BEND, Ore. (AP) — A Canadian renewable energy company is planning to create a solar farm in Oregon.

The Bend Bulletin reports that Saturn Power Corp. of New Hamburg, Ontario, submitted a permit application to Deschutes County in November for a nearly 10-megawatt facility east of Redmond.

The plant could potentially generate enough power for about 1,500 homes a year.

County planners have requested more information from Saturn Corp. before they can consider the application complete. The company is expected to submit additions by early January.

Klamath Falls-based environmental consultant Andrea Rabe says Saturn Corp. has several renewable energy facilities in Canada, the United States and Turkey.

The application says the land was developed for agriculture but not productive because of “marginal soils.”

Two similar solar farms have been approved east of Bend.

TIMBERLINE LODGE, Ore. – Making her way on cross-country skis to take a snowpack reading near this historic lodge on Mount Hood, hydrologist Julie Koeberle stopped to admire the sight of big firs bent silent with weight.

“It’s so awesome to see the snow hanging on the trees,” she said. “We sure didn’t see that last year.”

Irrigators, wildlife managers, hydro-power operators and others throughout the Pacific Northwest and Northern California are expressing similar relief. A series of pounding December storms brought unrelenting torrents of rain to the coasts and valleys and, in the mountains, snow at last.

While skiers and snowboarders celebrate abundant snow for its

recreational aspects, it is the snowpack’s stored water that will help irrigate crops, cool salmon and spin turbines in the summer months to come.

“Snowpack is the lifeblood of the West,” said Koeberle, who works with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Portland. “This is such a relief from last year.”

As of Dec. 29, nearly 7 feet of snow had accumulated at Timberline Lodge, elevation 5,960 feet, and it contained 21.5 inches of water, Koeberle said. The water content now is greater than the 20 inches measured at the peak annual snowfall in April 2015. The past season’s Northwest snowpack was largely gone by May.

With three to four months of additional snowfall possible this season, the region may ease the grip of drought that’s stunted crops, killed fish and left forests and rangeland dry and vulnerable to fierce fires.

“This is a great way to start,” Koeberle said. “To be already better than last year is a little bit comforting.”

The NRCS maintains 730 SNOTEL monitoring sites in 11 states, 82 of them in Oregon, that electronically report snowfall and water content information. The Oregon sites as of the end of December were reporting water levels that were 150 percent of normal for that date.

Last year, nearly half of Oregon’s long-term monitoring sites measured the lowest snowpack level on record.

Koeberle led a news media tour Dec. 29 of the SNOTEL site near Timberline, and demonstrated how hydrologists take samples of the snow and weigh it to measure water content. The same information is available electronically, but the annual media event gives hydrologists an opportunity to discuss the water supply outlook.

Because of the December snow, the water supply in most of the state is likely to improve this coming year. But Koeberle said it’s too early to declare the drought over.

Some complications remain. The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said the rest of the season will be warmer than normal in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.

Koeberle said the region may have “dodged the El Niño bullet” for now.

“Normally, during most El Niños, it would be warm and dry and we just would not have gotten any precipitation at all,” she said by email. “I am concerned that January could bring us warm and dry conditions based on the CPC forecast.”

The Oregon Farm Bureau has made several staffing changes, including hiring two new employees, after a longtime lobbyist for the group left for another organization.

Katie Fast, formerly the Farm Bureau’s vice president of public policy, took a job as the executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter, an agribusiness industry group, earlier this year.

The Farm Bureau has since promoted Jenny Dresler from government affairs associate to director of state public policy, which is a new position, said Anne Marie Moss, OFB’s communications director.

“It’s more a restructuring than a direct replacement,” Moss said.

Dresler joined the Farm Bureau a year ago after previously working for Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, in legislative and campaign operations. She holds a master’s degree from Oregon State University in environmental science.

Stepping into the role of government affairs associate is Tyler Alexander, who recently graduated from Lewis and Clark Law School and has previously worked for OFB as a law clerk.

