W A S HIN G T O NG R A IN C O MM IS S IO N - Wheat Life
W A S HIN G T O NG R A IN C O MM IS S IO N - Wheat Life
W A S HIN G T O NG R A IN C O MM IS S IO N - Wheat Life
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W L<br />
HEAT IFE<br />
The official publication of the Washington Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers<br />
OCTOBER 2012<br />
Address Service Requested<br />
Washington Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers<br />
109 East First Avenue, Ritzville, WA 99169<br />
Making the grade<br />
Public, private breeds in field-sized trial<br />
Inslee, McKenna answer farm questions<br />
California GMO labeling: just say NO!<br />
WSU winter wheat breeding program
W L<br />
HEAT IFE<br />
Volume 55 • Number 9<br />
www.wheatlife.org<br />
The official publication of<br />
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON<br />
ASSOCIAT<strong>IO</strong>N OF<br />
WHEAT GROWERS<br />
109 East First Avenue<br />
Ritzville, WA 99169-2394<br />
(509) 659-0610 • (800) 598-6890<br />
In association with:<br />
www.washingtongrainalliance.com<br />
WAWG MEMBERSHIP<br />
(509) 659-0610 • (800) 598-6890<br />
$125 per year<br />
EDITOR-<strong>IN</strong>-CHIEF<br />
Kara Rowe • kararowe@wawg.org<br />
(509) 456-2481<br />
EDITOR<br />
Trista Crossley • editor@wawg.org<br />
(435) 260-8888<br />
AD SALES MANAGER<br />
Kevin Gaffney • KevinGaffney@mac.com<br />
(509) 235-2715<br />
GRAPHIC DESIGN<br />
Devin Taylor • Trista Crossley<br />
AD BILLI<strong>NG</strong><br />
Michelle Hennings • michelle@wawg.org<br />
(509) 659-0610 • (800) 598-6890<br />
CIRCULAT<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
Address changes, extra copies, subscriptions<br />
Chauna Carlson • frontdesk@wawg.org<br />
(509) 659-0610 • (800) 598-6890<br />
Subscriptions are $50 per year<br />
WAWG EXECUTIVE CO<strong>MM</strong>ITTEE<br />
PRESIDENT<br />
Eric Maier • Ritzville<br />
VICE PRESIDENT<br />
Ryan Kregger • Touchet<br />
SECRETARY/TREASURER<br />
Nicole Berg • Paterson<br />
PRESIDENT EMERITUS<br />
Ben Barstow • Palouse<br />
APPO<strong>IN</strong>TED MEMBERS<br />
Brett Blankenship • Washtucna<br />
JP Kent • Walla Walla<br />
Randy Uhrich • Waterville<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> (<strong>IS</strong>SN 0043-4701) is published by the<br />
Washington Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers (WAWG):<br />
109 E. First Avenue • Ritzville, WA 99169-2394<br />
Eleven issues per year with a combined August/<br />
September issue. Standard (A) postage paid at<br />
Ritzville, Wash., and additional entry offices.<br />
Contents of this publication may not be reprinted<br />
without permission.<br />
Advertising in <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> does not indicate<br />
endorsement of an organization, product or political<br />
candidate by WAWG.<br />
2 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
President’s Perspective<br />
a role.<br />
Farm bill held hostage to politics<br />
By Eric Maier<br />
Politics. Nobody really likes them in their personal life,<br />
business life or in the media and public. But, politics are part<br />
of life beyond our state and national capitols. No matter how<br />
we try to avoid them, they are in nearly every facet of life.<br />
Politics, by nature, are the relationships we foster between<br />
people. The word itself comes from the ancient Greek word<br />
politikos meaning “of, for, or relating to citizens.” Even at<br />
church or in our kids’ school activities, personal politics play<br />
In Washington, D.C., however, daily life is politics on steroids. Every detail of<br />
decision making on Capitol Hill depends on the personal relationships between our<br />
Washington state delegates and their peers. If you break down how these delegates<br />
get things done, it’s really no<br />
different than what happens<br />
in junior high hallways. There<br />
are the popular delegates, the<br />
scholarly delegates, the outspoken<br />
delegates...and, yes, there<br />
are the bullies. There’s always<br />
drama. But the difference is<br />
that the drama of Capitol Hill<br />
affects billions of lives throughout<br />
the world and trillions of<br />
dollars within our national<br />
budget.<br />
We as wheat farmers were placed in a precarious position among the politics and<br />
drama of Washington, D.C., this fall. Our main safety net, the farm bill, somehow<br />
transitioned from a completely nonpartisan, traditional piece of legislation into a<br />
piece held for ransom. You’ll read on the following pages the steps we took as your<br />
farming organization to pressure our national politicians to remove their partisan<br />
motives from the most important piece of legislation for rural America and the food<br />
system.<br />
The farm bill is the one piece of national legislation that consistently improves our<br />
nation’s economy. It is not a stimulus package that gives a brief shot in the arm to<br />
business. Even the food stamp portion of the bill provides larger economic returns<br />
to each state’s economy than the money originally spent (see chart). The farm bill allows<br />
us to feed the hungry on our own American soil. It also allows us to keep our<br />
grocery store shelves filled with the safest, healthiest and most affordable food in<br />
the world. The farm bill also provides food to people throughout the world who we<br />
have a moral obligation to help. The farm bill provides some stability in our international<br />
markets as international politics are gambled. Finally, the farm bill keeps<br />
family farmers on the farm. Without a safety net, family farms would be forced to<br />
consolidate. The business of farming would change drastically. There would no<br />
longer be affordable crop insurance. There would be no conservation incentives.<br />
The Washington Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers represents farmers of all walks<br />
of life, farming practices and political parties. Individually, we may sometimes<br />
disagree on philosophies, but in my experience, we’ve always figured out how to<br />
unite for the greater good. We asked our Congress to do the same. We will continue<br />
fighting for a long-term bill by Christmas. Thank you to all of you who contacted<br />
our Congressional delegates. Your voice was heard. You can make a difference, and<br />
together we can make Congress do their job for America.<br />
Cover photo: Paul Porter at the field day for his private variety trial. See story on page 32. Photo by Kevin<br />
Gaffney. All photos are Shutterstock images or taken by <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> staff unless otherwise noted.
WAWG President’s Perspective 2<br />
Membership Form 5<br />
WAWG at Work 6<br />
Policy Matters 16<br />
Thanks but no thanks<br />
Why GM labeling is wrong for California<br />
Race for the governor’s seat<br />
Q&A with McKenna, Inslee on agriculture<br />
Making the grade<br />
Field-sized variety trial of private, public breeds<br />
Profiles<br />
Central Wind and Solar<br />
Contributors<br />
Eric Maier, president, Washington Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers<br />
Tom Zwainz, chairman, Washington Grain Commission<br />
Glen W. Squires, CEO, Washington Grain Commission<br />
Scott A. Yates, communications director, Washington Grain<br />
Commission<br />
Kevin Gaffney, ad sales manager, <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong><br />
Inside This Issue<br />
22<br />
28<br />
32<br />
36<br />
WGC Chairman’s Column 41<br />
WGC Review 42<br />
Growing a market<br />
SWW stars at Latin America Buyers Conference<br />
Rising to the challenge<br />
Alan Tracy, U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates’ president<br />
It’s all about the traits<br />
A look at WSU’s winter wheat breeding program<br />
WGC <strong>Wheat</strong> Watch<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> exports expected to strengthen in 2012/13<br />
46<br />
52<br />
56<br />
60<br />
WGC Wide World of <strong>Wheat</strong> 62<br />
64<br />
Your <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> 70<br />
Advertiser’s Index 74<br />
From Germany with love<br />
Eastern Washington’s German heritage<br />
NO!<br />
labeling NO<br />
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on<br />
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2012 RACE FOR GOVERNOR<br />
Arron Carter, Ph.D., winter wheat breeder, WSU Dept. of Crop and<br />
Soil Sciences<br />
Gary Shelton, research technical supervisor, WSU Dept. of Crop and<br />
Soil Sciences<br />
T. Randall Fortenbery, Ph.D., Tom Mick Endowed Chair in Grain<br />
Economics, WSU<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 3
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BECOME<br />
A<br />
MEMBER<br />
Please understand that your wheat checkoff does NOT<br />
pay for your WAWG membership.<br />
Also, receiving <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> does NOT mean<br />
you are a member.<br />
We fight every day to ensure that life on the<br />
family farm continues to prosper and grow.<br />
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT.<br />
For a $125 annual membership, farmers, landowners and<br />
industry representatives can show their solidarity and<br />
lend their voices to ensure responsible state and national<br />
agricultural policy remains in place. As a result of WAWG’s<br />
half century of advocacy, millions of dollars have been<br />
returned to Washington farm country. Show your support.<br />
Share your ideas.<br />
Become a member today and you will be signed up<br />
through the summer of 2013.<br />
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If you do not have an email address, or prefer hard<br />
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Circle all that apply:<br />
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Return this form with your check to:<br />
WAWG • 109 East First Ave. • Ritzville, WA 99169.<br />
Or call 800-598-6890 and use your credit card to enroll by phone.<br />
More member benefits!<br />
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Call 800-598-6890<br />
or visit<br />
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Washington Association<br />
of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers<br />
109 East First Ave. • Ritzville, WA 99169<br />
509-659-0610 • 800-598-6890 • 509-659-4302 (fax)<br />
www.washingtongrainalliance.com
WAWG<br />
at<br />
work<br />
2012 Farm Bill message:<br />
Thank you Senators<br />
As local Congressionals travel from town to town campaigning<br />
for votes and trust throughout farm country this<br />
October, one vital piece of legislation follows them around<br />
like a bad smell: the farm bill.<br />
Despite the efforts of WAWG and its membership, a farm<br />
bill was not passed before the 2008 bill expired. While some<br />
argue this is nothing new to farm legislation, it is something<br />
of a quandary for farm country politicians like Rep. Cathy<br />
McMorris Rodgers (R-Spokane) and Rep. Doc Hastings<br />
(R-Pasco) to explain during an election year. While the U.S.<br />
House of Representatives was unable to pass a farm bill, the<br />
Senate succeeded. The full Senate passed its bipartisan $500<br />
billion farm bill in June, which offered up more than $23 billion<br />
in cuts. Both of Washington’s Senators Maria Cantwell<br />
and Patty Murray voted in support of the Senate version.<br />
In July, the House Agriculture Committee approved its<br />
own bipartisan, five-year measure with deeper spending cuts.<br />
And there it still sits. For more than two months, Speaker of<br />
the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) refused to bring the House<br />
version of the farm bill to the floor for a vote before Congress<br />
left at the end of September for campaigning.<br />
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)<br />
6 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
WAWG President Eric Maier, of Ritzville, talks to the press via phone after<br />
the Farm Bill Now rally in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12.<br />
(Left) Farmers from around the nation got off their tractors and headed to<br />
Washington, D.C., to rally for a farm bill.<br />
Farm bill supporters including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), center,<br />
and Sen. Tom Harken (D-Iowa), right, spoke to a crowd of hundreds at the<br />
Farm Bill Now rally on Capitol Hill on Sept. 12.
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“Never before have I seen the farm bill be treated as such a political pawn,”<br />
said WAWG President and Ritzville farmer Eric Maier.<br />
A divide among Boehner’s party over the bill’s level of funding cuts made the<br />
leadership team fear that they did not have the votes needed to pass it. House<br />
leadership held the bill hostage and refused to bring it to the floor, silencing all<br />
the farm-district members.<br />
In a last-ditch effort, some farm-district delegates tried to force leadership<br />
to bring the House Ag Committee-approved bill to the floor through a “discharge<br />
petition” process. If signed by at least 218 House members—a majority<br />
of the 435 members—the farm bill would have gone to an immediate vote,<br />
overriding leadership’s decision. Out of the total 64 signatures on the petition<br />
before the House adjourned, nine of them were Republican. Rep. Rick Larsen<br />
(D-Bellingham) was the only Washington state delegate to sign the petition.<br />
Congress won’t return to session until mid-November, and now, farm country<br />
is left with a vague promise of a long-term bill being brought up in the lame<br />
duck session after elections.<br />
“We will deal with the farm bill after the election,” Boehner has told reporters,<br />
but he wasn’t willing to be more specific about what course that will take.<br />
Even House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) recently<br />
said he has not received an explicit promise that his five-year bill will be called<br />
up in the lame-duck session.<br />
For the record, Boehner voted against the 2008 Farm Bill, as did House<br />
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).<br />
Meanwhile, WAWG’s focus hasn’t diminished. “We will continue the fight for<br />
a long-term bill approval to happen soon,” said Maier. “We’ve been fighting for<br />
this since last fall, and we’ll continue to do so until the job is done. Thank you<br />
to everyone who sent a message to our delegates in September. They heard your<br />
voices. Sadly, this was a fight beyond ‘doing what’s right.’ This was all politics,<br />
(Above and below) National Association of<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> Growers’ First Vice President, Bing Von<br />
Bergen of Moccasin, Mont., spoke at the rally as<br />
did Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.).<br />
WAWG President Eric Maier (left) of Ritzville and WAWG Secretary/Treasurer Nicole Berg of Paterson at the farm bill rally in Washington, D.C.<br />
8 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012
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and the farm bill got caught in the fray. Thankfully, the<br />
Senate has a bill that is ready and waiting. We’ll keep beating<br />
the drum for a long-term bill by Christmas.”<br />
Farmers participate in Farm Bill<br />
Now rally; state delegates do not<br />
While in Washington, D.C., recently, WAWG leaders<br />
joined wheat farmers from Idaho, Montana and Kansas to<br />
demand a new farm bill move through Congress before<br />
it expired in September. More than 90 ag, consumer and<br />
conservation groups joined forces at a rally in the shadows<br />
of Capitol Hill to tell Congress that they demand a fiveyear<br />
farm bill immediately.<br />
Multiple members of Congress from farm country attended<br />
and/or spoke at the rally to demand a farm bill. No<br />
delegates from Washington state attended the rally. During<br />
their visit to D.C., WAWG’s officer team met with every<br />
Washington delegate office from both the House and<br />
Senate carrying the “Farm Bill Now” message.<br />
Scholarship program available<br />
for high school seniors<br />
We are excited to launch this program for high school<br />
seniors! This program is sponsored by WAWG, and it is<br />
available to children of WAWG members living<br />
in Washington state. The program is designed<br />
to provide young adults with an<br />
excellent leadership and scholarship opportunity.<br />
It is also designed to increase<br />
the public’s understanding of the wheat<br />
industry and how farming affects their<br />
daily life as consumers.<br />
Two candidates will be selected as<br />
Washington <strong>Wheat</strong> Ambassadors. A $2,500<br />
scholarship will be awarded to the top ambassador, and<br />
a scholarship of $1,000 will be awarded to one alternate<br />
ambassador. Both ambassadors will be expected to participate<br />
in various activities and opportunities throughout<br />
the year. The application deadline is Oct. 15, 2012. For<br />
more information and to download the application packet,<br />
visit http://www.wheatlife.org/ambassador.html.<br />
Saving state tax exemptions<br />
still WAWG’s top priority<br />
At the recent WAWG meeting, the board of directors<br />
agreed that saving agriculture’s tax exemptions is still the<br />
10 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
organization’s top priority within state topics. Each year,<br />
tax exemptions such as sales tax on fertilizer, seed and repairs<br />
are attacked. That aggression has heated up over the<br />
past couple years with the state budget tightening process.<br />
This year, depending on how elections sway seats in the<br />
state House of Representatives and Senate, those attacks<br />
may be harder to hold off.<br />
Other state priorities include addressing the potential<br />
cuts to agricultural research at WSU, monitoring the Dept.<br />
of Ecology roadside water pollution study in the Spokane<br />
River and Palouse River watersheds, addressing the GM<br />
labeling initiative and monitoring a potential pesticide application<br />
notice and buffer requirement.<br />
There are other priorities as well, however these topics<br />
were voted the most important at this time.<br />
WAWG, WGC support<br />
Hastings’ hydropower bill<br />
Both the Washington Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers and<br />
Washington Grain Commission recently offered united<br />
support for Rep. Doc Hasting’s (R-Pasco) H.R. 6247. The<br />
bill is designed to protect the Federal Columbia River<br />
Power System, Power Marketing Administration customers,<br />
Bureau of Reclamation dams and other facilities and<br />
to promote new federal and other hydropower generation.<br />
Hastings, who serves as the federal Chairman of the<br />
