Taking a ride in a helicopter was on my bucket list, but the opportunity came a little unexpectedly.

ATLANTA (AP) — Grammy-nominated rapper Jeezy went from handing out meals to performing in front of a sold-out crowd in Atlanta.

For all intents and purposes, the fall sports season officially ended on the South Coast when North Bend lost to Scappoose on Saturday.

For all intents and purposes, the fall sports season officially ended on the South Coast when North Bend lost to Scappoose on Saturday.

JAMIESON, Ore. (AP) — For the first time in two decades, beef is Oregon’s No. 1 agricultural commodity.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture announced this summer that cattle and calves claimed the top spot in 2014, unseating greenhouse and nursery products. It was good news for ranchers who have been bolstered by strong demand and stronger prices for the last couple of years.

In 2014, the industry brought in about $922 million statewide — up 38 percent from 2013. Malheur County, in Eastern Oregon, was responsible for nearly $250 million.

“There have been some very strong cattle prices the last couple of years, and that is reflected in the value of production for cattle and calves,” said Kathryn Walker, special assistant to the director of the state agriculture department.

There are three primary components of the industry — feedlots, cow-calf operations and slaughterhouses, said Doug Maag, whose family has been ranching in the Jamieson area since the 1930s.

Six months ago, slaughterhouses were down and feedlots were losing a bit as the cost to grain cattle for slaughter was high.

“The cow-calf guy has been the strongest for the last four years,” said Maag, who has focused on the two family feedlots while other relatives have raised cattle. “Very seldom are all three (components of the industry) making money at the same time.”

Ranchers running cow-calf pairs have done well recently because there have been fewer animals on the market, Malheur County Cattlemen’s Association President Chris Christensen said.

Many ranchers reduced their herds in Texas after entering the third year of drought, he said.

“They liquidated whole herds and a lot of cows went to slaughter,” Christensen said.

When the product became more scarce, the demand increased, which was good news for cattle producers.

“These buyers were scrambling for the limited number of animals out there,” Christensen said. “There were all-time record high beef prices.”

In 2014, a calf right off a cow could bring in about $1,500, he said. This year, there are more calves on the market, so the price likely won’t be as good for sellers.

“It’s reduced this year. Next year, it will be lower again,” Christensen said.

So much is out of ranchers’ control, from the weather to the White House. Deanne Vallad, who with her husband Jason has about 150 head of cattle outside Ontario, said producers have to learn to take advantage of the good times.

“When you have high highs, you’d better be getting your house in order so you can weather the low lows,” she said.

Maag agreed.

“When you’re making money, you pay your debts, pay ahead a little bit. You plan ahead,” he said. “These cycles come and go. It’s just the way it operates.”

Vallad sees water as a lingering challenge for local ranchers.

“In the first 100 years of this valley, when people were homesteading, you saw water usage. Now, in the next 100 years, you’re going to see a big trend toward water conservation,” she said. “I tend to think it’s going to change the scope of ag in Malheur County until such time as water is more abundant.”

Christensen said the federal government is another wild card in the cattle business’s future. The county “ducked a bullet” when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to list greater sage grouse as an endangered species, but there are lingering land-use questions regarding the birds.

Maag said the ranchers need to have a bigger say in what happens to federal rangeland.

“Nobody knows better how to handle that range than the ranchers themselves,” he said. “If they cheat on it, it’s going to cheat on them.”

Christensen said ranchers also are concerned about the effect a wilderness or national monument listing in the Owyhee Canyonlands might have on the local industry.

Proponents of the protection efforts point out that grazing is allowed in wilderness and monument areas under federal law, but local producers worry such a designation might create a new baseline that would allow for grazing restrictions in the future.

“We’re squarely against that. That’s just unacceptable to tie up that much land in a park project,” Christensen said of the 2.5 million-acre Owyhee Canyonlands proposal, a combination of national conservation area, wilderness, and wild and scenic river designations.

“That will devastate the southern part of county. That’s a lot of acres,” he added. “That ground down in there, there’s a lot of big ranches, cattle and grazing down in there. There are huge implications in that.”

Coos Bay World
South Coast growers find niche in fresh fruit market
Coos Bay World
BANDON — With the season's harvest expected to be complete by next week, it looks like South Coast cranberry growers had a higher yield this year overall. But the price for those berries remains lower than it costs to produce them for independent growers.