Alexander and Dresler will join Mary Anne Nash, who will serve as public policy counsel, in representing the Farm Bureau’s interests at the Oregon Legislature.

The group’s other new hire is Jacon Taylor, who will be traveling to county Farm Bureau organizations level to assist volunteers as a regional coordinator and field representative.

PRINEVILLE, Ore. (AP) — The two single-engine air tankers stationed for the first time this summer in Prineville ended up dropping a large amount of fire retardant around Oregon.

The Bulletin of Bend reports that according to Oregon Department of Forestry data, the two firefighting planes dropped nearly a quarter of all the retardant used to fight fires around the state in 2015.

The planes were part of a $5 million program to increase Oregon’s firefighting fleet. In previous fire seasons, the department used three or four large takers. This year the state used six small tankers and only one large airliner.

The Prineville planes provided air support on about two dozen fires, flying about 250 times this year. Oregon Department of Forestry spokeswoman Christie Shay says they will likely be back next season at Prineville.

Selina Heppell, a conservation biologist, is the new head of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University.

Heppell is the first woman to head the department in its 80-year history. The department is the largest within the College of Agricultural Sciences, with nearly 800 students, and among the largest natural sciences department on campus.

Heppell replaces Dan Edge, who earlier in 2015 was appointed the college’s associate dean. Heppell had been serving as interim department head since Edge’s appointment.

In a prepared statement, ag college Dean Dan Arp described Heppell as a distinguished researcher and teacher who had provided “terrific leadership” as interim head of the department.

Heppell has been on the OSU faculty since 2001. She has specialized in studying slow-growing species such as sturgeon, sea turtles, sharks and West Coast rockfish. Among other work, she has used computer models and simulations to study how fish respond to human impacts and climate change — and how they may respond to future climate change.

Heppell and her husband, Scott Heppell, teach a conservation biology course in Eastern Europe and have done fish research in the Caribbean.

EAGLE POINT, Ore. (AP) — The owner of a historic Oregon grist mill that burned in a holiday fire says rebuilding may be possible.

The Mail Tribune newspaper reports the landmark water-powered Butte Creek Mill was deemed a total loss after the Christmas morning fire.

Owner Bob Russell says his first impression is that rebuilding would not be possible. But when he took another look over the weekend, he changed his mind.

He says the new mill would be smaller and won’t produce as much flour, but it may be possible to open in some capacity.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Today in History

Today is Friday, Dec. 25, the 359th day of 2015. There are six days left in the year. This is Christmas Day.

ONTARIO, Ore. — A series of snowstorms over the Owyhee Basin has resulted in snowpack levels more than twice their normal amount for this time of year.

That has given farmers in Eastern Oregon who get their irrigation water from the Owyhee Reservoir a reason to be optimistic for the first time in several years.

The basin has experienced four straight years of reduced snowpack levels and the 1,800 farms that depend on the reservoir have had their annual water allotment slashed by two-thirds the past two years.

Water has stopped flowing through the Owyhee Irrigation District’s 400 miles of canals, laterals and ditches in August the past two years, two months earlier than normal.

But as of Dec. 24, snowpack in the basin was at 233 percent of normal for that date.

“I’m really pleased with what I’m seeing so far,” said dairyman and farmer Frank Ausman, a member of the Owyhee Irrigation District’s board of directors. “We’re sitting quite a bit better at this time than we were the last couple of years.”

But Ausman and other farmers said the snow needs to keep falling in order for growers to have an adequate water supply next season.

“It’s definitely ... a good start but it’s a little early to start counting our chickens,” Ausman said.

OID Manager Jay Chamberlin said the storms have laid down a lot of snow proportionally over the whole watershed, unlike last year when the sparse snow the basin received was spotty.

“Keep it coming. This feels good,” he said.

The reservoir provides water for 118,000 irrigated acres in Malheur County in southeastern Oregon and around Homedale and Marsing in southwestern Idaho.