House Natural Resources Committee, introduced legislation<br />
intended to take back the offensive on saving<br />
dams, he said at a rally held in<br />
Pasco prior to a Congressional<br />
hearing held on the bill. He<br />
describes it as a “common<br />
sense” approach to protecting<br />
hydropower.<br />
H.R. 6247 would prohibit federal<br />
money from being used to<br />
remove or study the removal of<br />
hydropower dams without the<br />
authorization of Congress and<br />
would prevent groups from<br />
collecting federal grants for 10 years if they sue to breach<br />
dams or reduce hydropower.<br />
“If you want to sue the federal government, don’t expect<br />
a handout,” said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) who<br />
attended the hearing with Hastings as the chairman of the<br />
Water and Power Subcommittee.<br />
In written testimony, WAWG said, “Half of the wheat<br />
exported from the system moves by barge. Barging along
Bon voyage, wheat.<br />
A growing amount of the wheat you grow is exported every year, and<br />
that makes a huge difference in farm gate prices. In fact for every $1 you<br />
contribute to export market development through your state checkoff<br />
program, you get back $23 in net revenue. U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates<br />
wants you to understand how we work with state commissions to<br />
build overseas demand for all six classes of U.S. wheat.<br />
V<strong>IS</strong>IT WWW.USWHEAT.ORG/SUCCESS TO READ MORE.<br />
And don’t forget your passport.<br />
The world’s most reliable choice.<br />
© 2011 U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates. All rights reserved.<br />
The U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates logo is a registered service mark of U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates. PA-AD0811-A<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 11
WL<br />
WAWG AT WORK<br />
the 365-mile inland waterway is the cleanest and most fuel<br />
efficient mode of transportation—four times better than<br />
trucking. Breaching dams would end barge navigation<br />
and put up to 700,000 more trucks on the highways and<br />
increase greenhouse gas emissions. The infrastructure of<br />
the dams simply saves lives.”<br />
Similarly, the Washington Grain Commission offered<br />
support as well. “...One of the great successes the federal<br />
government can point to in the Northwest is its work to<br />
mitigate obstacles to the successful passage of salmon,<br />
both upstream and downstream of the dams located along<br />
the Columbia-Snake River System. Because of efforts<br />
undertaken by the Bonneville Power Administration, fish<br />
passage has reached levels that were not seen even before<br />
the dams were built...Once again, good old-fashioned<br />
American ingenuity has proven that our natural resources<br />
can be managed in a way that protects wildlife needs even<br />
as they serve human requirements.”<br />
GMO labeling group launches<br />
Washington initiative<br />
Also while in Washington, D.C., WAWG officers met<br />
with the government affairs division of the Grocery<br />
Manufacturers Association to better understand their<br />
position on GM labeling.<br />
Recently, a group supporting GM labeling launched an<br />
effort in Washington to collect more than 320,000 signatures<br />
before the end of 2012 to put I-522 on the<br />
ballot. According to the Secretary of State’s website,<br />
this measure would require foods produced<br />
entirely or partly with genetic engineering, as<br />
defined, to be labeled as genetically engineered<br />
when offered for retail sale in Washington,<br />
beginning in July 2015. The labeling requirement<br />
would apply generally to raw agricultural<br />
commodities, processed foods, seeds<br />
and seed stock, with some exceptions, but<br />
would not require that specific genetically-engineered<br />
ingredients be identified.<br />
The measure would authorize state<br />
enforcement and civil penalties and allow<br />
private enforcement actions.<br />
An independent group called “Washington<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> Farmers to Save our Export Markets” supposedly<br />
endorsed I-522. TH<strong>IS</strong> <strong>IS</strong> NOT THE WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON<br />
ASSOCIAT<strong>IO</strong>N OF WHEAT GROWERS.<br />
WAWG supports voluntary labeling of food products,<br />
provided it is consistent with U.S. law and international<br />
12 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
trade agreements and is truthful and not misleading.<br />
WAWG opposes government-mandated labeling of wheat<br />
products in both the U.S. and international markets based<br />
upon the presence or absence of biotechnologicallyderived<br />
traits that do not differ significantly from their<br />
conventional counterpart.<br />
Best Grains campaign launched<br />
We all know the best, well, everything, comes from<br />
Washington, especially grains! WAWG is working to<br />
showcase why the safest, healthiest and most affordable<br />
grains come from our state’s family farms.<br />
In it’s public outreach division, WAWG has partnered<br />
with Enigma Ag Strategies out of Yakima to create video<br />
and audio components<br />
of the consumer trust<br />
campaign entitled “The<br />
Best Grains.” It is one<br />
part of the overall trust<br />
campaign funded by<br />
the Washington Grain<br />
Commission, Washington <strong>Wheat</strong> Foundation and WAWG.<br />
The goal is to help our farmers share their stories and<br />
educate our state’s consumers about our family farms.<br />
During harvest, the video crew visited the Isaak and<br />
Bodeau family farms in the Coulee City and Wilbur areas,<br />
as well as the Barstow farm near Palouse. WAWG has also<br />
been working with Zipline Interactive out of Spokane to<br />
launch new web components of the campaign. The campaign<br />
launched in September. Visit www.thebestgrains.<br />
com to see the new site.<br />
WAWG is also working with the Washington Potato<br />
Commission through an alliance called Washington’s<br />
Farmers and Ranchers in order to launch a larger, statewide<br />
outreach campaign.<br />
“All of these outreach efforts will move us in the direction<br />
of education,” said WAWG’s Outreach and Affairs<br />
Director Kara Rowe. “We are working hard to spend<br />
money as efficiently as possible without sacrificing effectiveness.<br />
The first step was to get our websites in order<br />
so that people have a place to go to learn more. The web is<br />
becoming the main source of news and media for most of<br />
our society. This was a good place to start, and our campaign<br />
will build from here.”<br />
WAWG has also increased its efforts in social media including<br />
Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest to more efficiently<br />
spread news and updates to farmers and the public.<br />
Follow WAWG and <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> on Facebook for updates!
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It’s time for a true conservative<br />
in Olympia…<br />
A quick candidate comparison:<br />
Edwards<br />
➜ believes in traditional<br />
marriage (one man<br />
+ one woman)<br />
➜ 100% Pro-<strong>Life</strong><br />
➜ committed to GOP<br />
principles<br />
➜ stands for personal<br />
property rights<br />
➜ former Marine<br />
Endorsed by Clint Didier, Franklin County<br />
Republicans, Human <strong>Life</strong> of Washington, and<br />
rated “Outstanding” by Citizens’ Alliance for<br />
Property Rights.<br />
OR<br />
Walsh<br />
➜ co-sponsored and<br />
voted for bill to<br />
redefine marriage<br />
➜ Pro-Choice<br />
➜ voted with<br />
Democrats 30%+<br />
on key votes (www.<br />
votesmart.org/www.<br />
washingtonvotes.org)<br />
➜ voted to ban use<br />
of wood stoves<br />
Paid for by Citizens for Mary Ruth Edwards GOP, P.O. Box 1608, Prosser, WA 99350<br />
Elect a TRUE<br />
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16th Legislative District,<br />
Position 1<br />
Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 13
Convention seminars<br />
What now? The Farm Bill<br />
Increasing small grains production<br />
Barley: a panel discussion from the Beer Institute<br />
Conservation Reserve Program changes<br />
Using your technology and GPS prescription<br />
The future of risk management and crop insurance<br />
Climate change research and projects<br />
Farm bookkeeping: Quickbooks tutorial<br />
How to tell your story: social media training<br />
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and nationally<br />
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Featuring<br />
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Dr. Don Huber<br />
Purdue University<br />
States<br />
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Dr. Randy Fortenberry<br />
Economist<br />
Dr. Anastasia Bodnar<br />
B<strong>IO</strong>fortified.org<br />
Tri-State<br />
Held at the Coeur d’ Alene Resort in Idaho<br />
For hotel reservations, call 800-688-5253<br />
Register online:<br />
www.wagrains.com<br />
or call<br />
800-598-6890<br />
Dr. Michael Neff<br />
Washington State University<br />
GRA<strong>IN</strong><br />
GROWERS<br />
CONVENT<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
Ken Cook<br />
Environmental Working Group<br />
Eary Bird<br />
pricing ends<br />
Oct. 10th<br />
See you<br />
in Idaho!<br />
November 12, 13 & 14, 2012
POLICY MATTERS<br />
Renewable fuel comment<br />
period extended by EPA<br />
From NAWG<br />
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced<br />
recently it will allow farmers and other stakeholders 15<br />
additional days to comment on a proposed waiver of the<br />
renewable fuels standard (RFS). The new deadline will be<br />
Oct. 11.<br />
The extension is a response to a request from the<br />
National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) which asked<br />
for more time because many farmers are<br />
busy this time of year with fieldwork and<br />
because of ongoing uncertainty in the<br />
corn market.<br />
The call for comments was triggered<br />
by requests from four governors for<br />
an RFS waiver reducing the amount of<br />
renewable fuels needing to be produced<br />
under the law. The governors and<br />
legislators who have made similar calls<br />
have said they are concerned about the ongoing<br />
drought’s effects on feedstocks for livestock.<br />
NCGA said this week that the extension will allow<br />
farmers more opportunity to participate in the important<br />
policy process, which could attract thousands of<br />
comments.<br />
NAWG supports the existing RFS and similar policies<br />
to expand the use of conventional ethanol and cellulosic<br />
ethanol, the latter of which could be produced in some<br />
regions using wheat straw and biomass. NAWG plans<br />
to submit comments on the waiver proposal before the<br />
deadline.<br />
Groups press need for Vietnam<br />
access in TPP agreement<br />
From NAWG<br />
NAWG and 45 other agricultural organizations are<br />
warning USDA and trade officials that the pending Trans-<br />
Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks could fall short if<br />
“meaningful market access” in Vietnam is not achieved.<br />
In a letter sent late last week, the groups told<br />
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade<br />
16 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Representative Ron Kirk that Vietnam remains the key<br />
growth market that U.S. agricultural producers could<br />
access through a successful<br />
TPP. The organizations<br />
stressed that their<br />
support is contingent on<br />
achievement of a comprehensive<br />
free trade deal<br />
with Vietnam.<br />
“Of the current participants<br />
in the TPP negotiations,<br />
Vietnam holds far<br />
and away the greatest<br />
market potential for the<br />
vast majority of U.S. food<br />
and agricultural products,”<br />
they wrote.<br />
The U.S. already has free trade agreements with Chile,<br />
Peru, Australia and Singapore; New Zealand, Malaysia<br />
and Brunei are not considered large growth markets.<br />
Without a TPP agreement, U.S. agriculture would be at a<br />
competitive disadvantage to Australia and New Zealand,<br />
which have preferential access to Vietnam through an<br />
existing trade agreement.<br />
Since Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in<br />
2007, U.S. agricultural exports to the country have grown<br />
more than six-fold, from $216 million to $1.64 billion. A<br />
successful TPP agreement would link the U.S. to rapidly<br />
growing economies and populations in countries of the<br />
Asian Pacific region, several of which are quickly growing<br />
markets for U.S. wheat.<br />
The latest round of TPP negotiations is going on now in<br />
Leesburg, Va. More on the talks is at www.ustr.gov/tpp.<br />
The recently sent letter, in its entirety, is at<br />
www.wheatworld.org/trade.<br />
PNW receives NRCS grant<br />
for water quality project<br />
Washington, Oregon and Idaho received more than<br />
$1.5 million in USDA grant money through the Natural<br />
Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The funding is<br />
from the Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program.<br />
NRCS administers CIG as part of the Environmental<br />
Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Grants are awarded to<br />
state and local governments, federally recognized Indian
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 17
WL<br />
POLICY MATTERS<br />
tribes, nongovernmental organizations<br />
and individuals. NRCS uses<br />
CIG to invest in innovative, on-theground<br />
conservation technologies<br />
and approaches with the goal of<br />
wide-scale adoption to address<br />
water quality and quantity, air quality,<br />
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markets, among other<br />
natural resource issues.<br />
“We’re announcing 59 grants<br />
today in 47 states that will help some<br />
of America’s top agricultural and<br />
conservation institutions, foundations<br />
and businesses develop unique<br />
approaches to enhancing and protecting<br />
natural resources on agricultural<br />
lands,” USDA Secretary Tom<br />
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spur creativity and problem-solving<br />
to benefit conservation-minded<br />
farmers and ranchers. Everyone<br />
who relies on our nation’s natural<br />
resources for clean water, food and<br />
fiber for their way of life will benefit<br />
from these grants.”<br />
The Willamette Partnership,<br />
which includes Washington, Oregon<br />
and Idaho, has successfully facilitated<br />
trades of water temperature<br />
credits to improve salmon habitat in<br />
Oregon. The Partnership was awarded<br />
$1,589,751 to help the partnership<br />
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The primary objective of this<br />
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practices quality standards;<br />
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18 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Research debunks GF diet for weight loss<br />
From NAWG<br />
While NAWG is primarily a policy advocacy organization and does not<br />
work on nutrition issues directly, we are committed to spreading accurate<br />
information about the many health benefits of the food our farmers work so<br />
hard to produce.<br />
AACC International, a professional society of cereal chemists, has recently<br />
published an indepth paper examining various claims about wheat’s effect<br />
on human health, written by Julie Miller Jones, Ph.D., a professor at St.<br />
Catherine University. That paper is available for free and in full at AACCI’s<br />
home page at http://www.aaccnet.org.<br />
NAWG also encourages all readers to visit its sister associations, Grain<br />
Foods Foundation, www.<br />
gowiththegrain.org, and <strong>Wheat</strong><br />
Foods Council, www.wheatfoods.org,<br />
for reliable and<br />
extensive information about<br />
wheat foods’ nutritional value.<br />
In an article published in<br />
August by the Grain Foods<br />
Foundation, new research casts<br />
doubts on the benefits of going<br />
gluten-free as a way to lose<br />
weight.<br />
Editor’s note: Recently, the talk show<br />
The View asked NAWG to provide a short<br />
statement to show the “other side” of a<br />
segment it produced including inaccurate<br />
and misleading claims about wheat’s<br />
nutritional value. NAWG’s response, which<br />
was read on the show, is available in full<br />
at http://www.wheatworld.org/<br />
news-events/2012/09/nawg-statementto-the-view-on-wheat-nutrition/.<br />
According to the article,<br />
research published in the latest issue of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition<br />
and Dietetics indicates there is no benefit for the average healthy adult to follow<br />
a gluten-free diet. It also debunks the perception that going gluten-free is<br />
an effective way to lose weight.<br />
The paper, Gluten-Free Diet: Imprudent Dietary Advice for the General<br />
Population? authored by Arizona State University professor and researcher<br />
Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D., addresses common misperceptions about the glutenfree<br />
diet and explores the scientific support for following it.<br />
Despite purported health claims often seen in the media, Dr. Gaesser<br />
found there is no evidence that the gluten-free diet provides benefits to the<br />
general population, and that gluten itself may, in fact, provide important<br />
benefits, such as supporting heart, gut and immune system health.<br />
Likewise, he explored the perception that the gluten-free diet is effective<br />
for weight loss. After reviewing the existing research on gluten, Dr. Gaesser<br />
concluded the gluten-free diet is not an effective weight-loss method. In fact,<br />
it frequently leads to weight gain because many gluten-free products contain<br />
more added fats and sugars than their gluten-containing counterparts.<br />
These findings run counter to a recent Harris survey of more than 2,000<br />
adults polled about their perceptions and use of the gluten-free diet. Of those<br />
participants who followed the diet, half reported doing it to “feel better” and<br />
26 percent as a “diet for losing weight.”<br />
Furthermore, according to a 2011 report from Packaged Facts, the glutenfree<br />
product market grew by a rate of 30 percent each year between 2006 and<br />
2010; reasons for this rapid growth include more accurate testing methods for<br />
celiac disease and gluten sensitivity and the perception gluten-free products<br />
are healthier, in addition to endorsements from celebrities.<br />
For expert nutrition advice, and more information about the gluten-free<br />
diet, please visit www.gowiththegrain.org.
