWS encourages voluntary milkweed plantings, saying that every backyard can become an “oasis” for the butterflies and other pollinators. The agency urges schools, community groups, businesses and state and local governments to plant milkweed on public and private land and in rights of way.

“Monarch declines are symptomatic of environmental problems that also pose risks to food production, the spectacular natural places that help define our national identity, and our own health,” USFWS says on its website.

Monarchs are a compelling story. They migrate south from Canada to Mexico in the fall and head the other way in the spring, going through several generations on the way. The monarch’s primary flyway covers the Midwestern U.S., including the corn belt, but a subset migrates each fall from Canada across the Pacific Northwest to Southern California, reversing direction in the spring.

The notion of helping monarchs by planting milkweed resonates with many people. A group called Monarch Watch advocates a “monarch highway” of milkweed plantings along Interstate 35, which runs from Duluth, Minn., south to Laredo, Texas.

But Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety attorney, said nothing short of mandatory protection under the Endangered Species Act can help monarchs at this point.

The group applauds voluntary planting efforts, “But it’s not nearly sufficient to save them, unfortunately,” he said by email.

Still, the Kisers and others keep on. Jim Kiser traces his fondness for monarchs to his boyhood in Oklahoma and vivid memories of their twice-annual migrations.

“Collectively,” he said, “we can make quite a difference.”

MURPHY, Ore. (AP) — They say good fences make good neighbors. Then there’s the fences that enclose the growing number of Josephine County’s marijuana grow sites.

There are a lot of them. And they are often ugly, especially when topped by a couple feet of plastic.

Among those who are unhappy with the proliferation of Visqueen view blockers is Chris Locke, a Murphy landscape nursery owner who endures the sight of a neighbor’s fenced marijuana grow.

Locke, co-owner of Murphy Country Nursery, says the fences are ruining Josephine County’s rural landscape. They’re tall and typically made of wood, or wood topped with plastic. Many are easy to spot.

“There are so many people who are unbelievably unhappy over the fences,” said Locke, who has erected a sign that says, “That’s not ours,” with an arrow pointing at the marijuana grow next to her business, located just south of the Applegate River and within plain view of traffic on Williams Highway.

“I think the laws should be changed,” Locke said. “Whoever made the laws that (a grow) had to be covered up, it’s ridiculous.”

Last year, the fence next door to Locke’s business was an ugly black plastic barrier. This year, it’s been upgraded to an ugly black plastic barrier adorned with brightly painted artsy fish, turtles and dragonflies. It looks to be about 12 tall or higher.

The artwork could be described as having a psychedelic Northwest tribal motif. A local artist did the work, according to a man tending the property. He asked not to be named.

“We have the nicest fence in the valley,” he said at the site. “We did this to make everybody happy.”

Locke says the fence, backed by chain link, is better than it was, but believes she lost business last year when would-be customers saw the fence and thought it was her marijuana grow.

Her sign disclaiming ownership of the grow went up about a month ago. Since then, people stop about once a day to say they’ve stayed away because they thought the grow was hers, she said.

“I realized last year, when they became real obvious, boy, it’s really slowed down here,” she said. “I passed it off.”

The number of fences in the county has increased as the use of medical marijuana and the number of medical marijuana grow sites increased since 1998, the year Oregon voters approved the use of pot as a medicine.

In January, Josephine County had more than 2,700 medical marijuana grow sites, up nearly 300 from the previous year. The county also had nearly 6,500 medical marijuana patients, up about 1,300 from a year earlier.

This year, following voter approval of recreational marijuana, the state has approved 11 grow sites in Josephine County to provide marijuana to retail outlets. Rules for the recreational program mandate that grows be shielded from public view, with one option to accomplish that being the construction of an 8-foot fence.

However, a fence isn’t required, said Mark Pettinger, a spokesman for the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, regulators of the new recreational market.

“They just need to make sure it’s obscured from the eyes of the public,” he says. “As long as they can prevent public access and obscure it from public view, they don’t necessarily need an 8-foot fence.”

