Oregon Cranberry Growers Association
Feed aggregator
Cranberry Festival planning in full swing
Bullards Beach summer programs underway
Oregon cherry orchard donates tons of fruit to the needy
A combination of old friendships and new technology resulted this summer in about 80,000 pounds of fresh cherries being distributed to food banks that help hungry Oregonians.
John Burt, executive director of Farmers Ending Hunger, said he approached prominent orchardist Ken Bailey a couple times in the past and said, “Ken, we need to talk about cherries.”
Farmers Ending Hunger is a non-profit that lines up donations of fruit, vegetables and meat from Oregon farmers and ranchers — 4 million pounds last year. Burt, a retired OSU Extension supervisor in the Mid Willamette Valley, works his connections to reach producers. The donations flow through Oregon Food Bank, which distributes to local food banks that give food boxes to needy families.
Burt said it wasn’t a hard sell with Bailey, part of the multi-generational family that operates Orchard View Farms in The Dalles. “Great operation, great farm, great family,” Burt said. “He already knew what he wanted to do.”
Orchard View is providing about 14 1,000-pound totes per week, about 55,000 pounds through mid-July. The original target was 100,000 pounds, but Burt said the donation will probably reach 80,000 pounds.
The donated dark cherries are culls that the commercial market doesn’t want because they are perhaps under-sized, off color, or slightly bruised. Burt said the cherries are fine. “The fruit is gorgeous,” he said. “What we’re getting is just beautiful.”
As it turned out, Orchard View put in a new optical scan sorting system over the winter that made the donation process even easier. The system essentially photographs each cherry 25 to 30 times, working at a rate of 1,000 cherries per second, and automatically routes each cherry to cull or market totes. The system practically eliminates hand-sorting labor costs and results in a product of uniform quality, size and color.
But even the culls are good cherries, Bailey said.
“Generally it looks good,” he said. “It may be a little soft, but as long as it gets moved in a couple few days, it’s a very good product.”
Orchard View Farms and other producers can claim tax credits for the crop donations.
Farmers Ending Hunger bought pallets of plastic clamshell containers. Volunteers with Oregon Food Bank fill the containers with 4-pounds of cherries, and they’re included in food boxes given away by various organizations.
The value of the donation is undetermined at this point. Burt said he recently saw a similar 4-pound clamshell container of cherries on sale at a Costco store for $9.95.
Bailey said providing the cherries doesn’t slow down his processing line, as they flow into the same type of totes he uses otherwise and Oregon Food Bank handles the transport.
“This seems to be working out very well this year,” he said.
Dispute brewing over Oregon canal property
A dispute is brewing between an Oregon farmer and an irrigation district over the ownership of land underlying a canal.
Farmer Jim Gordon and his company, Kodiak Ventures, claimed ownership of the land beneath the canal through the “quiet title” process, under which property ownership uncertainties are resolved.
The previous owners of the property deeded all the land to Gordon, but mistakenly excluded the land beneath the irrigation canal and laterals, said Paul Sumner, his attorney.
After Gordon issued a public notice of the legal action, the North Unit Irrigation District — which operates the canal — filed a motion to intervene in the case.
The irrigation district claims to actually own the land beneath the canal, which it has operated since 1948, and has requested a state judge to reject Gordon’s claim.
Capital Press was unable to reach the NUID’s manager, Mike Britton, or its attorney, Alan Stewart, for comment as of press time.
Sumner said the implications of the NUID’s claim are “very troubling” because it would effectively mean that irrigation districts own the land beneath canals.
“If this argument is correct, it would be correct for every canal,” he said.
Sumner said the irrigation district simply has the right to operate the canal, but Gordon should have the right to own the underlying property.
Otherwise, he and other farmers could face land use restrictions based on parcel size or be denied access across property owned by irrigation districts, Sumner said.
It’s likely that NUID wants ownership of the property underlying the canal to build hydroelectric facilities without having to buy the land, he said.
Fire destroys building, antique farm equipment near Willamette Valley town
AMITY, Ore. (AP) — A fire has destroyed a building near Amity in Western Oregon.