Farmers in this area have had to alter their rotations and farming practices as a result of drastically reduced water supplies the last three years. A lot of farm ground has been left idle and growers have planted a lot more crops that require less water but also bring less income.

While farmers and water supply managers expressed optimism at the current snowpack situation in the basin, they also cautioned that it’s still early in the snow season and the reservoir needs a lot more water.

To guarantee a good water supply year, the reservoir needs about 450,000 acre-feet of storage water, Chamberlin said. It’s holding about 50,000 acre-feet right now.

“We’re going into 2016 in a lot better shape than we did the last three years,” Chamberlin said. “But we have a whole lot of room in an empty bucket. We can take whatever (is sent) us.”

Farmer Paul Skeen likened the current water situation to being early in a football game. While farmers are leading, there’s a lot of ballgame left, he said.

“Yes, things don’t look nearly as bleak as they did last year,” said Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association. “But we’re a long ways from the fourth quarter. We’re just finishing the first quarter of the game.”

PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — Eric Nelson knew it wouldn't be easy when he decided to go organic on his family's 900-acre wheat farm north of Pendleton.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Maybe it’s time to call crime-buster Elliot Nest to take down that pesky bird of prey “Owlcapone.”

A few blocks away from the state Capitol in Salem, the year is ending the way it began — with an aggressive owl going after people.

At least two attacks have been reported more than a mile north of a park where joggers were attacked in January, said Julie Curtis, spokeswoman for the Department of State Lands.

Dwight French said he was jogging from his office to a parking garage Monday when he felt a bump on the back of his head. He turned around and saw an owl fly into the trees and stare at him. As he crossed a street, the owl hit him again and then a third time.

“At the moment it was just really bizarre and kind of scary for a minute,” he told the Statesman Journal.

French sustained several little cuts. He said it looks like he “got a really violent haircut.”

The January attacks on several joggers got national attention, most of it humorous.

Inspired by a segment from MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Oregon’s capital city posted “angry owl” warning signs in the park where the owl was likely defending its nest against perceived threats. The Statesman Journal had an online naming contest, with “Owlcapone” getting the most votes. And, of course, there’s an Owl Attacks Facebook page.

David Craig, a biology professor and animal behavior specialist at Willamette University, said there’s no way of knowing if the owl that attacked French is the notorious Owlcapone establishing a new home or if it’s another barred owl.

He said this is the time of year when owls are courting and establishing their territory, which makes them aggressive. They lay eggs as early as February.

If an owl scratches you and it breaks the skin, Craig recommends monitoring the wound like you would a cat scratch.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Police say an Oregon man angry with his tax situation left a flock of seven chickens inside the state revenue office.

Police in Eugene said in a news release they responded to a report Wednesday afternoon of chickens left in the lobby of the Oregon Department of Revenue.

Police and an animal welfare officer rounded up the fowl, and they were taken to an animal shelter.

Officers gave 66-year-old Louis Adler, of Creswell, a trespass notice requiring him to stay away from the office or risk a citation.

The Register-Guard reports no people or animals were injured.

Adler couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

State agency spokesman Derrick Gasperini told the Guard the staff had prior dealings with Adler and he was “frustrated by the outcome.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An environmental group plans to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over delaying protections for the foothill yellow-legged frog.

The Center for Biological Diversity on Wednesday filed a notice of intent to sue; it says the federal government is two and half years late in deciding whether to list the frog under the Endangered Species Act.

The center petitioned to protect the frogs in 2012. Earlier this year, Fish and Wildlife made a positive finding on the petition — but hasn’t finished the status review or made a decision on the listing.

Federal officials declined to comment on pending litigation.

The frogs, which have yellow color under their legs, live in Oregon and California streams. Their population has declined due to logging, mining, livestock grazing, dams and other threats.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon county is looking for non-lethal ways to deter wolves after experiencing its first livestock kills in October.

The Herald and News reports that Klamath County will put together toolboxes of deterrents for landowners with a $6,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The county will also contribute $600 to the project.