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 19
WL<br />
POLICY MATTERS<br />
of guidance or framework in place to inform water quality<br />
trading, providing a strong foundation from which to<br />
develop a Joint Regional Agreement.<br />
Harvest prices set for small<br />
grains, canola revenue products<br />
USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) announced<br />
approved harvest prices for 2012 crop year for revenue<br />
protection plans of insurance within the Common Crop<br />
Insurance Policy for wheat, barley and fall canola and<br />
rapeseed in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington as<br />
applicable.<br />
Harvest prices for spring canola and Alaska barley will<br />
be announced in early October. Harvest prices for corn<br />
and soybeans will be announced in the next couple of<br />
months.<br />
CROP TYPE HARVEST PRICE<br />
Barley Winter $7.26/bu.<br />
Barley Spring $7.26/bu.<br />
Canola Fall $0.283/lb.<br />
Canola Spring TBD approx. 10/12<br />
Rapeseed Fall $0.307/lb.<br />
(set equal to Projected Price)<br />
Rapeseed Spring (set equal to Projected Price)<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> Winter $8.69/bu.<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> Spring $8.69/bu.<br />
For producers who purchased a 2012 crop year Multi-<br />
Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) Revenue Protection and<br />
Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion policies,<br />
the harvest price is used to determine the calculated<br />
revenue. The harvest price is multiplied by the appraised<br />
and/or harvested production to determine the calculated<br />
revenue. The calculated revenue is subtracted from the<br />
final revenue guarantee to determine possible indemnities<br />
(insurance losses).<br />
Producers should contact their insurance agent to learn<br />
additional program details related to these price announcements.<br />
Washington state receives<br />
healthy school money<br />
The USDA recently announced new grants to support<br />
schools as they strive to serve healthy food, provide<br />
nutrition education and create an environment focused on<br />
20 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
healthy eating and physical activity.<br />
“When we serve our children healthy school meals,<br />
we’re making a critical investment in their academic<br />
performance, their physical health and their future,”<br />
said Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan.<br />
“Today’s announcement reflects our ongoing commitment<br />
to provide states with the tools they need to build a<br />
healthy school environment.”<br />
Funded in support of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids<br />
Act of 2010, the Team Nutrition training grants will assist<br />
schools in meeting the new school meal requirements,<br />
encourage Healthier U.S. School Challenge participation,<br />
support students’ nutritious choices by structuring the cafeteria<br />
environment in a way that encourages the selection<br />
of healthy foods and promote healthier environments to<br />
align with the Local Wellness Policy requirements established<br />
in the act.<br />
The USDA is awarding approximately $5.2 million in<br />
18 states and one territory, including Washington which<br />
received nearly $50,000. Funding will be made available<br />
for the period of Sept. 30, 2012, through Sept. 30, 2014, to<br />
assist state agencies in achieving the Team Nutrition goals.<br />
States must apply Team Nutrition’s three behavior-focused<br />
strategies:<br />
• Provide training and technical assistance to child nutrition<br />
foodservice professionals to enable them to prepare<br />
and serve nutritious meals that appeal to children.<br />
• Provide fun and interactive nutrition education for<br />
children, teachers, parents and other caregivers.<br />
• Build school and community support for creating<br />
healthy school environments that are conducive to healthy<br />
eating and physical activity.<br />
This school year, 32 million students are benefiting<br />
from new meal standards for the National School Lunch<br />
Program for the first time in more than 15 years. The<br />
healthier school meals are a key component of the Healthy,<br />
Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by the First<br />
Lady as part of her Let’s Move! campaign and signed into<br />
law by President Obama. To learn about the new meal<br />
standards, go to www.fns.usda.gov/healthierschoolday.
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 21
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
Just saying NO<br />
While Californians continue to debate their GMO labeling<br />
bill, Prop. 37, Washingtonians are seeing the fight<br />
move closer to home.<br />
A new Washington state ballot initiative to require GMO<br />
labeling has been launched, and supporters have until the<br />
end of the year to gather signatures. Initiative 522 would<br />
require most raw agricultural commodities, processed<br />
foods and seed and seed stocks, if produced using genetic<br />
engineering, to be labeled as genetically engineered when<br />
offered for retail sale. As in the California proposition,<br />
there would be some exceptions, such as food sold for immediate<br />
consumption or food that is certified as organic.<br />
Your WAWG leadership will continue to monitor events<br />
in Olympia, but for now, all eyes are focused south, waiting<br />
to see if California becomes the first state to require<br />
GMO labeling. The implications, if they do, could ripple<br />
through the U.S. food and agricultural communities.<br />
In our August/September 2012 issue of <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong>,<br />
we talked to the California Right to Know campaign to<br />
understand their reasons for wanting to label GMO foods.<br />
This month, we talked to Kathy Fairbanks, spokeswoman<br />
for the No on Prop. 37 campaign, which represents a<br />
group of manufacturers, growers and retailers opposed to<br />
the GMO labeling initiative. Here are some excerpts from<br />
that conversation.<br />
Obviously, the groups you represent are opposed<br />
to Prop. 37. In a nutshell, why?<br />
This is not a simple measure as proponents claim. It is<br />
complicated, and it is costly. It is deceptive. It is very, very<br />
flawed. It will establish a new food-labeling mandate that<br />
is going to add more government bureaucracy and more<br />
taxpayer costs. It will allow lawyers to file more lawsuits<br />
and the measure will increase grocery bills for California<br />
families.<br />
NO!<br />
labeling NO<br />
22 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
on Prop. 37<br />
Vote NO!<br />
on<br />
Prop. 37<br />
Prop. 37<br />
Give <strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> readers a little bit of background<br />
on who “No on Prop. 37” represents.<br />
Our coalition of groups opposed to Prop. 37 is wide<br />
ranging and broad because there are so many problems<br />
with this measure. We have a lot of opposition from the<br />
California agricultural community. Prop. 37 will increase<br />
the record keeping and red tape they have to maintain.<br />
It increases the cost of doing business that puts them<br />
at a disadvantage against their competitors outside of<br />
California.<br />
The retail community is also opposed. They will be on<br />
the front lines of getting hit with lawsuits if this measure<br />
passes. We have consumer groups who are opposed to<br />
higher grocery costs.<br />
Ethnic groups like the California NAACP and local<br />
chambers of commerce who are concerned with higher<br />
food costs are opposed to the measure.<br />
Numerous tax-payers’ groups who oppose needless regulation<br />
and bureaucracy are opposed to Prop. 37. The high<br />
state costs (that would result if the measure passes) means<br />
the state must either cut programs or raise taxes. Another<br />
key group opposed to Prop. 37 are scientists who believe<br />
labeling of biotech foods is unnecessary because they are<br />
safe and misleading because labeling will give people the<br />
impression the foods are unsafe when the opposite is true.<br />
Speaking of the science behind GMOs . . .<br />
The overwhelming majority of the scientific community,<br />
as well as the evidence out there and tests that have been<br />
done on GMO and biotech foods, has determined that<br />
they are safe. Over the course of 25-plus years, there have<br />
been more than 400 studies on biotech foods. The World<br />
Health Organization, the American Medical Association,<br />
the USDA, FDA all agree that GMO foods are safe.<br />
NO! to higher<br />
food costs!<br />
Vote NO!<br />
on Prop. 37<br />
Stop GMO<br />
Labeling<br />
NO!<br />
GMO labeling<br />
GMO Labelin<br />
Higher Costs
Genetic modification of crops has been happening for<br />
literally thousands and thousands of years. Over time,<br />
plants take on different characteristics and become modified,<br />
or they are crossbred through hybridization or cross<br />
pollination. The only difference is that today, science<br />
and technology has improved to such a degree that the<br />
modifications can be done at a very precise level where<br />
they can modify different genes. Scientists know exactly<br />
what they are doing on a one-to-one level, gene by gene by<br />
gene. That makes it safer than cross pollination; it can be<br />
controlled. It produces crops that are safer, more resistant<br />
to drought and need fewer pesticides. All of this is good<br />
for the environment and for workers that don’t have to<br />
spray heavy duty pesticides.<br />
The evidence is overwhelmingly on our side that GMO<br />
foods are safe. The discussion now moves to whether or<br />
not California Prop. 37 is good for California. We don’t<br />
think it is, obviously.<br />
What about those that say people have a right to<br />
know what they are eating?<br />
They do have the right to know, and they can look on<br />
the ingredient list and see what is in the food. If someone<br />
doesn’t want to eat a food with a GE (genetically engineered)<br />
ingredient, they can buy organic food that is non-<br />
GE, and they can get food that is labeled non-GMO. But<br />
the Prop. 37 labeling requirements give people the wrong<br />
impression that there is something wrong with the food.<br />
The labeling implies a warning, a reason to have a concern<br />
about a product when no reason for concern exists. It<br />
is misleading to give consumers information that may lead<br />
them to the wrong conclusion.<br />
Why do you think this fight is so passionate?<br />
This measure was not written to improve people’s health<br />
and safety. It was written so that trial lawyers would have<br />
a new way to file lawsuits. The groups that are going to be<br />
hit with these lawsuits will see a significant increase in the<br />
cost of doing business. And for what? So that a trial lawyer<br />
can line his pockets? Those additional costs will be passed<br />
onto California consumers.<br />
How will trial lawyers benefit from Prop. 37?<br />
The trial lawyer who wrote this, James <strong>Wheat</strong>on, has<br />
made millions of dollars suing over alleged violations<br />
of Prop. 65, which is also a labeling law. He is now engaged<br />
in Prop. 37, which, as we know, is another labeling<br />
requirement.<br />
FEATURE WL<br />
(Editor’s note: California Prop. 65, passed in 1986, requires<br />
business to warn consumers about chemicals that they use.)<br />
Under the liberal terms of Prop. 37, an attorney could go<br />
up and down the grocery store aisle identifying products<br />
with no label and file lawsuits against the grocery store,<br />
the food manufacturer, the food distributor and family<br />
farmer, alleging the product was made with GE ingredients<br />
and is mislabeled. The lawyers can file this suit without<br />
testing the product or having any proof there’s been a<br />
violation. They don’t even need to show damages.<br />
For example, you may have a package of granola bars<br />
with no label. It has no label because there’s no GE ingredients.<br />
The food company switched to all non-GE<br />
ingredients after passage of Prop. 37, thus the packaging<br />
is following Prop. 37 requirements. But because attorneys<br />
don’t need to do any testing, researching or have proof<br />
that there is a GE ingredient in the granola bars, they can<br />
file a lawsuit alleging that the product does contain a GE<br />
ingredient and should have a label.<br />
For those on the receiving end of a lawsuit, they have to<br />
choose: Do I hire attorneys, hire labs to conduct tests on<br />
the food to prove myself in court, or do I settle this lawsuit<br />
and make it go away? No doubt that this will happen with<br />
Prop. 37. It allows for predatory extortion lawsuits with no<br />
proof.<br />
Prop. 37 also requires that very detailed records be<br />
kept of all crops in California, such as where they were<br />
grown, where they go, how they are handled, processed,<br />
distributed, into what products they are included and in<br />
what grocery store or market did they get sold. All the<br />
red tape and the records will have to be kept by everyone<br />
in the food industry from farmer to grocery store. It is a<br />
paperwork burden, a paperwork nightmare. There is no<br />
health and safety reason, no consumer benefits to that paperwork,<br />
just record keeping to cover themselves in case<br />
they are sued. And if they are sued, it still doesn’t really<br />
help them since it is likely cheaper to settle a lawsuit. Trial<br />
lawyers exist to file lawsuits.<br />
The other side seems to portray this as a “David vs.<br />
Goliath” fight with people on one side and big business<br />
on the other side.<br />
The author of this measure has made millions of dollars<br />
filing lawsuits against businesses, and we expect a<br />
number of contributions from trial lawyers. This David vs.<br />
Goliath argument is a little overblown.<br />
g = to GMO labeling<br />
By Trista Crossley<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 23
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
Do you think there is an<br />
“agenda” behind this besides<br />
trial lawyers, such as organic<br />
companies?<br />
Organics? They do (have an<br />
agenda). They are funding this to<br />
a large extent. They exempt themselves<br />
from the effects of Prop. 37.<br />
Their largest contributor is Joseph<br />
Mercola (owner of a website that<br />
promotes alternative health-related<br />
products and ideas). The products<br />
he sells on his website would<br />
be exempt. I can draw a clear line<br />
there. He has contributed $800,000<br />
so far. You don’t do that if you<br />
don’t expect something from it.<br />
According to the pro-labeling<br />
folks, it is just adding a few<br />
words to the existing label.<br />
Again, the overwhelming evidence<br />
and opinion from the scientific<br />
community is that biotech or<br />
GE ingredients are safe. A label,<br />
as outlined in Prop. 37, implies a<br />
warning when none should exist.<br />
People will get the wrong idea<br />
that something is wrong with<br />
the food when that’s simply not<br />
the case. In fact, just two months<br />
ago, in June 2012, the American<br />
Medical Association voted to<br />
adopt a policy which says, “There<br />
is no scientific justification for<br />
special labeling of bioengineered<br />
foods.” The FDA has said that<br />
labeling policies like what’s<br />
outlined in Prop. 37 “would be<br />
inherently misleading.”<br />
Besides the legal costs, Prop.<br />
37 opponents say there will<br />
be increased costs to both the<br />
state and to the taxpayers.<br />
Prop. 37 requires the<br />
(California) Department of Public<br />
Health to do spot checks and review<br />
paperwork. Basic bureaucracy<br />
and oversight of Prop. 37 will<br />
cost the state money. People will<br />
have to be hired and trained.<br />
24 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
A local perspective<br />
Even though there is no GMO wheat currently being grown in the U.S.,<br />
research and development of GMO wheat varieties is happening. Here’s what<br />
some Eastern Washington farmers had to say on the issue:<br />
“I would be on the side of not needing labels. As I look at some of the pictures of cattle<br />
that my father-in-law showed in the early sixties, that Angus steer was waist high. Now<br />
the cattle we raise today are at least 10 inches taller. So what constitutes genetic modification?<br />
Does this include selective breeding programs or just adding one plant gene to<br />
another plant? How long will it take if we go back to selective breeding programs to get<br />
the same result as genetically alternating a plant? For many years we have been using<br />
corn and soybeans that are genetically modified, as ingredients, in many of the products<br />
that we use. What has changed? Who is going to do the labeling? What is “their”<br />
agenda behind the labeling? These are important questions that need to be asked.”<br />
—Wendi Kregger, Touchet<br />
“I am against GMO labeling because I think it creates an aura of hysterical perception<br />
in that people who aren’t informed about GMOs are going to see it as something that<br />
is negative or not safe. I think the food produced in the U.S. is some of the safest food<br />
in the world. The science behind GMOs is good and healthy. And by healthy, I mean<br />
economically as well as nutritionally. We’ve seen examples in the past where consumers<br />
who are uninformed but well intentioned see something they don’t understand, and<br />
they perceive it to be bad, and I don’t believe it is.”<br />
—John Rustemeyer, Sprague<br />
“I think GMO labeling is more or less to scare the market that GMOs are unnatural, and<br />
they are totally natural. The only thing is that we’ve speeded up the process through science<br />
to get to better plant values and nutrition. This is not some made up type of thing.<br />
It’s no different than what we’ve done in universities for years. Where it used to take 10<br />
to 20 years, this takes three to four years.”<br />
— Bruce Nelson, Farmington<br />
“I’m not afraid of the labeling. I think it is a small percentage of the population that<br />
are worried about GMOs, and we need to be careful not to put our whole society in<br />
the fear with labeling. But there are a whole lot of people who have questions about<br />
GMOs. Making sure we have a good clean dialogue about GMOs is what is important<br />
going forward. In wheat growers, especially in the dryland world, there is a little bit of<br />
misconception as to where we are at with GMOs, and I think, public wise, there is some<br />
misconception. We have to figure out what GMOs are before they get to Washington.<br />
The good new for wheat growers is that it has already happened. There are already<br />
GMOs out there. The bad news is that there is very little GMO food items for human<br />
consumption, most of it is being processed into something else.”<br />
—Brad Isaak, Coulee City<br />
“I have two thoughts. First, I don’t mind it, but then let’s label all GMOs including corn,<br />
sorghum, fish—all the sorts of things that have been genetically modified to produce<br />
more food for us. And two, let’s know what a true GMO is. Let’s define it. I mean you can<br />
genetically modify wheat over the course of 6 years and not have it considered GMO,<br />
but the gene splice is considered GMO. Do you mean it is not natural to do what nature<br />
does, only speed it up. I think the biggest scare is the word chemical. You mention the<br />
word chemical and everybody seems to freak out.”<br />
—Jerry Snyder, Ritzville<br />
“I’m kind of indifferent about it because I think GMO, the initials GMO, can mean a<br />
lot of different things to different people. It needs to be defined what GMO means. In<br />
the wheat world, we’ve been genetically modifying wheat for years, for centuries. You<br />
crossbreed the wheat to create taller wheat or shorter wheat. And now we have safe<br />
food that feeds the world. As far as the labeling part of it, if you look at a loaf of bread<br />
and the contents, the labeling is there. It already shows fiber and calories and such. I<br />
think it is a pretty transparent process already.”<br />
—Nicole Berg, Paterson
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 25
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
Prop. 37 contains several exemptions, notably alcohol<br />
and food sold for immediate consumption, such<br />
as in a restaurant.<br />
There are a lot of special loopholes. We don’t know why<br />