John Stock with Amity Fire told KOIN the building housed a machine shop and antique farm equipment such as tractors and cars inside.
Fifty firefighters were battling the Wednesday morning blaze at one point. The building and its contents were destroyed. No one was injured.
Ammon Bundy returning to downtown Portland jail
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Ammon and Ryan Bundy will be reunited at a downtown Portland jail.
The men who are awaiting trial on charges related to the armed occupation of an Oregon bird sanctuary were recently separated, with Ammon Bundy shipped to a jail in outer northeast Portland.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones granted Ryan Bundy’s request to have them housed in the same jail as they prepare their legal defense ahead of the September trial.
Though jail officials prefer to have co-defendants separated, the judge said this is “an exceptional case and an exceptional relationship.”
Also Monday, the judge allowed standoff defendant Jason Patrick to be released from custody before trial.
State urges dismissal of county’s timber management lawsuit
ALBANY, Ore. — The State of Oregon is urging the dismissal of a lawsuit that alleges state forest management prioritizes environmental concerns to the detriment of logging.
Earlier this year, Linn County filed a complaint against Oregon for allegedly depriving multiple counties of more than $1.4 billion due to a forestry rule that emphasizes wildlife, water quality and recreation over timber harvest.
During oral arguments Monday in Albany, attorneys for Oregon said the case should be thrown out because the forests are meant to be managed for the greatest permanent value to the state, not to the counties.
This “greatest permanent value” is allowed to include many factors beyond timber production under laws that allowed counties to donate their burned and logged forests to the state government, said Sarah Weston, an attorney for the state.
“The statute does not require revenue maximization,” she said. “The statutes have always provided for multiple values and multiple uses.”
Counties acquired these forest lands by foreclosing on property tax liens during the Great Depression but turned them over to state ownership in exchange for a portion of future logging revenues.
Oregon’s attorneys claim that Linn County cannot sue the state to receive compensation for breach of contract, and that the county’s challenge to the “greatest permanent value” rule can only be heard by the Oregon Court of Appeals, rather than in a county court.
Because the lawsuit seeks to recover damages for insufficient logging in the future, it clearly intends to alter the meaning of “greatest permanent value,” said Scott Kaplan, another attorney for the state.
Either the state changes its definition or it’s potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars, he said.
“This is absolutely a challenge of state policies of forest management,” Kaplan said.
Linn County argued that contracts between the counties and the state government are enforceable.
“The counties gave up assets in exchange for promises,” said John DiLorenzo, attorney for Linn County.
Counties would not have donated vast tracts of land if they’d known the state would change the terms of the deal at will, he said.
“We believe that’s precisely what the state has done in this case,” DiLorenzo said. “Counties must have a way to enforce their bargains.”
More than 650,000 acres in Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Douglas, Josephine, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk, Tillamook, and Washington counties were given to Oregon based on “promises and assurances” on which the state government has since fallen short, the lawsuit claims.
The law that lays out Oregon’s forest management obligations was written when the United States was preparing to enter World War II and must be understood in that context, DiLorenzo said.
At the time, the greatest value of the land was to produce a large amount of timber for the war effort, rather than to preserve wildlife habitat or aesthetic beauty, DiLorenzo said.
Legal precedents also indicate that Oregon was obligated to maximize revenue from those lands, he said.
Several environmental and fishing organizations claim this interpretation is erroneous.
The optimum management of state forests was bound to be contentious and so that question was left to the discretion of the Oregon Department of Forestry, said Ralph Bloemers, an attorney representing the groups.
“It’s not up to the county, or the timber industry, or the conservation community, what that should be,” he said.
There’s also nothing in the law stating that revenues take priority over other uses, Bloemers said. “It continues to be a huge gaping hole in their complaint.”
Linn County also argues the lawsuit should be certified as a class action, which would allow other counties to participate in the litigation.
There are numerous potential plaintiffs with common legal arguments that would be more efficiently resolved as part of a single case, Linn County claims.
The issue of class certification will be heard at another hearing that’s scheduled for Aug. 17 in Albany.