KLCC FM Public Radio
Oregon Cranberry Producers Seek to Grow Market
KLCC FM Public Radio
Thanksgiving's the one day of the year that cranberries get a guaranteed spot at most tables across the U.S. But Oregon's south coast farmers are hoping to change that. Cranberry harvest on Oregon's south coast. Credit Wikipedia ...

and more »

BANDON — With the season's harvest expected to be complete by next week, it looks like South Coast cranberry growers had a higher yield this year overall.

BANDON — With the season's harvest expected to be complete by next week, it looks like South Coast cranberry growers had a higher yield this year overall.

BANDON — With the season's harvest expected to be complete by next week, it looks like South Coast cranberry growers had a higher yield this year overall.

BANDON — With the season's harvest expected to be complete by next week, it looks like South Coast cranberry growers had a higher yield this year overall.

We apologize if you are a huge fan of green beans. We apologize if you are the sort of person who longs for the green beans at Thanksgiving. We think it's a little strange, but we still apologize.

Puzzled over which wine pairs well with brined turkey, candied yams, garlic mashed potatoes, challah stuffing, cranberry sauce and, possibly, tofu turkey? Why not take another bite at the appl…

MONMOUTH, Ore. – When Bob Lamb talks about the conservation program he implemented on his property, he does so with reverence. The work, he said — planting 25,000 trees, improving water quality in the Little Luckiamute River, seeing lamprey return to spawn, learning of the complicated relationship of plant and soil — was about more than himself and his time.

It wasn’t about the money, either, although he welcomed the $220 per acre paid him annually under the Oregon Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) administered by the state and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.

That’s why it’s so demoralizing to learn, as Lamb renewed the CREP agreement for another 15 years, that he will be paid a lower rate per acre. The problem involves state and federal interpretation of the program contract and, as he described it, “A Catch 22 that said you cannot get there from here.”

He estimated the reduced payments will cost him about $100,000 over the life of the renewed agreement. He didn’t have much choice: “You either take what they give you or you get nothing,” he said.

Lamb wants to alert other landowners to the situation, and hopes the FSA will work to solve the problem. The local FSA conservation program specialist working with Lamb said she shares his frustration but isn’t sure there’s any recourse.

Lamb was among the first in the Willamette Valley to sign up when the program began 15 years ago as a joint venture of the state and feds. The program is intended to improve streamside areas in ag land, helping fish, wildlife and water quality. Landowners receive rental payments for carrying out conservation measures.

In his case, Lamb essentially was paid to lease FSA 48 acres of his land flanking the Little Luckiamute. He agreed not to cultivate within 180 feet of either bank. He agreed to plant thousands of Douglas fir, Western red cedar and Willamette Valley Ponderosa pine.

He also agreed not to exercise his full state water right, leaving in the stream the amount that would have been used to irrigate the land involved in the CREP agreement. In return, Lamb and his wife, Jane, were paid a higher CREP rate for giving up production on irrigated land. They had to show they’d irrigated in at least two of the past five years.

The Lambs considered the program carefully.

“We talked at length with the FSA people,” Bob Lamb said. “We said, all right, we believe this is a program in our best interests in terms of improving water quality and fish habitat, and it would not be an economic burden for us to do so.”

They fully embraced the work, planting trees in a precise 10-foot by 10-foot grid on both sides of the river and thrilling over the years to see wildlife return, including spawning lamprey.

“You notice this is a program that is kind of attached to you; it’s not something you lightly do or don’t do,” Bob Lamb said. “You have a serious interest in the resource that is there on the ground. I’m talking blood, sweat and tears.”

Then it came time to renew this fall. The national FSA office, reviewing Lamb’s original contract, noted the requirement that he had to show he’d irrigated in at least two of the previous five years in order to get the higher rate. But during the 15 years of the first contract, of course, he’d given up a portion of his state water right and hadn’t irrigated the land contained in the CREP. By definition, it was no longer irrigated land and didn’t warrant the higher rate, the national FSA office decided.

Under the renewed contract, Lamb will be paid $123 an acre. He said the rate paid for irrigated land was scheduled to increase to about $265 an acre. Over the 15-year contract, the difference amounts to about $100,000, he said.

He isn’t interested in a lawsuit to resolve the issue. “I don’t have enough energy in my soul,” he said.

Lamb was a federal man himself, working over the years as a meteorologist, fire weather forecaster and power planner with the National Weather Service, U.S. Forest Service and Bonneville Power Administration before retiring to raise registered cattle along the Luckiamute. He knows the inertia that stalls bureaucracies.