they are in there, and these arbitrary exemptions don’t really<br />
make any sense.<br />
Alcohol is made with GE grain (corn, not wheat or<br />
barley), yet it is exempt. All dairy is exempt, including<br />
milk and cheese. Interestingly, there is a GE enzyme that<br />
is used to make cheese. All meat is exempt although all<br />
cows, chickens and pigs are fed GE grains. Food sold in<br />
restaurants is exempt, even if it is the same food you buy<br />
at the grocery store.<br />
The measure says that food coming in from foreign<br />
companies would not need a label as long as the shipment<br />
had a statement saying that this shipment of food does not<br />
contain GMOs. There are no checks, no validation done.<br />
Unscrupulous foreign companies could have this statement,<br />
but still have the shipment contain GMOs.<br />
One of the main charges opponents level at Prop.<br />
37 is that they say it is too restrictive on what can<br />
be called “natural.”<br />
We think the whole “natural” thing is an error, but<br />
we’re not sure. We think perhaps the point was to prevent<br />
processed foods with GE ingredients from being called<br />
natural, but because he (the lawyer) used an “or” instead<br />
of an “and”, the measure prevents all processed foods<br />
from being labeled as natural, even it they aren’t GE. For<br />
example, an olive farmer grows non-GE olives (GE olive<br />
trees don’t exist) and then presses the olives into olive oil.<br />
The olive oil is not GE, but he wouldn’t be able to call his<br />
olive oil natural because it was pressed, and in Prop. 37,<br />
pressed is listed in the language as one of the definitions<br />
of processing.<br />
Another example is almonds. Almonds are a huge<br />
industry in California, and they are not GE. Raw almonds<br />
can be called natural, but smoked or salted almonds, or<br />
almonds turned into almond butter can’t be called natural<br />
(because they have been processed), and there are no GE<br />
almonds. That is a very, very big deal.<br />
This is unique to the California measure, and the only<br />
way to fix it would be to refile. But that will not happen<br />
with Prop. 37. Once something is on the ballot, it is on the<br />
ballot and can’t be changed. There is not enough time to<br />
get enough signatures to get a new measure on the ballot;<br />
it is too late to fix this for this year.<br />
Prop. 37 is now something voters have to vote on, and<br />
the negative impacts are probably not something that<br />
people will understand right away. The bigger issue for<br />
most people will be higher food costs, the lawsuits and the<br />
taxpayers’ costs.<br />
26 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Proponents say that there will be a minimal cost to<br />
implementing the labeling since most manufacturers<br />
change their labels on a regular basis.<br />
I absolutely disagree with that. There is a cost to change<br />
ingredients, a cost to change labels, a cost to change to<br />
a California-only distribution system if Prop. 37 passes.<br />
There will be shake-down lawsuits and frivolous lawsuits,<br />
and Prop. 37 will have a cost to state government.<br />
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Is there an alternative to this<br />
labeling bill that would give<br />
people the information they<br />
want?<br />
This isn’t about what could happen,<br />
what should happen or what<br />
people want to happen. This is about<br />
Prop. 37 and what voters have before<br />
them in November. Groups opposed<br />
to the measure are working to try to<br />
defeat it on Nov. 6. Beyond that, that<br />
is a discussion for another day.<br />
If this passes in California, what<br />
impact do you think it will have<br />
nationwide?<br />
I can’t answer that question.<br />
Opponents are concerned with<br />
defeating the California measure.<br />
It would hurt our California ag<br />
industry, and if Prop. 37 passes,<br />
our ag industry will face higher<br />
costs of doing business, yet still<br />
have to compete against out-of-state<br />
industries that can operate more efficiently<br />
than they can. This disadvantage<br />
will have a major impact on<br />
California’s economy and jobs. Our<br />
hope is that in November, voters<br />
reject Prop. 37, and we don’t have to<br />
have this conversation.<br />
If this bill passes, do you think<br />
there will be a chilling effect on<br />
farmers planting GMO crops?<br />
It is tough to tell. Food companies<br />
will be faced with two choices. Will<br />
they keep the same ingredients,<br />
repackage, relabel and set up a<br />
California-only system, which will<br />
be costly? Or do they change to<br />
non-GMO ingredients, like organics,<br />
which also would be costly. These<br />
costs will be passed on, no doubt,<br />
and consumers will have higher<br />
grocery bills. None of the food<br />
manufacturers or producers have<br />
determined what they will do.<br />
Right now, our focus is making<br />
sure voters understand what they<br />
are getting with Prop. 37. It is not<br />
simple. It is not easy. It is going to<br />
be costly. It is going to increase state<br />
bureaucracy, invite more frivolous<br />
lawsuits and result in the consumer<br />
paying more at the grocery store.<br />
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 27
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
CANDIDATES MCKENNA, <strong>IN</strong>SLEE<br />
MAP OUT AGRICULTURE POSIT<strong>IO</strong>NS<br />
Editor’s Note: Sometimes the divide between the East side and West side of our state<br />
seems impossibly large, and never more so than during an election year. From GMO labeling<br />
to tax exemptions to clean air and water policies, the next few years could usher in a<br />
new era for Eastern Washington wheat farmers. With the governor’s seat up for grabs,<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> <strong>Life</strong> wanted to give the candidates, Rob McKenna and Jay Inslee, an opportunity<br />
to explain their positions on issues that hit home for our readers. Both candidates were sent<br />
the same set of questions at the same time. Below you will see their exact responses. In an<br />
effort to keep this as impartial and fair as possible, we have not edited for content.<br />
What do you feel is a fair balance in policy regarding<br />
current farming practices and the Clean Water<br />
and Endangered Species acts?<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: I do not believe that economic and environmental<br />
sustainability are mutually exclusive. Protecting<br />
Washington State’s clean water and biodiversity is in the<br />
best interest of the agricultural industry. I believe the most<br />
important thing I can do as governor is to ensure that<br />
all stakeholders, including farmers, are included in the<br />
decision-making when questions of environmental regulation<br />
arise.<br />
MCKENNA: Farmers want to protect the land and use<br />
28 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Olympia<br />
or bust!<br />
farming practices that safeguard our natural resources.<br />
I don’t believe the state or federal governments should<br />
pile on ever-growing regulations on our farmers. We can<br />
ensure clean water and protect wildlife through current<br />
laws.<br />
What do you believe is the definition of sustainable<br />
farming?<br />
MCKENNA: Washington needs farms that are environmentally<br />
sustainable and economically sustainable.<br />
Through a vibrant agricultural sector that keeps farmland<br />
productive and economically valuable, we can protect the<br />
land through some of the best stewards around: farmers.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: Sustainable farming is exactly that: farming<br />
with the capacity to endure. To be sustainable economically,<br />
farms must be able to access the markets for their<br />
products without having to endure prohibitive overhead<br />
costs. Environmental sustainability requires that we all be<br />
stewards of the land and water that provides the infrastructure<br />
for their success and growth. Sustainable farming<br />
strikes a balance between profitable agronomics and<br />
environmental sustainability.<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> is Washington’s third largest ag commodity.<br />
What do you feel are the top three state priorities<br />
that will ensure a strong future for our wheat<br />
farmers?<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: The vast majority of Washington’s wheat crops<br />
are exported. A reliable transportation and port infrastructure<br />
that ensures growers from throughout the state can<br />
get their crops to port in a timely fashion.<br />
Continued support for agricultural research at our<br />
higher education research institutions. Institutions such as<br />
WSU provide invaluable research into combatting UG99 or<br />
their online stripe rust alert for farmers.<br />
Water is the other critical issue we must make progress<br />
on. For years, the Yakima, Columbia, and Walla Walla<br />
basins have suffered from a scarcity of water. In drought<br />
years, the problem is exacerbated, with growers locked in<br />
a perennial battle over water rights and riverbeds unable<br />
to support wild fish runs. Development of these longterm<br />
projects will address the water resource and ecosystem<br />
problems affecting our agricultural, municipal and<br />
domestic water supplies, and fish stocks. I am committed<br />
to working with all parties involved to find solutions and<br />
shared funding sources from the state, municipal, and<br />
federal level.<br />
MCKENNA:<br />
1. Washington wheat is an export-dependent crop, so<br />
FEATURE WL<br />
reducing trade barriers and keeping markets open is essential.<br />
I have heard from many farmers who feel this has<br />
been handled on too much of an ad hoc basis. Washington<br />
wheat farmers need a single point of contact at WSDA to<br />
take the lead on trade barrier resolution.<br />
2. Our transportation system needs new investments.<br />
I am the only candidate for governor to commit to crafting<br />
a transportation package to take to the voters. We<br />
cannot let our farm-to-market roads deteriorate, even to<br />
the point of some returning to gravel. Our river, rail, and<br />
road system are critical for taking advantage of our export<br />
opportunities.<br />
3. It’s time for state government to actually prioritize<br />
education and quit disinvesting in our universities. WSU’s<br />
ag research is incredibly valuable for increasing yield and<br />
productivity, and developing sustainable practices such as<br />
direct seeding. To turn our backs on this is the definition<br />
of penny-wise, pound-foolish, but the majority party in<br />
Olympia has slashed university budgets because it’s the<br />
easiest cut for them to make.<br />
There is often a strong sense of divide between<br />
the East and West sides of our state, but both need<br />
each other to survive financially and sustainably.<br />
How will you ensure a fair and honest respect for<br />
agriculture and the Eastern side in state affairs?<br />
MCKENNA: As Attorney General, I have taken very<br />
seriously the fact that I represent all of Washington. As<br />
Attorney General, I have visited Eastern Washington<br />
hundreds of times and have met many times with agricultural<br />
groups and individual farmers. East-West divides<br />
don’t help move our state forward. I will be a governor<br />
who truly understands the value of Washington’s agricultural<br />
community to our state. That’s why groups like the<br />
Farm Bureau and the Dairy Federation have endorsed my<br />
campaign.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 29
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: I lived in the Yakima Valley for nearly 20 years<br />
and raised my three boys there in a 100-year-old farmhouse.<br />
My wife, Trudi, and I grew alfalfa and it’s where I<br />
got my start working on agriculture issues as a congressman.<br />
I helped lead efforts to pass the Yakima River Basin<br />
Enhancement Act to balance water supplies for growers<br />
with increased in-stream flows for salmon, and worked to<br />
open up trade to Japan for Washington’s apple growers.<br />
At 160,000 workers strong, agriculture is Washington’s<br />
biggest employer. The $40 billion industry is the second<br />
most diverse agriculturally, growing everything from<br />
potatoes and peppermint to hops, wheat, and apples.<br />
Because it’s such an essential asset to our economy, my<br />
jobs plan includes an entire section about how we can<br />
grow Washington’s agriculture industry. My plan includes<br />
ideas such as partnering with our military to grow and<br />
refine the next generation of biofuels for military equipment<br />
to moving forward on important water projects that<br />
are necessary to farmers in regions such as Walla Walla,<br />
Yakima Valley and Columbia-Odessa.<br />
How do you feel about labeling GM foods and<br />
ingredients?<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: Agriculture continues to become more advanced<br />
in facing challenges related to drought, pests and<br />
increased production. At the same time, there is a growing<br />
expectation among consumers for transparency and<br />
information about where their food is coming from and<br />
how it was grown. I believe we can find the right balance<br />
between providing consumers the information they want<br />
in a way they can understand without restricting the<br />
growing practices that enable growers to feed our communities.<br />
GMO technology can be utilized to the extent that<br />
an educational program and market development trials<br />
indicate consumer acceptance of any new technology.<br />
MCKENNA: Labeling GM foods isn’t a bad thing, but I<br />
believe it should remain a voluntary practice. There isn’t a<br />
need for government to mandate a labeling policy.<br />
What are your thoughts about the advancement of<br />
genetically modified wheat?<br />
MCKENNA: I am glad to see research that increases<br />
yields and reduces pests and disease. That is how<br />
Washington helps feed the world.<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: I have supported research into crop advancements<br />
that can be used for biofuels. I understand the<br />
potential benefits this research can provide for a wide<br />
range of agricultural uses, including food and biomass<br />
production. Research can continue to explore new avenues<br />
of crop improvement, but should be very respectful of<br />
consumer attitudes so that end users are in no way threatened<br />
by real or perceived contamination of objectionable<br />
technology.<br />
30 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
How do you feel about free trade agreements? How<br />
can our state ensure fair trade and open global<br />
markets?<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: Washington State is the most trade-dependent<br />
state in the nation. Free and fair trade is essential for<br />
ensuring the strength of nearly every one of our major<br />
industries, from information technology and aerospace to<br />
life sciences, clean tech and agriculture.<br />
I supported the North American Free Trade Agreement<br />
as a Congressman serving the Yakima Valley, as well as<br />
the recent agreements with Colombia, South Korea and<br />
Panama.<br />
It’s also why my jobs plan includes a maritime section,<br />
so we can take full advantage of opportunities in growing<br />
Asian trade markets.<br />
MCKENNA: As I mentioned earlier, I think it is important<br />
to have a designated person at WSDA whose job it<br />
is to work on trade barrier reduction and be a point of<br />
contact at the agency to partner with associations like<br />
the Grain Alliance and help all Washington farms with<br />
an export crop. Free trade should mean exactly that, and<br />
the state and the federal government both need to work<br />
on preventing protectionism and silly rules that keep our<br />
crops out of world markets.<br />
Do you think that closing agricultural tax exemptions<br />
will put an unfair tax burden on the state’s<br />
farmers?<br />
MCKENNA: I believe that the exemptions currently in<br />
place make sense. The fuel tax, for instance, is a way for<br />
road users to contribute to maintenance and new improvements.<br />
Taxing the fuel used in the fields isn’t a rational<br />
way to fund roads.<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: As someone who used to sell and grow hay, I<br />
know firsthand the economic challenges facing many of<br />
our growers and how even modest tax relief can make<br />
a significant difference. My top priority is job creation,<br />
and there are tax measures that help employers from a<br />
wide range of industries create jobs. That’s why I support<br />
regular review of all our tax exemptions to ensure they<br />
are effectively helping create jobs and grow our economy,<br />
and only removing those that are no longer needed or<br />
effective.<br />
The shortline rail system is vital for getting our<br />
wheat to market. As governor, how will you make<br />
sure that Washington’s transportation infrastructure<br />
is maintained and improved?<br />
<strong>IN</strong>SLEE: Our transportation network is an asset worth<br />
billions of dollars, yet we are facing billions in backlogged<br />
repairs to our basic network of highways, rail lines, ferries<br />
and bridges, despite the broad coalitions that have facili-
tated significant investments over the past decade. This<br />
is affecting all parts of Washington: rural and urban, east<br />
and west, north and south.<br />
We must prioritize investments with an eye towards<br />
freight mobility projects that help our industries move<br />
their products to market, and pursue new private-public<br />
partnership opportunities to fund important projects.<br />
MCKENNA: I have been very concerned about the need<br />
for upkeep and maintenance in local and rural transportation<br />
infrastructure. An effective and efficient transporta-<br />
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tion system is vital for moving agricultural goods from<br />
farms to tables and to ports for export to foreign markets.<br />
As governor, I will view the system as a seamless network,<br />
as railways, roadways, and ports cooperate in a balanced<br />
and flexible system. I will bring to the voters a transportation<br />
package to make infrastructure investments that<br />
benefit job creation and maintain the flow of our valuable<br />
agricultural products to our domestic and international<br />
markets. I recognize, too, the importance of private-sector<br />
development to improve commodities transportation, such<br />
as the McCoy Station railroad spur project near Rosalia.<br />
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 31
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
Making the grade<br />
A 2012 private variety trial brings the results back to the farm<br />
(Left) Paul Porter and Mike Miller at the field day in July. More than 100 people,<br />
including farmers, breeders, researchers and political attendees, gathered to<br />
discuss the trial and hear about upcoming releases.<br />
32 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
By Trista Crossley<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> farmers are always searching for information<br />
to help them decide what varieties to plant where.<br />
And thanks to the efforts of Paul Porter of AgVentures<br />
NW, LLC and farmer Mike Miller of the Ritzville-<br />
Odessa area, they’ve got another great tool at their<br />
disposal.<br />
After taking last year off, Miller and Porter once<br />
again teamed up to test some of the most popular and<br />
some of the newest wheat varieties from both public<br />
and private sources on Miller’s farm. They planted a<br />
total of 15 varieties, with four of them being hard red<br />
winters, two club wheats and nine soft white winters.<br />
Each variety was planted in two, 1,320-foot strips<br />
under dryland conditions. The varieties were donated<br />
from most of the major breeders such as WestBred,<br />
Washington State University (WSU), Oregon State<br />
University, AgriPro, Limagrain and USDA-ARS.<br />
According to Porter, the main goals of the trial were<br />
to test for emergence, winter hardiness, rust tolerance<br />
and yield. They also wanted to see how well the plant<br />
tillered.<br />
“We had nitrogen use as a goal, but none of us<br />
had the energy to go pull soil samples,” Porter said,<br />
laughing.