The county will work with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to create the boxes.

Officials believe a wolf called OR-25 killed on calf and injured two more in the Fort Klamath area in late October and early November.

Klamath County commission chairman Tom Mallams says the $6,600 won’t be used to compensate the livestock owners. That money will come from the wolf depredation compensation fund.

PORTLAND — Hunger in Oregon is leveling off thanks in part to a growing collaboration with the state’s farmers and their donations of surplus fruit and produce, the Oregon Food Bank’s chief executive said,

That’s not to say the problem is solved. Food Bank CEO Susannah Morgan said 800,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington, one-in-five residents, go hungry at times.

“If this was a disease we would call it an epidemic,” Morgan said. “This is a crisis.”

But for now the hunger numbers don’t appear to be increasing, Morgan said in speech this month to the Oregon Board of Agriculture. The board toured the Food Bank’s operations in Portland and helped pack some food for distribution.

In her speech to the board and in a followup interview, Morgan said Oregon’s farmers have greatly increased their contributions of fresh fruit and produce. The Oregon Food Bank and others nationally primarily received and distributed canned and boxed food in the past, but the state organization set a goal of increasing vegetable and fruit distribution by 50 percent over multiple years.

Instead, with farmers pouring in an additional 2 million pounds of potatoes, carrots, onions, pears, apples and other crops, the Food Bank blew that goal out of the water in one year, Morgan said.

The Food Bank takes in produce that is surplus, blemished or otherwise not suitable for commercial markets. Food is distributed through a network of four bank branches and 17 independent regional food banks serving Oregon and Clark County, Washington.

While the food bank can’t afford to pay farmers much for food — or anything in many cases — state and federal legislation now encourage crop donation.

The 2014 Oregon Legislature passed a law giving farmers a 15 percent tax credit on the wholesale price of their donation. As part of a federal spending bill passed in mid-December, Congress permanently extended an enhanced tax deduction for charitable contributions of food by businesses.

Morgan said the possibility of no one in the region missing a meal is “doable in my lifetime.”

“It’s partly in our grasp because of our new and growing relationship with farmers,” she said.

In her talk to the ag board, Morgan said low income is the single biggest reason people ask for food assistance. About 72 percent of recipients live at or below the federal poverty line. More than a third of them are retired or disabled.

“Hunger hurts the most vulnerable,” Morgan told the ag board. She said 52 percent of recipient households have children, 20 percent are elderly and 20 percent have a veteran in the household makeup.

“This is the population that we continue to try and serve,” Morgan said. “Hunger remains a steady, persistent and excruciating large problem in our state and in our region.”

A lawsuit over the effect of water reservoirs on the threatened Oregon spotted frog could result in irrigation disruptions for more than 4,600 farmers.

Growers in two Central Oregon irrigation districts are nervously watching the case, which pits the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency operating the Crane Prairie and Wickiup reservoirs.

The lawsuit alleges the reservoirs have altered natural water flows in the Deschutes River to the point of interfering with the frog’s life cycle. While the complaint asks a federal judge for injunctive relief, it doesn’t specify what form such an order may take.

“We’re just sort of waiting to see what their next move is,” said Shon Rae, communications manager for the Central Oregon Irrigation District, which depends on water from the Wickiup Reservoir.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the frog’s egg masses are flushed out when the water levels in the reservoirs rise rapidly.

When water is later released from the reservoirs for irrigation, other egg masses along their margins are dried up, the complaint alleges.

River flows are reduced as water accumulates in the reservoirs, stranding adult and juvenile frogs on dry land and isolating their populations, resulting in in-breeding, the group claims.

The Center for Biological Diversity contends that the federal government has violated the Endangered Species Act by operating the reservoirs in a harmful manner before it completes a required consultation about the effects on the frog.

An adverse ruling in the case could have a huge impact on nearly 1,000 farmers in the North Unit Irrigation District, which in dry years relies on the Wickiup Reservoir for nearly 100 percent of its water.