Exactly why marijuana in the field should be shielded from public view isn’t something Pettinger or his counterpart with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, Jonathan Modie, is able to answer definitively. Pettinger said it goes back to the intent of lawmakers and program founders.

Rep. Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass, could only guess how the idea for shielding pot from public view came to be. He was a member of a joint legislative committee overseeing implementation of recreational marijuana.

“Everybody knows what’s behind the screen,” he said. “That’s crazy.”

Josephine County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Cherryl Walker, herself a medical marijuana grower, also didn’t know the origin of the rule to shield pot from view.

“I don’t understand why it has to be,” she said. “You know what’s behind it (a fence). You’re not concealing it. The complaint we’ve had is they’re detrimental to property values.”

Walker, who said she fields complaints daily about grow sites — on a range of issues, not just fences — says the plastic fences get holes in them, rip and blow with the wind.

“It does look pretty shabby,” she said. “I find it to be a very unsightly aspect of the industry.”

Some growers, in an apparent effort to avoid county permit fees, build solid wood fences up to 7 feet tall, the limit at which a fence may be built without a permit in the county, and then add an additional foot or two of plastic to shield grows, Walker surmised.

The county is considering allowing 8-foot-high fences without the need for a permit. At a recent town hall meeting in Williams, pot industry proponents suggested the use of wire fences, and one person said that tall solid fences inhibit the migration of wildlife.

COOS COUNTY — Oregon State University has announced students who have earned honors for spring term 2016. To be included on the honor roll list, students must have carried at least 12 graded hours of course work.

BANDON – The Bureau of Land Management is offering Junior Explorer children’s programs this summer at the New River Nature Center. The programs run from 1 to 2 p.m. every Saturday from June 18 to Aug. 20.

HERMISTON, Ore. — Two of the Northwest’s largest biomass and crop residue companies are joining forces.

Pacific Ag, of Hermiston, announced Thursday it has acquired Calagri after nearly two decades working side by side in the industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Pacific Ag CEO Bill Levy said it will help provide better service for growers and a more reliable stream of products for different markets.

“I think it says great things about the future of Pacific Ag and our markets,” Levy said. “There’s a lot of great opportunities out there, and we felt we could meet those opportunities better together than we could separately.”

Pacific Ag is the nation’s largest harvester of crop residue and forage — such as corn stover and wheat straw — used to make things like animal feed or tree-free paper products. Composted wheat straw is also what’s predominately used to grow commercial mushrooms for grocery stores.

But perhaps one of the biggest future markets, Levy said, is plant material as a feedstock for biofuel and biochemicals.

“We believe that’s going to be a significant part of our future,” Levy said.

Based in Ellensburg, Washington, Calagri has collaborated and even shared equipment in the past with Pacific Ag, Levy said. Now, they’ll be able to continue that work seamlessly under a single operation.

Calagri’s co-owner, Kerry Calaway, is joining Pacific Ag’s leadership team and said it is an exciting time to be joining forces.

“New markets for forage and crop residue are growing across the region and the country, and farmers are increasingly looking for ways to sustainable generate additional income per acre,” Calaway said in a statement. “Together, we will create more opportunities for farmers while providing better service to our customers.”

Levy said Pacific Ag will retain Calagri’s employees, and as a result of the transaction the company will now harvest more than 300,000 tons of forage every year across Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

“This is a significant addition for us,” Levy said. “It’s exciting, truly, to be working with them and to be one company.”

Growers interested in learning more about generating income off crop residue can contact Pacific Ag at 1-844-RESIDUE.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Oregon wildlife officials have confirmed the first wolf killing in Jackson County since reintroduced wolves spread to southern Oregon.

The Herald and News reports that the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says a wolf killed one goat and one sheep between June 9 and June 12 in the Grizzly Peak area outside Ashland. The agency also suspects a wolf injured a goat and killed another goat during that time, but vultures had eaten away at the animals’ carcass.

The department’s Mark Vargas says there will likely be more incidents between wolves and livestock as wolf populations continue to grow.

The wolf blamed for the recent livestock killings is originally from northeast Oregon and has also been tied to the attack that left a Klamath County cow injured in February.