The results of the trial tracked with<br />
what farmers saw in the fields, and<br />
while there were no big surprises,<br />
Porter said the hard red winters came<br />
through near the top of the list, yielding<br />
better than some of the soft whites.<br />
“After we got the results and looked<br />
at the HRW yields, we decided we<br />
needed to take them to Aaron Esser<br />
(WSU extension specialist for Lincoln-<br />
Adams counties) so he can do some<br />
economic work with them,” said<br />
Porter. “Does it make economic sense<br />
if they yield more even with the lower<br />
protein?”<br />
Another result Porter saw was that<br />
some of the varieties were not as well<br />
adapted to the location and had lower<br />
yields. Those varieties will likely be left<br />
out of future trials.<br />
Miller was also surprised with the<br />
yield results, noting that the top yielder<br />
(SY107) was a private variety.<br />
“Overall, the university and the<br />
USDA varieties showed very little<br />
weaknesses,” he said.<br />
Unlike the 2010 trial which saw some<br />
extreme weather, including high winds<br />
and high winter wind chills, this year’s<br />
trial had fairly normal weather conditions.<br />
Porter said they had good planting<br />
conditions, with moisture coming<br />
when it was needed.<br />
“Mother Nature took her shots, but<br />
we weren’t in danger of losing anything,”<br />
Porter said.<br />
In order to share their results with<br />
other area farmers, Miller and Porter<br />
hosted a field day in July. More than<br />
100 people attended, with many of the<br />
major breeders bringing in their own<br />
people to participate.<br />
“It was great,” said Porter about the<br />
field day. “When we let the breeders<br />
talk about their variety, we’ll ask them<br />
to talk about what they have coming,<br />
and what they are working on. What<br />
is of interest down the road? What are<br />
they expecting to accomplish in the<br />
next three or four years? You get a plate<br />
SWH<br />
HRW<br />
CLUB<br />
JR Miller 2012 Strip Trial Results<br />
FEATURE WL<br />
Average Test Perten<br />
Bushels Weight Protein<br />
SY 107 57.91 58.0 7.77<br />
XERPHA ELTAN 50.97 57.6 9.09<br />
WSU OTTO 50.64 56.9 9.77<br />
ORCF 103 50.19 59.8 9.71<br />
USDA-ARS 602 50.07 58.7 9.38<br />
ELTAN 49.44 59.4 10.22<br />
LIMAGRA<strong>IN</strong> 4009 46.59 59.4 10.41<br />
WB JUNCT<strong>IO</strong>N 46.00 46.0 11.09<br />
WB 1081 CL 42.85 60.5 12.02<br />
LIMAGRA<strong>IN</strong> AZIMUT 57.41 57.41 9.86<br />
WSU 8119 52.96 52.96 10.80<br />
WSU FARNUM 48.60 59.6 11.34<br />
WB ARROWHEAD 47.16 58.8 11.64<br />
USDA-ARS CRESENT 53.30 59.3 8.87<br />
BRUEHL 48.69 58.4 9.34<br />
of food, sit down and talk about things. It is a great “boots on the ground”<br />
experience for farmers and researchers.<br />
“I have people who tell me that is was the best tour they’d been to. People<br />
are going away saying ‘I got something from this.’ That makes you feel like<br />
you got it right.”<br />
Besides sharing valuable information, the field day was also an opportunity<br />
for farmers and breeders to interact with some of Washington state’s<br />
top political leaders. Representatives from the offices of Rep. Doc Hastings,<br />
Sen. Maria Cantwell, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers,<br />
among others, attended the tour.<br />
Over the past year, Miller said, he had had the various political offices asking<br />
to be invited, so he was anticipating at least some of them would show<br />
up at the field day. He said it was a chance to educate the political leaders<br />
on the hurdles farmers are faced with and why research is such an ongoing<br />
endeavor and can’t be turned on or off according to budgetary whims.<br />
“After speaking at a briefing in Washington, D.C., I understood how<br />
poorly we paint a picture of our work,” Miller said. He also explained that<br />
by having the political people at the field day, it gave farmers, who might<br />
feel that their concerns aren’t being addressed, a chance to make their voices<br />
heard.<br />
“Each attendee has asked to be included again, and even more encouragingly,<br />
it helped industry folks gain some accessibility,” Miller said.<br />
Miller said that the responses from the political attendees were immediate<br />
and full of questions. One person remarked that he had no idea that there<br />
were different varieties of wheat and how vulnerable the wheat could be to<br />
disease or the environment.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 33
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
According to Miller, a lot of the credit for such a successful<br />
trial and field day goes to Porter.<br />
“Paul really did a great job this year. He had a good<br />
collection of industry people, some real heavy hitters,” he<br />
said.<br />
Porter, on the other hand, said it’s the industry’s support<br />
and cooperation that makes the trial so successful,<br />
from the major breeders who donated their varieties to<br />
Syngenta’s AgriPro who did the harvesting and gathered<br />
the data.<br />
Porter said that at the field day, they handed out hats<br />
with all of the participating companies’ logos on it. “It is<br />
rare to find this caliber of companies that will have their<br />
logo on the same hat as their competition. The collaboration<br />
is really, really wonderful. A lot of companies want to<br />
save this information for just their customers, but we do<br />
not. By design, this is meant to be for our industry.”<br />
Miller said that area farmers have been calling him to<br />
find out the results from the trial.<br />
“Farmers are pretty well educated and are doing their<br />
homework and finding out what grows best on their<br />
ground,” he said. “They aren’t just taking the information<br />
from a pamphlet.”<br />
Miller said even he takes something away from the trial.<br />
“I’ve actually found out by doing this the last couple of<br />
years that if I have some poorer yielding ground, I will<br />
choose a different variety to plant there. Normally, I’d just<br />
do one variety across the board. I am micromanaging better<br />
because I am paying attention to what is happening in<br />
the trial.”<br />
Porter said that next year’s trial will probably be quieter,<br />
with the data being published, but no field day. Varieties<br />
34 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
being planted are WSU Otto, SY107,<br />
Eltan, USDA-ARS Crescent, Limagrain<br />
4009, WestBred DZ6W07-458, WestBred<br />
DZ6W07-451 and WestBred Junction.<br />
Miller predicts that in the next few trials,<br />
breeders will start donating prereleases<br />
or ready-to-release lines that are<br />
targeted for the Ritzville-Odessa area.<br />
“This is turning into a big deal,” said<br />
Miller.<br />
Whatever the reason for the success<br />
of the trial, it is clear that the collaboration<br />
between Miller and Porter is a key<br />
component.<br />
“I would like to find a collaborator<br />
along Highway 2 to do the same thing<br />
with,” said Porter. “It will allow us to<br />
demonstrate varietal performance in a<br />
high rainfall area.”<br />
For more information, contact Porter at (509) 253-4604,<br />
(509) 348-0060 or email him at paul@agventuresnw.com.<br />
Trial results can also be found at www.agventuresnw.com<br />
under seed news.<br />
Nominate someone for the new<br />
15x40program.<br />
WAWG will pay for the registration of 15<br />
farmers under the age of 40 who have not<br />
attended the annual convention.<br />
Available on a first-come, first-serve basis.<br />
If the participant <strong>IS</strong> already a<br />
member, this is an opportunity to<br />
learn more about WAWG and to<br />
hear from experts through the<br />
special seminars at convention.<br />
If the participant is NOT already a<br />
member, you will get all of the<br />
above, plus a one-year paid<br />
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For more information, or to nominate someone,<br />
please call the WAWG office at 509-659-0610.<br />
Program does not pay for hotel or other travel expenses.
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 35
WL PROFILES<br />
Central Wind and Solar<br />
Firefighter turned farmer advocates solar power<br />
By Kevin Gaffney<br />
While there are plenty of farmers in eastern Washington<br />
who serve as volunteer firefighters, it is far less common<br />
for a career firefighter to take up farming. It is especially<br />
uncommon to become a Whitman County wheat farmer<br />
who also sells wind and solar power energy systems.<br />
Bob Venera, firefighter at North Bend, Wash., is that<br />
type of guy. He has an entrepreneurial nature, and when<br />
he sold off some business interests, he used that capital to<br />
purchase farmland acreage southeast of St. John, Wash.<br />
His career work gave him a work schedule with alternating<br />
shifts of multiple days on followed by several days<br />
off.<br />
“I had to find something to keep me occupied when I<br />
wasn’t at the firehouse,” said Venera. “I had a drive to be<br />
productive during all the free time I was fortunate enough<br />
to have available to me.”<br />
Venera started a quick lube and oil change business that<br />
did well. He added an espresso shop. Feeling he had pursued<br />
that business model as far as he should, he sold out.<br />
Bob and Lauren Venera on their farm property near St. John, Wash.<br />
36 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Venera then used that money to buy Whitman County<br />
farmland from Louie and Lorena White.<br />
Venera and his wife Lauren won’t be moving to the farm<br />
full time soon. He is nearing retirement, but she teaches<br />
school in Yakima and loves her work.<br />
Venera does plan to begin taking over farming his land<br />
with direct seeding practices, so he will be visiting often.<br />
“My son and I are avid hunters,” said Venera. “We have<br />
a unique property here with plenty of deer and game<br />
birds. We are looking forward to enjoying that.”<br />
Finding himself without a business venture to keep<br />
himself occupied, Venera and his wife Lauren decided<br />
to take advantage of how much the wind blows in the<br />
Ellensburg region and the growing popularity of green<br />
energy production.<br />
After much research, the Veneras started up Central<br />
Wind Energy in 2008. They began selling and installing<br />
wind turbine generators for residential use. The company<br />
soon became Central Wind and Solar as they learned more<br />
about the incentives available for residential solar power
generation installations.<br />
“The solar power systems provide an ideal tax incentive opportunity for<br />
farmers,” explained Venera. “Either wind or solar systems receive a 30 percent<br />
federal tax credit for the installation costs. On tax day, that comes right off the<br />
top of your tax liability. For farmers, who earn most of their income in a lump<br />
sum, that can be very advantageous.<br />
“If you install a standard 10-unit solar panel system, that 30 percent credit<br />
is worth about $5,400. But, that is not all. The state of Washington offers an annual<br />
incentive of 15 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh) produced if the solar unit is<br />
manufactured out of state. However, if the unit is made in Washington state,<br />
that incentive jumps to 54 cents per kwh produced. The wind generator incentive<br />
tops out at 12 cents per kwh.”<br />
The incentive was designed to stimulate local business, and it has worked.<br />
Two major solar panel manufacturing companies have established production<br />
in Washington over the past two years.<br />
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“An average, 10-panel solar unit<br />
will produce about 4,000 kilowatts<br />
annually,” estimated Venera. “Using<br />
an average rate of 10 cents per kwh,<br />
that means you will save about $400<br />
annually off your power bills. This<br />
is roughly about one quarter of the<br />
average home electrical power use.<br />
“Adding up all the benefits, $5,400<br />
tax credit, the 54 cents per kwh<br />
times the 4,000 kilowatts produced,<br />
which totals about $2,150, and the<br />
saved power use of around $400<br />
equals $7,950. At that rate, it doesn’t<br />
take too long to pay off the standard<br />
cost of around $18,000 for each<br />
10-panel unit.”<br />
Central Wind and Solar installs<br />
mostly solar units now. The wind<br />
turbines need winds of at least 15<br />
mph or so to operate efficiently. They<br />
also have moving parts and need<br />
maintenance. The average life of a<br />
turbine is 15 to 20 years. The solar<br />
units work efficiently all year, and<br />
with no moving parts, they can be<br />
expected to last for 30 years or more.<br />
There is a limited amount of<br />
return available to home-generating<br />
systems. There is a cap at the state<br />
level of $5,000 per year. Any power<br />
produced beyond that level will just<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 37
WL<br />
PROFILES<br />
be free power to the regional power<br />
company. Generally, two 10-panel<br />
solar units are as much as each home<br />
can efficiently use without going<br />
over that limit.<br />
The generating systems are usually<br />
installed near the homes on a<br />
metal post mounted in concrete. In<br />
some applications, they can be attached<br />
to a roof, but in many Pacific<br />
Northwest locations, winter snow<br />
and ice become a problem.<br />
A typical 10-panel unit is approximately<br />
10 feet wide by 15 feet in<br />
height. Most farm sites have plenty<br />
of room for two units, which must<br />
face due south. The ground-mounted<br />
units can be adjusted seasonally<br />
to stay at the optimum 90-degree<br />
angle to the sun for efficient power<br />
generation.<br />
The local power company is<br />
required to “net meter” the generating<br />
system, which means the<br />
exact amount of power generated is<br />
continuously recorded. If the home<br />
is using less power than is being<br />
generated, the system will track<br />
and bank the power. During higher<br />
power usage months, the system<br />
will automatically begin using the<br />
power credit that has been built up<br />
during the months of less usage.<br />
The current incentive system offered<br />
by Washington state is effective<br />
through the year 2020. It may be<br />
extended, as it has been in the past,<br />
but that is not guaranteed.<br />
Central Wind and Solar has installed<br />
more than 50 systems all over<br />
the state. Venera handles the installation<br />
labor. Lauren is the paperwork<br />
expert and helps their clients work<br />
through all the regulatory and<br />
inspection steps necessary to get a<br />
residential generating system installed<br />
and certified. All units must<br />
be inspected by Washington State<br />
Department of Labor and Industries<br />
before they can go online.<br />
38 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012
“We are getting pretty good at all<br />
the paperwork, although each power<br />
company has a slightly different<br />
system,” said Lauren. “We actually<br />
have helped some counties write the<br />
regulations for these systems. The<br />
industry is still in its infancy. For<br />
the most part, the utility companies<br />
have been very cooperative with us.”<br />
Venera first became familiar with<br />
Whitman County when he attended<br />
Washington State University. He and<br />
Lauren are passionate Cougar sports<br />
fans. They also love the beauty and<br />
the solitude of the Palouse country.<br />
Lauren has come a long way<br />
geographically from her early childhood<br />
home in Johannesburg, South<br />
Africa. She moved to Washington<br />
state with her mother before the<br />
social upheavals occurred following<br />
the abolishment of apartheid in<br />
the early 1990s. First settling near<br />
Issaquah, Lauren later attended<br />
and received her teaching degree<br />
at Central Washington University.<br />
While living in Ellensburg, she met<br />
Venera. They were married and have<br />
established a happy marriage and a<br />
successful business partnership.<br />
To learn more about Central Wind<br />
and Solar, visit them online at<br />
www.centralwind.net.<br />
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 39
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You don’t find many people who have anything bad to<br />
say about research, a word defined as the “methodical<br />
investigation into a subject in order to discover facts, to<br />
establish or review a theory or to develop a plan of action<br />
based on the facts discovered.” My own quote on the<br />
subject would go like this: “Research is the lifeblood of<br />
agriculture.”<br />
And yet, last year’s Washington Grain Commission<br />
(WGC) research prioritization effort<br />
drew far fewer participants than in the<br />
past. Sixteen growers were ultimately<br />
on hand to help decide how to divvy up<br />
the $2.2 million the WGC distributed to<br />
scientific projects to benefit the industry.<br />
Don’t get me wrong, those 16 did a<br />
fine job, but I’m sure they would have<br />
welcomed more people and more<br />
discussion. While the WGC ultimately<br />
decides which projects to fund, we rely<br />
heavily on the input we receive from<br />
those who attend the meetings which<br />
introduce, then winnow down, projects<br />
presented by scientists.<br />
I realize Eastern Washington farmers<br />
elect us, your WGC board, to make many of the tough<br />
decisions about which direction to steer this industry.<br />