Even in years with healthy snowpack and precipitation levels, the district gets roughly half of its water from the reservoir.

“To return it to a natural hydrologic flow is difficult, at best, without harming local farmers and ranchers,” said Mike Britton, the district’s general manager. “How that would be accomplished, we really don’t know.”

The Central Oregon Irrigation District’s 3,650 growers use water from the Crane Prairie Reservoir to supplement their irrigation needs during the early and late parts of the season, depending on river flows.

Oregon spotted frogs have survived in the area even though the reservoirs were created nearly 100 years ago, Rae said. They’ve also developed a large population surrounding the Crane Prairie Reservoir.

“Essentially, we’ve created habitat for them,” she said.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the environmental group, acknowledged that the frog lives on the margins of both reservoirs and benefits from the stored water.

However, the reservoirs have to be managed with fewer major fluctuations, since quick buildups and releases of water are chaotic for the frogs, he said.

“They can still deliver water to the irrigators, they just need to do it in a more careful way,” Greenwald said. “They have to do things more gradually and at different times of the year.”

Such changes in management would inevitably hurt irrigators, said Mike Britton of the North Unit Irrigation District.

More water would be stored in the reservoir during irrigation season, reducing the amount diverted for agriculture, and more water would be allowed to pass through dams during the winter, decreasing storage levels, he said.

“It’s quite a conundrum,” he said, noting that lower river levels in summer would hurt threatened fish. “There are other species to be considered, not just the frog.”

Irrigators want to help the frog by replacing irrigation ditches with pipes, which saves water and makes them less dependent on the reservoirs, said Rae. More efficient irrigation practices will also help in this respect.

Although the irrigation districts aren’t named as defendants in this lawsuit, the Waterwatch of Oregon environmental group has said they’ll be named as defendants in another spotted frog case that will also include the Tumalo Irrigation District.

Such litigation threatens to distract irrigators’ focus and sap resources from such improvements, she said. “It would be great if they wouldn’t sue us so we could just complete the process.”

Farmers who don’t want to remove genetically engineered alfalfa crops in Oregon’s Jackson County must submit their field locations to attorneys representing biotech critics.

They will also have to harvest the alfalfa before it reaches 10 percent bloom, to reduce the cross-pollination risks, and monitor nearby roadways for volunteers.

These terms are part of a settlement deal resolving a lawsuit that challenged the county’s prohibition against genetically engineered crops, which voters passed last year.

On Dec. 22, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke approved the settlement, which allows biotech alfalfa growers to grow their crops for eight years despite the ban.

In exchange, the alfalfa growers who filed the lawsuit, Schulz Family Farms and James and Marilyn Frink, agree not to appeal an earlier ruling that held the ordinance doesn’t violate Oregon’s “right to farm” law. That statute disallows county governments from restricting common farming practices.

The plaintiffs also agreed to stop seeking $4.2 million in compensation for the removal of their alfalfa crops, which are “Roundup Ready” varieties resistant to glyphosate herbicides.

Other growers of genetically engineered alfalfa can “opt in” to the settlement by submitting sworn documents identifying where their crop are grown, either with satellite data or other geographic information, within 30 days of the deal’s approval.

The information would be submitted to attorneys representing biotech critics who intervened in the case and the data would be covered by an “attorneys eyes only” protective order.

Biotech proponents have opposed disclosure requirements, such as a bill proposed during the 2015 legislative session in Oregon, due to fears of vandalism.

In 2013, two fields of genetically engineered sugar beets were destroyed in Jackson County, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation called a crime of “economic sabotage.”

Ron Bjork, president of the Jackson County Farm Bureau, said some farmers may forgo submitting the sworn document and simply phase out their biotech alfalfa fields within the allotted time.

“I don’t know if they will give it to them or not. It’s up to every farmer to make their own decision,” he said.

Bjork noted that Jackson County doesn’t have dedicated agricultural experts or a laboratory to test whether crops are genetically modified organisms.