NYSSA, Ore. — Onion thrips were found in commercial fields in the Treasure Valley region in late-April this year, much earlier than normal.

Thrips are a vector for the iris yellow spot virus, which can severely reduce onion yields. The virus was detected in onion plants the last week of May and researchers said they were likely infected in mid-May.

Onion growers in this area historically haven’t been concerned about thrips until about Memorial Day and the virus in past seasons has made its initial appearance in July or early August, said Oregon State University Cropping Systems Extension Agent Stuart Reitz.

The virus was detected the first week of June last year, which was an extremely early appearance, he said.

“They’re just coming earlier every year,” Reitz said, a development he contributed to the recent warmer than normal winters and early springs. “I think more of their populations survived over the winter so they were out spreading the virus around earlier than we’ve seen in past years.”

There are no good biological methods for controlling onion thrips in the Treasure Valley area of Southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon, which produces about 25 percent of the nation’s fresh bulb onion supply.

The only effective way to control them is by spraying.

With their earlier appearances, that means growers have to spray more to control them.

“If growers are having to spray another month of the season, that’s another huge cost for them,” Reitz said.

Thrips, and the virus they transmit to onion plants, will devastate an onion field if not controlled and not spraying is not an option, said Oregon farmer Bruce Corn.

“Sometimes you have to close your eyes to the cost because you won’t have a crop if the virus gets in early and you don’t spray for it,” he said. “As a grower, if you expect to have a crop, you have to be very vigilant and proactive on it.”

Spraying for thrips costs between $20 and $100 an acre, depending on what chemical is used, according to Corn and Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.

Because there are a limited number of chemicals available to growers that effectively control thrips, rotating them is critical to avoid the insects building up resistance to them, Corn said.

That means growers have to also use the more expensive chemicals and Skeen estimates the average cost of spraying is about $50 an acre.

“If you’re spraying eight times, that’s a lot of money,” he said. But, he added, “You won’t have a crop if you don’t.”

To try to find a solution to the thrips problem, OSU researchers in Ontario last year started a field trial with some experimental onion varieties to see if they offer some resistance to thrips and the iris yellow spot virus.

Some of the varieties showed promise, Reitz said, but it will take several years to test them some more, then isolate the beneficial traits and breed them into commercially accepted varieties.

ENTERPRISE, Ore. — When making decisions about the future of the family farm worries about taxes and values loom large. Nonprofits and agencies throughout the Northwest, such as Wallowa Land Trust, work with landowners to find ways to reduce income taxes while planning a lasting legacy.

Julia Lakes, the trust’s conservation director, told attendees at a May workshop in Enterprise that conservation easements are one way they can help landowners keep property in the family during estate planning.

“The land trust uses its experience to ‘ballpark’ what you want the end result to be and helps lay out the path before a lot of money is expended,” Lakes said.

Attorney Nancy Duhnkrack kicked off the workshop with an overview of how easements work.

“Conservation easements allow landowners to voluntarily restrict how land is used in the future to protect the property’s values,” Duhnkrack said.

She said conservation easements are becoming increasingly popular, not just to keep working farmland intact, but because tax incentives, recently made permanent by Congress, make them economically advantageous.

“The landowner still owns the property and retains the right to sell it, lease it, pass it on,” Duhnkrack said. “It is the job of the land trust or public agency to monitor and make sure the restrictions in the easement continue to be in place.”

Wallowa County’s economy is dependent on natural resources, primarily through agriculture, timber harvest and tourism. Tourism alone brought in $28 million in 2015, according to a Dean Runyan and Associates study. The stunning scenery attracts short-time visitors and the development of vacation homes that can cause farmland fragmentation and put the rural flavor of the county at risk.

The fear of losing farmland to development prompted the trust’s formation in 2004. It’s signature bumper sticker, “Keep it Rural!”, simply states its mission.

Woody Wolfe, a sixth-generation Wallowa County farmer, was the first to use the trust to create a 197-acre easement on his farm. Wolfe said his first easement has two zones; one is working farmland and the other is a riparian zone where cattle once grazed.

“In the ag zone I gave up the right to build except for agricultural structures, but the riparian restrictions are much greater,” Wolfe said.