But research is one of those segments I believe requires<br />
engagement by more of our community. We are at the<br />
beginning of an era which could result in wholesale<br />
changes to the research dynamic we have operated<br />
under for almost 60 years. Much faster than a glacier, but<br />
with the same resolve, private companies are poised to<br />
carve up the old way of doing things. What is the role of<br />
the WGC in this new reality? Do we anticipate changes<br />
or await their introduction? Although the Washington<br />
Grain Commission directs almost all of its research<br />
funding toward scientists in academic settings, research<br />
is not just something done at universities. Private companies<br />
with well-funded R & D departments are often more<br />
focused than anything you’ll find at a university, and<br />
they are making important inroads into wheat research.<br />
Ten months ago in this space, former WGC Chairman<br />
Nat Webb raised a question about whether we can<br />
continue to fund only public research when much of the<br />
assessment income collected by the commission comes<br />
from private varieties being grown. It’s a good question,<br />
one that I hope some time will be set aside for the growers<br />
who do attend research meetings to discuss.<br />
Which begs the question, do we make an effort to invite<br />
private companies to participate in our Request For<br />
“Research is creating new<br />
knowledge.”<br />
—Neil Armstrong<br />
“Research is what I’m doing<br />
when I don’t know what I’m<br />
doing.”<br />
—Wernher von Braun<br />
“Research is the process of<br />
going up alleys to see if they are<br />
blind.”<br />
—Marston Bates<br />
By Tom Zwainz<br />
Proposal process? As I noted above, privates’ funding<br />
can make farmers’ contribution pale in comparison, but<br />
might it be possible that a scientist working for a private<br />
company has a project he wants to pursue independently?<br />
These philosophical questions go beyond setting<br />
priorities about the next three years of research projects,<br />
but a conversation about the bigger picture can help provide<br />
a framework for how you want your commissioners<br />
to maneuver during the transition we are facing.<br />
For those of you who are hazy on the<br />
details, the WGC will host a number of<br />
meetings over the next six months to<br />
decide how to allocate the funding we’ll<br />
be assigning to research projects in 2013.<br />
Some of the proposals are no-brainers,<br />
others are back for a second look, and<br />
a few will be brand new. Over a series<br />
of meetings, growers learn about them,<br />
vote on their favorites and count the<br />
results to establish priorities.<br />
There is another quote which, I’m<br />
told, has no original source, although<br />
it’s been attributed to everybody from<br />
Benjamin Franklin to Woody Allen.<br />
We’ve all heard it, but few of us act upon it. It goes:<br />
“Decisions are made by those who show up.”<br />
Be one of those who show up to help guide our industry<br />
into its research future. Approximate dates, times<br />
and places for setting your industry’s 2013 research priorities<br />
are listed below. Call Mary Palmer Sullivan, WGC<br />
program director, for more information at (509) 456-2481.<br />
Oct. 17, 2012: Preproposal meeting to discuss new research<br />
projects as well as renewals of those already funded.<br />
Commissioners and country representatives vote to<br />
determine if projects move forward. WSU, Pullman.<br />
Nov. 12, 2012: WSU research discussion at the<br />
Washington Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers Convention,<br />
Coeur d’Alene Resort.<br />
Jan. 1, 2013: Full proposal due to the WGC.<br />
Mid-February 2013: Research Review includes presentations<br />
by researchers. Pullman.<br />
Late February 2013: Review of the Review, a prioritization<br />
of every project made by those who participated at<br />
the Research Review with one-man, one-vote determining<br />
the final priority list. WAWG Office.<br />
March 2013: The WGC board reviews the Review of<br />
the Review priorities.<br />
May 2013: The WGC annual meeting assigns funding<br />
to those projects that are accepted.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 41<br />
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
Red in white makes farmers blue<br />
In the “if it’s not one thing, it’s another” department, this year’s wheat crop had<br />
a higher-than-normal incidence of red wheat contaminating soft white wheat<br />
samples. A discount for such “contrasting class” contamination begins at 1 percent,<br />
and some samples have come in at almost 5 percent. Sam White, manager<br />
of the Pacific Northwest Farmers Cooperative, said the problem might have<br />
been caused by last year’s dry fall and mild winter. “We sent agronomists out<br />
to look at the suspect fields, and they were finding plants growing between<br />
seed rows. The guys who’ve never grown hard red on their fields are coming<br />
up clean so it looks to me like a volunteer issue,” he said, referring to vestiges<br />
of crops from previous rotations by the term “volunteers.” Don Potts, regional<br />
manager of the Washington State Grain Inspection Service, said contrasting<br />
classes haven’t been an issue in the Spokane or Tri-Cities office, but the problem<br />
did show up in the Colfax office in a big way. “It looks like about 10 percent<br />
of the soft white samples are involved, averaging between .8 to 1.5 percent<br />
contrasting classes. There are some at four percent,” he said. Potts agrees with<br />
White that the problem is likely the result of volunteer hard red winter and<br />
hard red spring wheat plants germinating into fields subsequently planted to<br />
soft white. “I talked with one elevator company employee who said the winter<br />
wasn’t severe enough and the farmers didn’t put on enough chemicals to do<br />
the job to kill the volunteers,” Potts said. However, there are a couple of other<br />
explanations for the predicament as well. Some suggest it’s possible new<br />
soft white varieties that have a hard red wheat heritage in their background<br />
may be reverting back to their original parentage. The Washington State<br />
Crop Improvement Service (WSCIA) begin seeing the problem of low levels<br />
of contrasting classes—white in red and red in white—occurring in certified<br />
wheat fields a couple of years ago. They funded a Washington State University<br />
graduate student to investigate whether the occurrence was the result of volunteers,<br />
a genetic component or some environmental influence affecting the<br />
seed coat coloring. From the research conducted by Caleb Squires, it appears<br />
a large amount of the contrasting class problem is the result of contamination.<br />
Although Squires is specifically investigating white wheat in red wheat, Jerry<br />
Robinson, manager of the WSCIA, said he doesn’t make a distinction when<br />
it comes to which class created the contrasting element. Both are equally a<br />
problem. “It is going both ways, and while volunteers are one piece of the<br />
puzzle, there is also potential seed contamination from combines that haven’t<br />
been adequately cleaned between certified fields, not to mention the genetic<br />
component. I do not think it is just one thing causing the problem, but a combination<br />
of several,” he said. Whatever the cause turns out to be, Sam White<br />
indicated one thing is certain. As more hard red wheat is grown in the area,<br />
more farmers need to pay closer attention to the management of their fields.<br />
42 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Place your bets<br />
The betting is on a mild El Niño<br />
forming in the October/November<br />
time frame, but as one government<br />
summary put it, “individual models<br />
continue to show a moderate-to-high<br />
level of spread in their forecast, suggesting<br />
there continues to be a range<br />
of potential scenarios.” For the record,<br />
El Niño is the warming of sea surface<br />
temperatures in the equatorial Pacific<br />
that occurs every four to 12 years, affecting<br />
crops from Asia to the Americas<br />
and reducing the chances of storms<br />
forming in the Atlantic Basin during<br />
the hurricane season. In the Northwest,<br />
the phenomenon is associated with<br />
drought. This year’s El Niño<br />
development has baffled<br />
climatologists because the<br />
atmospheric and the ocean<br />
temperatures data are out of<br />
sync from traditional El Niño<br />
years. Although the money<br />
is on the formation of<br />
a mild El Niño,<br />
until it happens,<br />
there’s no<br />
telling whether<br />
or not the bet<br />
will pay off.<br />
Searching<br />
for research<br />
Have a problem on your farm that<br />
could be resolved through research? If<br />
so, the Washington Grain Commission<br />
(WGC) wants to hear from you! The<br />
WGC uses grower funding for research<br />
projects, and your input is valued.<br />
Speak to your commission representatives<br />
or contact Mary Palmer Sullivan<br />
by email at mary@wagrains.com or<br />
at (509) 456-2481, and we’ll use your<br />
feedback to work with Washington<br />
State University to develop a research<br />
project proposal.
Miles to go<br />
WGC REVIEW WL<br />
When Vince Peterson, vice president of overseas<br />
operations at U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates, gave a presentation<br />
in Russia recently, he pointed out that it made a<br />
great deal of sense for the country to be supplying<br />
grain to Egypt. After all, from<br />
Novorossiysk, Russia’s main<br />
Black Sea port and the port<br />
closest to the heart of Russia’s<br />
bread basket, to Alexandria,<br />
Egypt, is only 1,400 miles.<br />
Meanwhile, from the U.S.<br />
Gulf, the trip is 7,200 miles.<br />
Canada’s Thunder Bay is a little<br />
closer at just under 7,000 miles.<br />
Argentina wheat travels 8,450<br />
miles. (From the Northwest, it’s 11,500 miles, but depending on the price of soft white, sales into the<br />
Middle East can still occur.) Pointing out the obvious advantage Russia has into the Egyptian market is not meant to undercut<br />
U.S. exports. Rather, Peterson was attempting show how efforts to move grain into Russia’s Far Eastern port of Vladivostok is a<br />
logistical nightmare not worth the effort. The journey by rail from Omsk to Vladivostok in the Far East is nearly 4,400 miles. For<br />
the record, that would be an equivalent journey of moving grain from Houston, Texas, to Anchorage, Alaska. Moving the grain<br />
from Vladivostok to Indonesia by boat is another 3,850 miles. Although various companies have been talking up the prospect<br />
of improving Russian export facilities on its East Coast in order to move wheat into the Pacific Rim, Peterson is not too worried.<br />
“Moving wheat from central Russia and Siberia would require bridging monumental logistical and economic challenges. The<br />
models I’ve seen would require huge government rail subsidies to offset the high transportation costs. That alone would exceed<br />
Russia’s new WTO export subsidy expenditure caps,” he said.<br />
Thank you, thank<br />
you, thank you<br />
The Washington Grain Commission<br />
would like to thank the sponsors<br />
who made the U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates<br />
Summer Board Meeting in Spokane<br />
such a success. Platinum sponsors<br />
included: Bayer Crop Sciences, BNSF,<br />
Northwest Farm Credit Services, The<br />
McGregor Co., and Syngenta. Gold<br />
sponsors included Central Washington<br />
Grain Growers and Monsanto/WestBred.<br />
Silver sponsors included Limagrain<br />
Cereals Seeds LLC, PNW Farmers<br />
Cooperative and Ritzville Warehouse/<br />
Odessa Trading Co. Bronze sponsors<br />
included the Bank of Fairfield,<br />
Cooperative Agricultural Producers and<br />
U.S. Trust-Bank of America Farm and<br />
Ranch Services.<br />
Big shoes available<br />
Rich Koenig, a soil scientist who<br />
was chosen to chair the department<br />
of Crops and Soils in 2008, has announced<br />
he has accepted the position<br />
of Director of Extension and Associate<br />
Dean at WSU’s College of Agricultural,<br />
Human and Natural Resource Sciences<br />
(CAHNRS). Koenig said for the foreseeable<br />
future he will remain the primary<br />
point of contact with the Washington<br />
Grain Commission. He will also continue<br />
to chair the Cereal Variety Release<br />
Committee and be available for other<br />
wheat-oriented meetings and events. CAHNRS Dean Dan Bernardo called<br />
Koenig an effective and accomplished administrator who has not just managed<br />
his unit, but led it. Tom Zwainz, chairman of the WGC, congratulated<br />
Koenig on his new post and thanked him for his efforts on behalf of the wheat<br />
industry. “Rich has helped create a new atmosphere of cooperation between<br />
the WGC and WSU. Extension is gaining a fine administrator. We look forward<br />
to collaborating with WSU on the selection of a new chair who will ably fill his<br />
shoes.”<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 43<br />
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
WL<br />
WGC REVIEW<br />
New lease on life?<br />
A herbicide-resistant feed barley line that is intended to help farmers beat<br />
the chemical plant back restrictions that frequently knock the crop out of<br />
a rotation, performed well enough in its first year of field testing that Kevin<br />
Murphy intends to enroll it in the Variety Testing program next spring.<br />
Murphy, who oversees Washington State University’s barley breeding program,<br />
said the herbicide resistant spring barley line was developed through<br />
mutagenesis, a non-GMO process which subjects seeds to a chemical bath<br />
that alters their genetic code. The new experimental line is tolerant to the<br />
chemical residue left in the soil from spraying Clearfield winter wheat with<br />
Beyond, but is not intended to be sprayed itself. (The approach also works<br />
against Pursuit-like chemicals used in the pulse industry.) “This should help<br />
increase barley acreage and overall crop diversity in wheat-based rotations<br />
as one of the primary reasons for the decline of the crop in recent years<br />
is due to plant back restrictions stemming from Clearfield winter wheat<br />
varieties,” Murphy said. Barley has two primary uses: for feed and as malting<br />
barley in the beer industry. Although corn has a myriad of GMO traits, the<br />
malting industry has been very dubious about creating genetically engineered<br />
barley varieties for fear they might contaminate the malting stream.<br />
Murphy said he has talked with an official at the American Malting Barley<br />
Association who indicated no opposition to the mutagenesis-created,<br />
herbicide-resistant barley “as long as it doesn’t affect quality.”<br />
A gusher of (canola) oil<br />
As a potential rotation with wheat, canola is heating up in Eastern<br />
Washington. The Canadian-based firm Legumex Walker is finishing up its<br />
crushing facility<br />
in Warden with<br />
commercial<br />
operations expected<br />
to start<br />
during the first<br />
quarter of 2013.<br />
The operation,<br />
which can crush<br />
1,100 tons of<br />
canola a day,<br />
will produce oil<br />
for human consumption<br />
and<br />
high-quality<br />
canola meal.<br />
The plant is the first commercial-scale canola crushing facility west of the<br />
Rockies. Joel Horn, president and chief executive officer of Legumex Walker,<br />
said the increased level of canola seeding in Washington, Idaho, Montana<br />
and Oregon (estimated at 100,000 acres in the 2012/13 season), “should enable<br />
us to source more feedstock for processing locally during our first year<br />
of operation than originally anticipated.”<br />
44 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
A new captain<br />
at the wheel<br />
An Odessa-based biodiesel manufacturing<br />
facility under the management of<br />
AgVentures NW LLC, the company that<br />
oversees both Reardan Grain Growers<br />
and Odessa Union Warehouse, has sold a<br />
significant interest along with other early<br />
investors in the operation, to a group of<br />
Seattle-area investors, 1138 LLC. Keith<br />
Bailey, AgVentures’ chief executive officer,<br />
said a number of challenges led to the decision<br />
to divest its relationship with Inland<br />
Empire Oilseeds, including the absence of<br />
a $1 a gallon blender credit during 2010<br />
and the fact canola had been excluded as<br />
an approved feedstock at the time in the<br />
Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). “With those<br />
events, the business couldn’t support the<br />
investment to keep it running,” Bailey said.<br />
In June 2010, the Inland Empire Oilseeds<br />
facility was essentially idled although some<br />
batches of biodiesel continued to be made.<br />
In February 2011, 1138 was identified as an<br />
investor. The limited liability company took<br />
over Inland’s debt and made the two co-ops<br />
a 24 percent partner. “We’re coming out of<br />
this well ahead. We took our lumps in 2010,<br />
but through the structure of this agreement,<br />
long term we’ll recover virtually all of the investment,”<br />
Bailey said. Equally important, he<br />
added, the sale will help make canola a viable<br />
alternative crop in the region, a rotation<br />
that can boost wheat yields. As more canola<br />
is grown, meanwhile, the additional handle<br />
of moving the oilseed through Odessa and<br />
Reardan is expected to add significant revenue<br />
to the cooperative’s bottom line.