Before county authorities could even try to verify that a GMO crop is being grown, they’d likely first have to get a complaint and then obtain a search warrant, he said.

“The question is who is going to go out and enforce it,” Bjork said.

Devin Huseby, an attorney for Jackson County, said no decisions have been made about the enforcement about the county’s ordinance.

“It would be total speculation whether people are going to come forward or not,” Huseby said.

The ordinance is now in effect and biotech growers who don’t submit field information would be “flagrantly violating the law,” said George Kimbrell, attorney for the Center For Food Safety, a non-profit that intervened in the case to support the ban.

Kimbrell said the most important aspect of the settlement is that the “right to farm” ruling won’t be challenged, rather than whether farmers will follow the disclosure requirement.

“People don’t follow the law sometimes, but that’s at their own risk,” he said.

Shannon Armstrong, attorney for the plaintiffs, said the deal sought to protect farmers’ privacy as much as possible.

“We’re just thrilled other farmers of Roundup Ready alfalfa will be able to opt in to this settlement agreement,” she said.

It’s that time of year..time to look back and reflect and to look forward as well.  The good news, in my mind, is that the crop certainly wasn’t huge worldwide…it was more of a good, steady crop.  With the increase of usage, the inventory growth has slowed, if even reversed a tick…we will see with the 12/31 numbers out at the end of January.  The majority of the “oversupply” continues to be in concentrate, not whole frozen or finished goods.

Our mission continues to be selling our products over every inch of this planet…and I must say in my travels I have seen cranberries in many many places.  We do a good job, and that will continue and must improve.

Independent growers are hurting due to low prices here in WI.  The projected payments for the 2015 crop are not going to be high enough (still the base of $10 for one handler remains….but others with incentives could get to $15?16? ) for growers to return to profitability.  A few spot sales at harvest kicked the price up temporarily, and for those growers that capitalized on that phenomenon, congrats.  It was by no means widespread.  But it is an indication on what happens when the crop is short.

Have you heard the news about United Cranberry Co operative?  We will close down the co op in a few months when the all the revenues from the 2014 sales are collected and distributed.  All of the United growers have joined a newly formed co op, Cranberry Growers Co operative called “CranGrow”, with some members from the old Wisconsin Cranberry Coop.

CranGrow has exciting plans for the future, and you should check them out at crangrow.com.  I think that every Wisconsin grower should have at least a few acres in CranGrow.  The co op will return all of its profits to its grower/owners….unlike many of the handlers in WI.  Sure it takes a while to get up and going, but the early birds will be glad they took the risk on a new co op.

As far as my blog, I will keep going under blogunitedcranberry.com.

Finally, I’ve heard that last week was deposition week in Wisconsin for the lawsuit.  Many growers and handlers were deposed last week at The Mead in Wisconsin Rapids.  I’m not sure what all went down, but it seems like this is moving rapidly.  No predictions here.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone, and see you in the New Year!

 

 

 

 

Eric Nelson knew it wouldn’t be easy when he decided to go organic on his family’s 900-acre wheat farm north of Pendleton.

Nelson, a fourth-generation farmer, talked it over with his father — former state Sen. David Nelson — who wondered how they would control weeds without herbicide, or how they’d afford organic fertilizer and still turn a profit. But Nelson had faith it would work, and in 2008 Nelson Grade Organics harvested its first organic crop.

“I’m very comfortable with what we have done, what we’re doing and where we’re going,” Nelson said. “For me, I see no need to go back.”

Overall, the number of organic farms has declined in Oregon between 2007 and 2012, yet total organic acres nearly quadrupled over that time, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Organic sales also rose from $88 million to $194 million in Oregon, making up 4 percent of all farms sales statewide. Nationally, the organic food industry made $39 billion in 2015 — an 11 percent increase over the previous year.

Despite the demand, becoming an organic farm takes serious time and money. Fields cannot be sprayed with any prohibited chemicals for at least three years before they are certified organic. Without certification, products won’t fetch the same kind of premium price at the market, which can be as much as double or more depending on the commodity.