Duhnkrack said what rights a landowner gives up and what he retains are entirely up to him.

Wolfe said soon after he purchased a tract of land from a neighbor he started talking to James Monteith, one of the founding board members of the trust, about entering into an easement agreement to help pay off the loan.

“The highest and best use is not running cows or growing crops, it’s what somebody out of the area is willing to pay for breathing the air, having no traffic and looking at the mountains,” Wolfe said.

In 2011, Lakes said, the trust paid Wolfe 70 percent of the easement’s value with grant money and the family donated the remainder.

For the second easement on 257 acres, Wolfe is taking advantage of a USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service grant that pays 50 percent of the land’s value. Lakes said the NRCS allows the landowner to donate up to 25 percent and the other 25 percent is coming from private foundations and the Nez Perce Tribe.

Director Kathleen Ackley said the second easement is an attractive project for the trust because it is adjacent to the first — creating a larger protected swath of land.

“It’s about landscape-scale connectivity,” Lakes said. “Protecting big chunks keep agriculture viable.”

Wolfe said not everyone understands the benefit of conservation easements.

“There is a little bit of value to neighbors when you don’t change the land as much as you could have,” Wolfe said. “As a neighbor may not agree with using a conservation easement, but you might rest at ease when there is less likelihood there will be something across your fence line that detracts from your serenity.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge Wednesday rejected Ryan Bundy’s demand to be released from custody so he can appear before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has been serving as his own lawyer since his January arrest during the armed occupation of an Oregon bird sanctuary. He’s also facing federal charges in Nevada for his role in an armed standoff with federal agents at this father’s ranch.

Bundy and lawyers for other defendants charged in both cases have said it’s improper to make them defend two cases at once in different states.

The Appeals Court plans to hear oral arguments Thursday in San Francisco, and Bundy wants to be there.

But U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown denied his request for transfer or release, saying it’s not her call and it should have been brought up sooner.

“I’m not a magician,” she said.

Bundy was attempting to have a different federal judge, Robert Jones, hear the matter Wednesday afternoon, but nothing was on the docket as the courthouse neared closing time.

Jones, to ease the load on Brown, has been hearing requests for pretrial release from the more than 20 defendants charged in connection with the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Brown’s denial came during a status hearing on the complex, high-profile case that began with a protest over the imprisonment of two Oregon ranchers convicted of setting fires. Much of the 2 ½-hour hearing was devoted to questions about pre-trial motions and discovery.

Twenty-six men and women were charged with conspiracy to impede officers of the United States after the 41-day standoff, and some of them were also charged with possessing a firearm in a federal facility.

Three men have pleaded guilty and a fourth, Jason Blomgren, was scheduled to so Thursday.

Trial for most the other 22 defendants is scheduled to start Sept. 7, though a few of the accused have waived their right to a speedy trial and likely won’t face a jury until 2017.

Marcus Mumford, the new attorney for occupation leader Ammon Bundy, suggested to Judge Brown during the hearing that his client might also waive his demand for a speedy trial.

Also Wednesday:

— Defendant Darryl Thorn of Marysville, Washington, arrived at court Wednesday with plans to accept a plea deal from prosecutors. Instead, he withdrew from the agreement and asked a judge for a new public defender. The judge, after a private meeting with the Thorn and the lawyer, confirmed an “irreparable breakdown” in the relationship and said Thorn would get new representation.

— Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight told the judge he expects prosecutors will take three or four weeks to present their case to the jury, meaning the trial will likely last well into October and perhaps November.

— Defendant Kenneth Medenbach, as he has repeatedly done, questioned Brown about whether she ever took an oath of office. She replied, “Mr. Medenbach, we’re not going to play these games.”

Among the old (and I do mean old) negatives that I found in my uncle's darkroom recently were a group from commencement exercises for the 1957 Bandon High School graduating class, of which I was a member.

LANGLOIS -- Local author Kandi J. Wyatt will read from her newest novel and help the audience imagine dragons in the Coquille Valley area at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 22, at the Langlois Public Library.