“In order to fix that, someone has to take some action,” he said.

Phil Ward, executive director of the Oregon FSA office, said his office is working on the problem.

“We are very much aware of Mr. Lambs’ concerns and are actively working with our National Office to reach a positive resolution to this situation,” he said.

Thanksgiving math actually isn't all that hard. You just need to use a few basic equations.

BANDON — Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy a free Thanksgiving meal on Thursday.

BANDON — Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy a free Thanksgiving meal on Thursday.

Mainebiz
Low price for cranberries keeps some Maine farmers from harvesting crop
Mainebiz
Maine cranberry growers didn't harvest about an eighth of the state's total acres devoted to the crop because of unusually low prices. The Bangor Daily News reported that the price for wet harvested berries, a method that involves flooding the bog and ...

and more »

By 2050, Oregon’s annual demand for water will increase by 1.3 million acre feet — enough to fill 650,000 Olympic swimming pools, according to state water regulators.

That’s an increase of roughly 15 percent from today’s annual usage of about 8.425 million acre feet.

Oregon’s agricultural industry, which uses about 85 percent of the state’s water, is expected to need 6-9 percent more water over the next 35 years because growing seasons are expected to become longer and warmer, according to the Oregon Water Resources Department.

Due to a projected population increase of 1.5 million people, Oregon’s municipal and industrial water use is projected to grow by 20 percent by 2050, according to the agency’s findings.

Based on crop and irrigation trends, the southeastern portion of the state will likely see the greatest increase in water demand, particularly Klamath, Lake and Harney counties, said Rachel Lovellford, an OWRD hydrologist, during the Nov. 20 meeting of the Oregon Water Resources Commission.

As average annual temperatures are expected to rise — between 2 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit, according to OWRD — crops will require more water earlier in the season, Lovellford said.

Farmers of alfalfa, for example, are expected to increase the number of cuttings they harvest each year, she said.

Meanwhile, growers are expected to become more dependent on irrigation, rather than rainfall, Lovellford said.

Currently, rainfall accounts for 30 percent of water needs of Oregon crops, while irrigation provides 70 percent, she said.

That ratio is expected to shift to between 26 and 29 percent rainfall and 71 and 74 percent irrigation by 2050, Lovellford said.

The agency arrived at its conclusions by analyzing several climate scenarios under which the state would experience a range of temperature increases and changes in precipitation, she said.

A full report on Oregon’s anticipated water needs in 2050 is undergoing final editing and will soon be made public, she said.

OWRD is also planning to address growing water demand by assisting with feasibility studies and other plans for water supply development, Lovellford said.

Earlier this year, the Oregon legislature authorized roughly $55 million in water supply development loans and grants.

Oregon’s Molalla and Chetco rivers are one step closer to state designations as scenic waterways, which could limit new water rights and restrict land uses along their shores.

The Oregon Water Resources Commission voted on Nov. 20 to recommend the scenic river designations to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, who is expected to make a decision in January 2016.

If Brown approves the designations, they can still be overturned by state lawmakers if they pass legislation reversing the actions.

Oregon hasn’t designated any new scenic rivers since 1988, but state agencies now plan to evaluate nominations on a regular basis, said Chris Havel, associate director of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.

The commission overseeing OPRD signed off on the scenic designations before they were referred to the Oregon Water Resources Commission.

If scenic designations for the Molalla and Chetco rivers are finalized, landowners would have to obtain permits from OPRD before logging, mining or building structures within a quarter-mile of their banks.

Only a portion of the rivers would be designated as scenic, however, and landowners can negotiate with OPRD about mitigating negative scenic impacts of the activity, Havel said.

If the agency isn’t able to reach an agreement with the landowner, it can delay the planned activity by a year, he said. Some jurisdictions, however, may refuse to issue necessary permits unless OPRD approves of the project.

The Grande Ronde River was also considered for a scenic designation, but OPRD rejected the idea due to limited public access and strong local opposition, Havel said.

Local landowners largely supported the designations for the Molalla and Chetco rivers, said Rachel Lovellford, a hydrologist for the Oregon Water Resources Department.

During its Nov. 20 meeting, the Oregon Water Resources Commission also approved annually protecting more than 1 million acre feet of water in the Chetco River and 300,000 acre feet in the Molalla River to ensure scenic flows.

The allocation for scenic flows doesn’t affect existing water rights, but could limit new water right permits within the designated area or upriver from it, Lovellford said.