Irrigation is no drought panacea<br />
The drought in the Midwest has been a boon to irrigation firms with Valmont<br />
Industries and Lindsay Corp. reporting record revenue during their third quarter.<br />
Only about 14 percent of U.S. cropland is irrigated now (46 percent of which is<br />
through center pivots), but the combination of rising food demand and climate<br />
change is expected to increase that another 7 percent in the next decade. In a significant<br />
drought, it’s estimated the return on a $50,000 irrigation investment is one<br />
to two years. It should be noted, however, that a scientist from the Netherlands<br />
found so much water is being withdrawn from the world’s aquifers, evaporated<br />
and transported to the oceans through precipitation and runoff that it accounts for<br />
25 percent of the annual rise in the planet’s sea level. Extend irrigated areas using<br />
groundwater that is not being recharged and “you will run into a wall at a certain<br />
point in time,” warned Marc Bierkens. Groundwater depletion is highest in northwest<br />
India and northeastern China, Pakistan, California’s Central Valley and the<br />
American Midwest.<br />
20/20 hindsight<br />
Magazines operate on at least a month’s lead time, so the fact World Grain’s July<br />
2012 issue included an article with the headline “How low can they go?”, referring<br />
to wheat and corn prices which were forecast dropping to $5 and $4 per bushel<br />
respectively, is somewhat understandable. And it’s true that several times in<br />
the article the author included the caveat, “Barring any unforeseen catastrophic<br />
weather events. . . “ Still, it’s remarkable how quickly Mother Nature can make the<br />
best crystal ball gazer appear blind—and dumb. By the end of July, it was clear a<br />
new pricing dynamic had emerged, and World Grain’s sister publication, the weekly<br />
Milling & Baking News, spoke of the “searing speed” at which the Midwest drought<br />
unfolded. Commenting on earlier reports of falling prices, the magazine’s editor<br />
wrote, “The swiftness with which that outlook went from glowing to disaster is<br />
unprecedented.”<br />
Make bread, not war<br />
Interested in improving your baking skills or showing off your handiwork?<br />
Kansas <strong>Wheat</strong> has created a new online community at<br />
www.americasbreadbasket.com which offers visitors the opportunity to share<br />
recipes, tips and more. The site includes information about the National Festival<br />
of Breads baking contest, the only nationwide, amateur bread-baking competition.<br />
Entries are being accepted until February 2013.<br />
WGC REVIEW WL<br />
Coal goal<br />
has wheat beat<br />
Depending on whether all the<br />
proposed export coal facilities are<br />
built, Spokane could be seeing up<br />
to 63, mile-and-a-quarter long trains<br />
passing through the city each day.<br />
For farmers who live along the BNSF<br />
corridor, that doesn’t just mean<br />
longer waits getting from one side<br />
of the track to the other, it has the<br />
potential to impact the rail infrastructure’s<br />
ability to get grain to port.<br />
A report prepared for the Western<br />
Organization of Resource Councils<br />
suggests major choke points and<br />
bottlenecks along the route from the<br />
Powder River Basin (PRB) coal fields<br />
in Montana and Wyoming to export<br />
locations could cause congestion<br />
along the entire line. Currently, there<br />
are only three coal export facilities<br />
in the Pacific Northwest, all in British<br />
Columbia, which handle 5 million<br />
tons of PRB coal per year. Six new<br />
facilities located in Washington and<br />
Oregon are being considered. If all of<br />
them come on line, 170 million tons of<br />
coal could be exported from the PNW<br />
to the Pacific Rim by 2022. According<br />
to the report, export grain traffic<br />
“would be adversely impacted by the<br />
reduction of rail capacity and would<br />
likely experience a deterioration of<br />
rail service such as higher transit<br />
times and would likely incur higher<br />
costs in the form of higher freight<br />
rates and equipment costs.” Spokane<br />
would be one of the most heavily hit<br />
cities with a potential five trains an<br />
hour passing through town. Oregon<br />
Governor Kitzhaber has requested a<br />
full Environmental Impact Statement<br />
of the export facility proposals as<br />
a result of environmental concerns<br />
associated with protection of water<br />
quality, coal dust emissions at the<br />
facilities and during transport and<br />
emissions of other pollutants including<br />
diesel particulates. Delay times for<br />
emergency vehicles at rail crossings<br />
along the route is also a concern.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 45<br />
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
WL<br />
WGC REPORTS<br />
FIRMI<strong>NG</strong> UP THE SOFT WHITE MARKET<br />
AT LAT<strong>IN</strong> AMERICAN BUYERS CONFERENCE<br />
By Glen W. Squires<br />
Nearly 200 millers and buyers from 16 countries<br />
throughout Latin America gathered in Bogotá,<br />
Colombia, recently for the 10th Latin American<br />
Buyers Conference, a venue that provided the ideal<br />
backdrop to accentuate the positive qualities of<br />
Pacific Northwest wheat and the farm families who<br />
grow it.<br />
Along with myself, the PNW was ably represented<br />
by Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon <strong>Wheat</strong><br />
Commission (OWC), and Bob Newtson, an OWC<br />
commissioner.<br />
Considering the recently signed U.S./Colombia<br />
Free Trade Agreement that allows U.S. wheat to<br />
enter the country without tariffs, Bogotá was an<br />
inspired choice for the conference. After being shut<br />
out of Colombia during a brief period when Canada<br />
enjoyed tariff-free access and the U.S. didn’t, the<br />
American industry is now in the process of rebuilding<br />
its dominance.<br />
The conference was organized by the U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong>’s<br />
(USW) Chile office under the direction of Regional<br />
Vice President Alvaro de la Fuente and Marketing<br />
Specialist Osvaldo Seco, based in Santiago, Chile.<br />
They worked in concert with Regional Vice<br />
President Mitch Skalicky and Assistant Director<br />
Chad Weigland who is based in Mexico City.<br />
Latin America imported nearly 8 million metric<br />
tons of wheat from the U.S. during the 2011/12 marketing<br />
year worth almost $2.4 billion. The region is a<br />
growing market for the Pacific Northwest, especially<br />
for soft white wheat farmers (see accompanying<br />
story on page 48).<br />
EPORTS RWAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
Ready, set, Grow!<br />
46 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission, addresses Latin<br />
American wheat millers and buyers during the U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates-sponsored<br />
Latin American Buyers Conference held in Bogotá, Colombia.<br />
The conference provided an excellent opportunity to thank<br />
current wheat buyers and speak with others about the potential<br />
for sourcing PNW wheat, particularly soft white. I provided<br />
the outlook for the class. Although harvest hadn’t begun at<br />
the time, much could be inferred about upcoming crop quality<br />
based on historic data which pointed to supply stability, consis-
tency, versatility and value.<br />
Regarding the last factor, I was<br />
able to show that soft white buyers<br />
during the last year experienced a<br />
significant boost in flour yield—a<br />
tangible dollar and cents advantage<br />
to millers. I also pointed out that<br />
soft white wheat has the lowest<br />
level of impurities among U.S.<br />
wheat classes (Figure 1).<br />
Much of the quality data I presented<br />
originates from the Idaho,<br />
Oregon and Washington wheat<br />
and grain commissions’ Soft White<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> Marketing Plan. We now<br />
have ten years of detailed crop<br />
quality information on soft white<br />
available by production zones and<br />
protein level. This data includes<br />
wheat, flour, dough and end-use<br />
product information derived from<br />
testing at the <strong>Wheat</strong> Marketing<br />
Center in Portland.<br />
One key value of the soft white<br />
wheat crop is its versatility in terms<br />
of protein availability. While average<br />
crop protein is often discussed,<br />
soft white protein can be evenly<br />
divided by thirds as shown by the<br />
recent three-year average (Figure 2).<br />
This means higher protein is available<br />
for flat breads and crackers,<br />
lower protein for pastries and cakes<br />
and midrange protein for miscellaneous<br />
uses.<br />
Although my focus was on soft<br />
white, those who attended the<br />
conference also had the opportunity<br />
to learn about the latest U.S.<br />
wheat crop forecast, supply and<br />
demand changes, the direct impact<br />
of corn supply and price upon<br />
wheat, implications of changes to<br />
the Canadian <strong>Wheat</strong> Board and an<br />
update on biotechnology developments.<br />
A synopsis of current farm<br />
bill discussions was also provided<br />
as well as perspectives on wheat<br />
price volatility and factors behind<br />
Figure 1<br />
Figure 2<br />
WGC REPORTS WL<br />
the boom in U.S. agriculture.<br />
With competition for market share increasing among wheat exporters<br />
around the world, concentrating additional efforts upon Latin American markets<br />
is an initiative I believe will pay big dividends. Soft white wheat is more<br />
than a low protein cookie, cracker and confectionery class. It is an improver<br />
for end-use products of all kinds, not to mention Pacific Northwest farmers’<br />
bottom lines.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 47<br />
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
WL<br />
WGC REPORTS<br />
Milling<br />
consultants<br />
key to<br />
soft white<br />
success<br />
By Glen W. Squires<br />
FoCuS on blEndinG vAluE<br />
The Washington Grain<br />
Commission (WGC) has been<br />
investigating the value of using<br />
soft white wheat in blends with<br />
other wheat as part of research conducted<br />
by Peter Lloyd, U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong><br />
Associates’ (USW) regional technical<br />
director based in Casablanca,<br />
Morocco.<br />
In concert with USW and the<br />
WGC, container samples and other<br />
commercial work on blending has<br />
occurred in several countries,<br />
including Thailand, Morocco,<br />
Guatemala and Colombia. Blend<br />
percentages typically fall into the<br />
30 percent range for soft white,<br />
but some mills, such as those in<br />
Colombia, like 40 percent soft white<br />
blends. Others use still higher<br />
percentages.<br />
EnTER pATRiCK FRY<br />
Chile is currently the largest buyer<br />
of soft white in Latin America,<br />
where approximately 50 percent of<br />
it is blended in other classes. The<br />
WGC has been pushing hard for increased<br />
technical expertise at USW<br />
to assist buyers in the use of U.S.<br />
wheat and in particular, soft white,<br />
setting aside funding to assist the<br />
effort. Although Peter Lloyd is a<br />
champion of the blending concept,<br />
his many irons in the fire means he<br />
cannot devote the time the WGC<br />
feels is necessary to develop the<br />
practice.<br />
48 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
During a break at the Latin American Buyers Conference, Glen Squires, CEO of the WGC, speaks with<br />
Patrick Fry, a milling consultant from Chile. Fry touts blends of soft white in Argentine wheats of up<br />
to 70 percent for some products.<br />
Which brings me to Patrick Fry.<br />
A milling consultant recommended<br />
by USW’s Alvaro de la Fuente, Fry<br />
has extensive baking experience<br />
and his own state-of-the art laboratory.<br />
Upon meeting him, it was<br />
obvious Fry understands both the<br />
milling and product manufacturing<br />
side of the wheat equation. He consults<br />
for many companies, including<br />
Walmart.<br />
Our goal is to use Fry’s blending<br />
expertise to specifically target<br />
additional Latin American markets<br />
and do for them what he and de la<br />
Fuente have accomplished in Chile.<br />
Initially, we hope he will work one<br />
week a month with mills throughout<br />
Latin America. Depending on<br />
the outcome, we could solicit more<br />
of his time.<br />
In this year’s WGC budget, funding<br />
has been set aside to move the<br />
milling consultant project forward<br />
and to facilitate training and work<br />
looking at blending soft white. It’s<br />
anticipated that the container-size<br />
samples needed for the milling<br />
work could be sourced through<br />
the USW quality samples program.<br />
There will also need to be samples<br />
of red wheat that would be sourced<br />
from PNW export ports. This approach<br />
could help solidify replacement<br />
of Canadian Western Red<br />
Spring wheat.<br />
I believe as buyers discover the<br />
value of soft white in blends, pur-
chasing from the PNW will encourage the use of combo<br />
cargos with other classes, ultimately steering buyers to<br />
obtain all their grain needs from the Northwest.<br />
FRY TouTS blEndinG<br />
Perhaps one of the most fascinating presentations during<br />
the Latin American Buyers Conference was conducted<br />
by Fry on the mechanics and benefits of blending soft<br />
white wheat. He began by asking millers to consider the<br />
question, “How do you generate a wheat mixture that is<br />
economical?” He provided insight into how to account<br />
for milling differences between soft and hard wheat; detailed<br />
layouts of flour mills; and illustrated changes that<br />
could be made to existing facilities to enhance blending.<br />
He described the technical features of soft white for mixing,<br />
such as lower moisture, quality of the gluten, lower<br />
ash, good color and higher flour yield, as well as benefits<br />
in manufacturing products with soft white blended flour.<br />
He also gave details on the mixing process.<br />
The Chilean mills where Fry serves as a consultant are<br />
effectively using up to 70 percent soft white in blends<br />
for specific products. He illustrated the benefits of using<br />
soft white in blends with Argentine wheat (30 percent<br />
Argentine wheat and 70 percent soft white), as well as<br />
Canadian wheat. Many Latin American millers utilize<br />
Argentine wheat due to close proximity and price, but<br />
WGC REPORTS WL<br />
quality is often a challenge. Incorporating soft white was<br />
shown to enhance the mixture.<br />
Fry explained that from a commercial view, the typical<br />
idea is to buy the cheapest wheat to make the product.<br />
However, he suggested from a technical point of view<br />
that millers should be able to mix any wheat available.<br />
By doing so, a miller and baker gains the true value of<br />
the wheat to make the best product possible at the lowest<br />
cost. He emphasized that manufacturers are less interested<br />
in flours that produce inferior products.<br />
Fry concluded that soft white gives better quality to<br />
the blended flour and gives more flour (extraction) from<br />
the wheat. He has received no complaints from bakeries<br />
when soft white is utilized in certain blends. In his<br />
words, “It works like a charm!”<br />
During breaks and lunch, Fry was swarmed with<br />
people wanting to learn more about his experience with<br />
blending. While there will be additional evaluations regarding<br />
the project, it appears with the blending “secret”<br />
out of the bag, we may soon be off and running in other<br />
areas of Latin America, setting the stage for significant<br />
growth in exports of soft white and other PNW wheat<br />
classes to the region. The WGC is committed to seeing<br />
this market expansion occur.<br />
Patrick Fry, a milling consultant who works from his base in Chile, explains proper techniques for blending wheat classes to the nearly 200 buyers and<br />
millers who attended the Latin American Buyers Conference.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 49<br />
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
WL<br />
WGC REPORTS<br />
PNW exports to Latin America rise<br />
By Glen W. Squires<br />
Just 1 percent of U.S. wheat exports to Latin American<br />
countries (excluding Mexico) originated from Pacific<br />
Northwest coast ports in 1994 (Figure 3). In 2010, the<br />
region accounted for more than 20 percent of U.S. wheat<br />
exports with 16.1 percent during<br />
the last marketing year.<br />
Including Mexico, the<br />
region imported 7.8 million<br />