LANGLOIS — Ginger Pearson, from Coast Community Health Center, will be at the Langlois Public Library the third Wednesday of every month, from 3-6 p.m. She will be introducing individuals in Curry County to self-sufficiency programs. June is Men’s Health…

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Another Oregon standoff defendant has pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge.

Geoffrey Stanek pleaded guilty Tuesday, accepting a plea deal in which prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of firearm possession in a federal facility. The government plans to recommend a sentence of six months of home detention.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel said Stanek told authorities after his Feb. 11 arrest near Portland that he joined the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after learning about it from Facebook.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown asked Stanek to describe what he did. Stanek replied: “I was there, your Honor.”

Stanek is the third of the 26 defendants charged with conspiracy to plead guilty. A fourth is scheduled to do so Thursday.

A dairy farmers cooperative is accusing an Idaho cheese facility of violating a contract to take delivery of organic milk from an Oregon producer.

Select Milk Producers, the cooperative, has filed a lawsuit against Sorrento Lactalis, a major global dairy company, for breaching an agreement to buy organic milk from Cold Springs Dairy of Hermiston, Ore.

The complaint alleges that Sorrento’s milk procurement manager at its facility in Nampa, Idaho, in August 2015 committed to purchase 150,000 pounds of organic milk for five years at a price of $40 per hundredweight. The amount was later revised to 48,000 pounds a week.

By December 2015, however, Sorrento notified the co-op that it wouldn’t honor the deal because the price was no longer competitive and the demand for organic cheese had dropped, according to the complaint.

Select Milk has been able to sell the organic milk from Cold Springs Dairy at a lower price since then, but the cooperative has sustained damages of more than $160,000 that continue to accrue, the complaint said.

Sorrento Lactalis filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit that denies Select Milk’s claims, “particularly the allegation that it entered into any final, binding contract or agreement.”

The cheesemaker claims that Select Milk hasn’t identified any “signed writing” that would comprise an enforceable contract under Idaho law.

Sorrento has asked a federal judge to either throw out the lawsuit or order the cooperative to produce such a document.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A change of plea hearing has been scheduled for a man arrested following the Ammon Bundy-led occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon.

Jason Blomgren, 42, of Murphy, North Carolina, is set to appear in a federal courtroom in Portland on Thursday. He earlier pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States and possession of a firearm in a federal facility.

Blomgren was granted pre-trial release in March after his attorney argued that he needed to go back to North Carolina to help care for a son who has autism. Blomgren joined the occupation about a week in after reading about it online.

Court records show a federal judge approved spending for Blomgren’s transportation from North Carolina ahead of Thursday’s hearing.

More than two dozen occupiers were arrested after the 41-day standoff that ended Feb. 11. Two of them — Corey Lequieu and Eric Lee Flores — have already accepted deals in which they pleaded guilty to conspiracy in exchange for the dismissal of the firearm charge.

Prosecutors have recommended a 2½-year prison sentence for Lequieu, who has a prior felony, and six months of home detention for Flores, a first-time offender.

Bundy and his remaining co-defendants are scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for a status hearing in their case.

The trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Sept. 7, but U.S. District Court Judge Anna J. Brown on Monday granted a motion for three men to be tried later. They are Sean Anderson of Riggins, Idaho; Jake Ryan of Plains, Montana; and Jon Ritzheimer of Peoria, Arizona. All waived their right to a speedy trial, likely pushing their cases into 2017.

Brown’s order says she will wait until August to set a trial date for them and any other defendant who seeks to waive his or her right to a speedy resolution.

The armed takeover and ensuing standoff at the southeast Oregon bird sanctuary began Jan. 2 and included the fatal shooting by police of rancher and occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum during a traffic stop.

Bundy and his followers wanted the federal government to relinquish control of Western lands and free two Oregon ranchers imprisoned for setting fires. Those demands were not met.

It’s been a “very strange season,” but Oregon’s berries are doing quite well so far, crop consultant Tom Peerbolt said.

Record rain over the winter and unseasonable heat waves interspersed with stretches of cool days have posed some puzzles for Oregon growers as they harvest crops that have a combined annual farmgate value of nearly $200 million. Berries, like many other crops, are about two weeks earlier than usual due to the weather swings. In some cases, different types of berries are coming ready hard on the heels of other types.