Nelson said he had help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture getting started, but even that didn’t help pay all the bills. Organic fertilizer costs up to twice as much as the conventional stuff, and managing weeds can become a real issue without being able to use Roundup.

In order to make it over the hump, Nelson said he had to get creative with his cropping systems. He uses spring grains such as mustard and barley to break up soil-borne diseases and replenish nutrients underground.

“We basically have to create our own nitrogen,” he said.

Wheat is still the big money-maker on the farm, but Nelson recently started selling organic mustard seed to Barhyte Specialty Foods in Pendleton as an additional source of revenue.

“Some years are tough, but we have made a profit. We’re still surviving,” he said.

A portion Nelson’s wheat goes to Hummingbird Wholesale, a company in Eugene that distributes dry organic goods to small independent grocery stores, restaurants and food processors.

General Manager Justin Freeman said most of the products they buy come from western Oregon, but there is a growing interest among Eastern Oregon farmers in going organic. The key hurdle, he said, is supporting growers during that three-year transitional phase in certification.

“It’s about finding solutions for people and getting risk out of the equation as much as possible,” Freeman said.

In the past, Hummingbird Wholesale has purchased rice, beans and cranberries at premium organic prices from farmers who have started the process of certification. The goal is to win over more organic farms to keep up with demand, Freeman said.

A similar initiative for wheat has also been launched by Ardent Mills, of Denver, which hopes to double U.S. organic wheat acres by 2019. Oregon Tilth, a nonprofit organization that helps certify local organic farms, has also signed on as a partner.

Chris Schreiner, executive director of Oregon Tilth, said the growing demand for organic products is being driven in part by a renewed interest in food and earth-friendly practices.

From a grower standpoint, Schreiner said there is a tremendous opportunity for going organic, but recognizes it doesn’t come without risk.

“Their challenge is figuring out a new management system and accessing those new markets,” Schreiner said. “We’re committed to supporting them and helping them seize that opportunity in the marketplace.”

One of Eastern Oregon’s largest irrigated organic growers, Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman, now has 7,800 acres in certified organic vegetables. General Manager Marty Myers said they hope to grow that total to 12,000 acres over the next two years.

Threemile Canyon Farms grows organic sweet peas, sweet corn, onions, carrots, potatoes and edamame, which are mostly sent to the farm’s own frozen foods plant in Pasco. Frozen products are sold primarily to Costco under the brand name Organic by Nature.

The farm also developed its first organic dairy earlier this year just east of Hermiston, with about 1,300 cows. Part of the requirement for an organic dairy is to let cows graze in pasture for at least 120 days out of the year.

Myers said Threemile Canyon first dipped its toes in organic farming in 2002, using fertilizer generated from the farm’s dairies. Without that in-house fertilizer source, Myers said they likely couldn’t make the organic operation work.

Organic vegetables yield about 75 percent versus conventional methods, though Myers said premium prices make up for the hit. Growing organic means going back in time about 20 year in terms of production practices, he said. Sometimes, the only way to manage weeds is to pull them by hand.

“There are a lot of farmers who have tried it and didn’t like it, for obvious reasons,” Myers said. “We feel we can be a low-cost producer. That gives us an advantage over a lot of other producers.”

On a much smaller scale, Gus Wahner grows organic produce on about one-third of an acre in Stanfield, including tomatoes, basil, cucumber and garlic.

Wahner has been farming on and off for 30 years at his home, which he’s named Way of Life Farms. Though not certified organic, he said the land hasn’t been sprayed since 1970. He raises produce from the greenhouse to the hoop house, and made $15,000 in profit last year.

Wahner, who serves on the Umatilla County Soil & Water Conservation District, is a longtime advocate of organic farming. He uses an aerobic system to brew his own compost “tea,” which he sprays along with a mix of fish, kelp, molasses and sea minerals to create healthy, organic soils.