“The earliness of everything has thrown everybody off center a bit,” Peerbolt said. “It’s hard on logistics when everything comes at once. It’s hard for growers and processors to handle everything, but as long as it stays cool they can hold in the field longer.”

Peerbolt is co-owner with his wife, Anna, of Peerbolt Crop Management in Portland. The company consults on strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, primarily in Oregon but some in Washington as well.

As strawberry harvest wraps up, harvest of Duke, Bluecrop and Draper blueberries is underway and growers are about 10 days into raspberry harvest, Peerbolt said.

He said the traditional start of harvest for Marion blackberries, still Oregon’s premier type 60 years after it was introduced, has always been the day after the Fourth of July holiday. This year, he expects harvest to begin two weeks earlier. Harvest of Black Diamond and Columbia Star blackberries, thornless cultivars that may gradually replace Marions, will begin sooner still.

Quality is holding up, however.

“Boy there’s beautiful berries out there,” Peerbolt said. “The quality is very good.”

The harvest was early last year also, but the difference this year is “lots of moisture” through the winter and spring and cooler periods instead of an extended hot spell, he said.

“Very good quality and very good size – mainly in blueberries but in caneberries as well,” Peerbolt said. “On canes, it will not be a bumper crop, but it will be a good crop.”

Pest pressure, as it has for the past six years, comes primarily from Spotted Wing Drosophila, a tiny fly that saws into ripening berries and lays its eggs inside. The larvae feed on the berries, causing them to collapse in a gooey mess.

“Growers, unfortunately, have gotten very familiar with it” and spray to control it, Peerbolt said.

Oregon ranks first nationally in blackberry production, third in raspberries and strawberries and fourth in blueberries and cranberries.

Pendleton Grain Growers, the local farmers’ cooperative that dissolved earlier this year, has reached an agreement to sell the assets of its grain division to United Grain Corporation, based in Vancouver, Washington.

A deal has been in the works for months between the two companies, and includes all of PGG’s upcountry elevators, terminals and grain piles, along with all remaining inventory and contracts. Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the agreement “includes the promise of future investment in the facilities,” according to a release issued Tuesday.

“The PGG Board of Directors has been seeking a buyer for the cooperative’s grain assets that would serve as a strong partner for our agricultural community,” said Tim Hawkins, board chairman. “We believe UGC is that partner and will provide the best possible outcome for members, our employees and the community.”

According to the release, UGC will be opening local offices and retaining a majority of PGG employees. A spokeswoman for PGG said their goal is to ensure facilities are up and running during next month’s harvest.

Founded in 1929, members of PGG voted to dissolve the co-op in May. That comes after years of financial struggles where the co-op had overstated its earnings by millions of dollars, and become entrenched in red ink.

The members of two Oregon farm cooperatives, Wilco and Hazelnut Growers of Oregon, have overwhelmingly voted to merge their operations.

The combination of Wilco, which focuses on farm supplies and fuel, with HGO, which processes and markets hazelnuts, is planned to be complete by Aug. 1.

A major result of the merger is the expected relocation of HGO’s facility in Cornelius to a new plant before the 2018 harvest that’s more centrally located in the Willamette Valley, the nation’s major hazelnut-growing region.

Construction of the HGO’s new processing plant will be made smoother due to the financial stability provided by Wilco, which generates about $220 million in annual revenues through its 17 farm stores, seven agronomy centers and bulk fuel sales service.

Together the two cooperatives will have about 900 employees, though some positions may be cut due to redundancies when a portion of HGO’s office functions are moved to Wilco’s headquarters in Mt. Angel.

Doug Hoffman, Wilco’s current CEO, would remain as chief of the merged cooperative while HGO’s CEO, Jeff Fox, will head its hazelnut division.

Farmers will earn equity and dividends in the combined cooperative based on their purchases of farm supplies as well as their hazelnut deliveries, though the pools will remain separate.

Among Wilco’s members, 79 percent voted for the merger while 99 percent of HGO’s membership’s supported it.