“When people talk about organic, it needs to be biological,” he said. “The whole essence of organic is improvement in the soil.”

Wahner said he’s not an environmentalist, but growing organic requires being in tune with nature. Spraying chemicals kills off components in the ground, he said, but organic farming is about working with nature to grow what you need.

The food is also healthier, he said, because it absorbs a greater host micro-nutrients from the ground.

“I don’t do farming to make money, necessarily. I do it for people to experience great food and be healthy,” Wahner said.

Ten years after switching to organic, Nelson said they continue to make a living while preserving the legacy of their land.

“It’s a leap of faith on some levels,” he said. “It’s not without it’s challenges, but it can work.”

Many farmers in Oregon will have to provide employees with paid sick leave beginning on Jan. 1, but farm advocates say the new rules are too vague.

Farmers face uncertainty in determining how much to pay piece-rate workers, such as fruit pickers, who are compensated based on the amount they harvest, according to the Oregon Farm Bureau.

“We didn’t get the clarity we needed,” said Jenny Dresler, director of state public policy for OFB.

Oregon lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year requiring employers with 10 or more workers to provide paid sick leave and the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries recently completed regulations implementing the statute.

The rules say that piece-rate workers on leave must be compensated at the “regular rate of pay” previously established with the employer, or the minimum wage if no such rate was set.

The problem is that the regulations don’t specify how this “regular rate of pay” must be calculated, Dresler said.

For example, is it based on the weekly average of the employee’s piece-rate earnings before going on leave? Or the piece-rate earned by other workers who are harvesting crops while the employee is sick?

“We needed a clarification and we didn’t get it,” Dresler said. “We just don’t know.”

Each member of a rules advisory committee that helped BOLI interpret the statute had a different opinion of how the “regular rate of pay” should be set, she said.

It’s also ambiguous when such a rate has not been established, allowing farmers to pay workers the minimum wage when on leave, Dresler said.

While BOLI has said it will postpone penalizing employers as it educates them about the new rules, that won’t stop individual workers from filing lawsuits against their employers as permitted by the statute, she said.

Tim Bernasek, an attorney specializing in agricultural and labor issues, said he doesn’t “have a very good answer about how to practically implement this rule” but expects BOLI will help teach farmers how to achieve compliance.

Hopefully, legal aid organizations who have attorneys devoted to farmworker protection will also act reasonably as the rules come into effect, Bernasek said.

At this point, the best advice to growers is simply to try following the rules in good faith, Bernasek said. “I would encourage ag employers to roll up their sleeves and make their best effort to make this work.”

Charlie Burr, a spokesman for BOLI, said the agency will offer a series of low-cost seminars about paid sick leave in 2016 in which compliance experts will answer questions about the rules. Employers can also call BOLI’s hotline — 971-673-0824 — for answers.

However, the agency doesn’t plan any additional rulemaking on the subject, Burr said.

Aside from the confusion over piece-rate workers, Oregon Farm Bureau is disappointed that BOLI considers farmers and labor contractors “joint employers” under the law.

That means farmers and contractors will need to independently track the accumulation of workers’ sick leave hours, which OFB believes is redundant and complicated, since pickers often travel from farm to farm.

Also, the contractors’ workers will count toward a farmers’ employee count, so many growers who normally have fewer than 10 workers would have to comply with the paid sick leave regulations.

BOLI spokesman Burr said the joint liability provisions are guided by federal labor law.

The Oregon Farm Bureau hopes to ask lawmakers to fix the provisions during the 2016 legislative session, Dresler said. “We think the legislative intent did not come across in the rules.”

Despite these problems, OFB did get the agency to clarify two points about which it had concerns.

Employers who work with perishable crops will fall under “undue hardship” provisions under which workers must take sick leave in four-hour increments.

Without this provision, workers could take leave in one-hour increments, which would often hinder farmers in finding timely replacements.

Also, co-owner spouses are not considered employees under the rule, excluding them from the 10-employee threshold that mandates compliance with paid sick leave rules.