metric tons (mmt) in 2011/12,<br />
or 35 percent of total U.S.<br />
exports. This is the equivalent<br />
to the combined imports of<br />
Japan, South Korea and the<br />
Philippines.<br />
Mexico was singled out of<br />
the mix when looking at Latin<br />
American imports originating<br />
from PNW export ports<br />
because U.S. wheat ordinarily<br />
moves by rail into Mexico.<br />
Until now.<br />
1,000 metric tons<br />
500<br />
450<br />
400<br />
350<br />
300<br />
250<br />
200<br />
150<br />
100<br />
50<br />
0<br />
50 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
<strong>MM</strong>T<br />
10.0<br />
8.0<br />
6.0<br />
4.0<br />
2.0<br />
0.0<br />
3.7<br />
2.9<br />
0.8<br />
3.7<br />
During the 2011/12 marketing year—for the first time<br />
ever—Mexico purchased PNW wheat that was delivered<br />
by ship. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of such<br />
deliveries. In total, Mexico imported 3.5 mmt of wheat<br />
from the U.S. during the last marketing year of which<br />
Figure 3: U.S. wheat exports to Latin American with<br />
North Paci�c Coast export percentage<br />
1.8<br />
5.5<br />
4.5%<br />
1.1%<br />
1994/95 1998/99<br />
Mexico<br />
Total Exports<br />
5.1<br />
2%<br />
7.6<br />
2.5 2.1<br />
16.4%<br />
4.3<br />
6.4<br />
20.6% 16.1%<br />
2.6<br />
5.4<br />
8.0 7.8<br />
4.4<br />
3.4<br />
2002/03 2006/07 2010/11 2011/12<br />
All Other Latin America<br />
PNW % of All Other<br />
Figure 4: U.S. wheat exports to Guatemala by class<br />
82/83<br />
83/84<br />
84/85<br />
85/86<br />
86/87<br />
87/88<br />
88/89<br />
89/90<br />
90/91<br />
91/92<br />
92/93<br />
93/94<br />
94/95<br />
95/96<br />
96/97<br />
97/98<br />
98/99<br />
99/00<br />
00/01<br />
01/02<br />
02/03<br />
03/04<br />
04/05<br />
05/06<br />
06/07<br />
07/08<br />
08/09<br />
09/10<br />
10/11<br />
11/12<br />
Marketing Year<br />
30%<br />
20%<br />
10%<br />
0%<br />
Source: USDA/AMS<br />
Total<br />
SWW<br />
SRW<br />
HRW<br />
HRS<br />
Durum<br />
Source: USDA
Panama:<br />
A beginning<br />
success story?<br />
At a dinner prior to the Latin American<br />
Buyers Conference, I sat with millers and<br />
industry representatives from Colombia,<br />
Venezuela, Honduras and Panama. A<br />
conversation with a Panamanian miller<br />
revealed little interest in PNW soft white<br />
wheat. “We buy soft red winter (SRW).<br />
We have always bought soft red winter<br />
and will always buy soft red winter.”<br />
Although it might have appeared the<br />
case was closed, the buyer was encouraged<br />
to at least consider the benefits to be<br />
obtained with soft white. We continued<br />
the conversation as we viewed Eastern<br />
Washington wheat land via Google earth<br />
on his iPhone.<br />
Fast forward to the conclusion of the<br />
conference. Mitch Skalicky, USW director<br />
of the Mexico/Central American region,<br />
informed me of an impromptu meeting<br />
between himself and the Panamanian<br />
miller. This side discussion revealed that<br />
after hearing the WGC presentation on<br />
the stability and consistency of the soft<br />
white crop supply, in addition to the<br />
presentation by Fry on the value, benefits<br />
and mechanics of blending soft white,<br />
the miller was reconsidering his soft red<br />
allegiance.<br />
406,000 metric tons was soft white. Only Japan bought<br />
more wheat from America.<br />
In the early 2000s, the Washington Grain Commission<br />
increased its marketing efforts in the Latin American<br />
market. Several trips by commissioners and staff to<br />
visit mills ensued. Millers were introduced to soft white<br />
wheat, resulting in several containers of soft white to targeted<br />
mills. Coupled with the steady work of USW staff<br />
in the region, efforts are beginning to show significant<br />
results.<br />
Guatemala is a classic example where exports of PNW<br />
Mitch Skalicky, regional vice president of U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates for Mexico,<br />
Central America and the Caribbean, talks with Glen Squires about the value of<br />
soft white wheat’s stability and consistency during the 10th Latin American<br />
Buyers Conference.<br />
WGC REPORTS WL<br />
Despite his “We always buy soft red” statement, he noted the<br />
variability of the soft red crop as well as other concerns. It’s too<br />
soon to say whether this interaction will lead to another market<br />
development success story for soft white wheat, but the fact<br />
the Panamanian miller and Skalicky wound up discussing the<br />
logistics of sourcing soft white and other wheat classes from the<br />
PNW to Panama was a good sign.<br />
soft white has risen from zero in 2004/05 to more than<br />
twenty percent (nearly 100,000 metric tons), replacing,<br />
for the most part, soft red winter wheat (Figure<br />
4). USW’s Skalicky and team, along with Washington<br />
Grain Commission efforts in the country, has resulted<br />
in the U.S. largely replacing Canadian wheat in the<br />
Guatemalan market—a clear market development success<br />
story.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 51<br />
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USW president rises to the challenge<br />
Elimination of AWB, CWB highlights Alan Tracy’s career<br />
By Scott A. Yates<br />
The flight path, if not the trajectory of Alan Tracy’s life,<br />
was transformed one Wisconsin summer evening when,<br />
as a young man after a long day detasseling seed corn,<br />
a familiar curve came up sooner than he expected. The<br />
car he was driving rolled, and Tracy crawled out from<br />
under it soaked in gasoline and paralyzed from the waist<br />
down.<br />
A spinal fracture required him to be in a brace for six<br />
months, and while he eventually regained full movement,<br />
his plan of joining the Army—he’d been sworn in<br />
before the accident—was finished. Although he loved<br />
farming and planned one day to help operate the seed<br />
business his father started, returning so soon was not in<br />
his plans.<br />
“My father had a strong personally,” Tracy said diplomatically.<br />
“I didn’t think I could work with him, but it<br />
turned out better than I thought.”<br />
One can argue that after the gut-wrenching change of<br />
direction that occurred when he failed to anticipate that<br />
curve in the road, Tracy’s entire life has turned out bet-<br />
52 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
ter than he might have thought. Throughout numerous<br />
twists and turns, he has successfully navigated his entire<br />
career connected to some facet of agriculture, the last 15<br />
years as president of U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates (USW).<br />
Tracy was born into a farming family in south central<br />
Wisconsin where his father established one of the<br />
country’s first hybrid corn seed businesses in the 1930s,<br />
expanding overseas in the 1960s. As if farming and seed<br />
production weren’t enough, the operation also had cattle<br />
and a farrow-to-finish hog herd.<br />
Unlike some farm kids who rankle at the “work til<br />
you’re done” mentality of agriculture, Tracy thrived. He<br />
went to Cornell University to earn a degree in agricultural<br />
economics because he expected it would serve him<br />
best when he returned to his roots. Ultimately, he also<br />
received an MBA specializing in International Business<br />
from the University of Wisconsin.<br />
With the Army no longer an option and other employers<br />
uninterested in hiring a young man recovering<br />
from a spinal injury, Tracy went into business with his<br />
father, working to expand the international reach of
Tracy Seeds. He stayed for 11 years,<br />
eventually becoming president of<br />
the company and husband to his<br />
wife, Kris.<br />
A lifelong Republican—at 23,<br />
Tracy was once the youngest<br />
Republican county chairman in<br />
Wisconsin and, he says, maybe the<br />
nation—he was an early backer<br />
of Ronald Reagan for president in<br />
1980. When it came time to staff the<br />
administration, Reagan advised<br />
his transition team to seek out<br />
young people to build the leadership<br />
ranks of the party. At 34, Tracy<br />
was made general sales manager<br />
in the Foreign Agricultural Service.<br />
He moved up quickly, serving<br />
as deputy assistant secretary for<br />
International Affairs and then<br />
acting undersecretary, followed by<br />
deputy undersecretary for the marketing<br />
and inspection service, and<br />
finally, the first special assistant to<br />
the president for agricultural trade<br />
and food assistance.<br />
“I was the only aggie on the<br />
White House staff representing<br />
agriculture. In 1988, we were in<br />
a drought and with Secretary of<br />
Agriculture Dick Lyng, we would<br />
brief the president who was genuinely<br />
interested. On a drought tour<br />
from Nebraska to Ohio, there was a<br />
stop in Wisconsin where I met the<br />
governor, Tommy Thompson. In<br />
two years, I was the state’s secretary<br />
of agriculture,” Tracy said.<br />
Tracy served for seven years in<br />
the position until he was chosen to<br />
lead U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates.<br />
“The international side is what attracted<br />
me. Here was a job that was<br />
totally international and had policy<br />
elements, but it wasn’t a lobbying<br />
job. It was a very good fit. I started<br />
work Aug. 1, 1997, in Manhattan,<br />
Kan., at a summer board meeting,”<br />
he said.<br />
During his tenure at the helm of<br />
WGC REPORTS WL<br />
Alan Tracy (center), president of U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates, listens as Washington farmer and outgoing<br />
chairman of the organization, Randy Suess (right), speaks with the incoming chairman, Darrell Davis<br />
of South Dakota, during the summer board meeting held in Spokane.<br />
Alan Tracy, president of USW, speaks with Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission,<br />
during a break in the action at the USW summer board meeting held in the Davenport Hotel in<br />
Spokane.<br />
an organization that serves as the U.S. wheat industry’s export development<br />
arm, Tracy has been involved in many dustups, but nothing as important as<br />
the full-court press USW brought to bear against the Australian (AWB) and<br />
Canadian (CWB) wheat boards.<br />
“I can’t take credit for the outcome directly, but certainly seeing those two<br />
monopolies go by the wayside were the most satisfying events of my career at<br />
U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong>,” he said.<br />
Tracy is being modest about the credit. USW was the first to publicly sug-<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 53<br />
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WL<br />
WGC REPORTS<br />
gest something was rotten in Denmark about the AWB<br />
contracts written with Iraq in the lead up to the second<br />
Gulf War. As it turned out, in a bid to retain their market<br />
despite Australia’s joining the military coalition led by<br />
the U.S., the AWB resorted to bribery.<br />
“When we got hold of the contracts, we saw the price<br />
of wheat Australia was selling to Iraq had gone up by<br />
$50 a ton while the price in the market had only gone up<br />
$7 a ton. Now, you tell me, if you have an irate customer<br />
threatening to cut your imports by half, don’t you give<br />
him a discount instead of a big price increase? The only<br />
A tour of the Palouse following last summer’s USW meeting in Spokane found Alan Tracy (right)<br />
on top of Steptoe Butte with Mike Spier, regional vice president of USW’s South Asian region.<br />
thing that made sense was that the extra money was<br />
going back to the Iraqi regime. It was later proven that<br />
the Australian <strong>Wheat</strong> Board paid at least $283 million in<br />
kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, more than any other offender<br />
in the world,” he said.<br />
But it was a long wait from making the accusation to<br />
having it proven—four uncomfortable years—and during<br />
those years, USW was also going through its own<br />
rough weather.<br />
“We were involved in a family fight about merging<br />
USW and the National Association of <strong>Wheat</strong> Growers<br />
(NAWG) in those days, and there was also the first<br />
biotech debate. All of that: biotech, the merger and AWB,<br />
were politicized in the small “p” world of our industry.<br />
We knew we were right about the AWB, but until it<br />
was proven, the fact that we couldn’t prove it ourselves<br />
was used against us,” he said, adding that those issues,<br />
54 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
which came close to tearing the family apart, eventually<br />
evolved into a very collaborative relationship between<br />
the two national wheat groups.<br />
Tracy claims less credit for the elimination of the<br />
Canadian <strong>Wheat</strong> Board, but here again, the story is<br />
hardly straightforward. As president of an organization<br />
that depends on overseas staff spending years to build<br />
markets, watching them taken away by the CWB’s undercutting<br />
prices was incredibly frustrating.<br />
“There were all sorts of things buried in the CWB pool<br />
price that just drove us nuts. Market development is a<br />
long-term effort. Dealing with the CWB<br />
was like running a marathon where<br />
somebody cheats at the end of the race,”<br />
he said.<br />
During the decade-long debate over<br />
State Trading Enterprises, USW meetings<br />
regularly served as venues for wheat<br />
growers from the Canadian prairies to<br />
meet their free market allies and hone<br />
their arguments against the monopoly.<br />
Tracy also went to Winnipeg, delivering<br />
a speech which excoriated the CWB for<br />
practices that failed to ensure their growers<br />
got the best wheat price.<br />
“The CWB was sold in Canada like<br />
a cause, but the information we were<br />
bringing up about how they were using<br />
our transparent U.S. system to undersell<br />
was getting back to the rank and file. The<br />
Canadian farmers were not well served<br />
by their monopoly, but they had very<br />
little opportunity to learn that. The facts<br />
we were able to present had an impact,”<br />
he said.<br />
While the elimination of the AWB and CWB were a<br />
highlight of his career, Tracy said he is proudest of building<br />
a superb team of employees who make a difference<br />
for the bottom line of American wheat farmers.<br />
“We have great staff people. As a manager, I encourage<br />
and help them take charge of their work. I tell them<br />
when they come on board they will make mistakes. It’s<br />
important not to punish them for their mistakes, but to<br />
give them an opportunity to learn from them so they<br />
have the confidence to go out and take risks. If people are<br />
operating on the basis of fear, they aren’t going to accomplish<br />
anything new,” he said.<br />
Which sounds like advice the young Tracy, paralyzed<br />
at the side of road after an accident, might have given to<br />
himself.
The title of Kurt Haarmann’s<br />
presentation, “Do we still need<br />
U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates?,” delivered<br />
during the group’s summer board<br />
meeting in Spokane, was meant to be<br />
provocative.<br />
As vice president at Columbia<br />
Grain, Haarmann is in a better position<br />
than most to ask the question.<br />
After all, his company exports an estimated<br />
150 million bushels of wheat<br />
from its Portland facility each year.<br />
In his presentation and a subsequent<br />
interview, Haarmann said<br />
many people have seen U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong><br />
Associates’ (USW) role in the past<br />
as the organization that did battle<br />
against the Australian and Canadian wheat boards. Now<br />
that both have been eliminated, “Do we still need an<br />
army?” he asked.<br />
Haarmann’s affirmative answer is the result of looking<br />
at how huge multinationals push volume regardless<br />
of origination. Or as he put it, “The Cargills, Louis<br />
Dreyfuses and Bunges of the world have sources around<br />
the world, and they are trying to push product at the<br />
buyer no matter where it comes from.”<br />
But isn’t Columbia, which is owned by Marubeni, a<br />
company which just purchased Gavilon for $5 billion<br />
and is no slouch in the multinational world of business,<br />
interested in the same thing?<br />
“People like to paint Columbia Grain as a foreignowned<br />
company, but we have always operated as a U.S.<br />
company, and as a local and regional player, we have<br />
always been separate from Marubeni,” he said. “For<br />
instance, we aren’t influenced by Marubeni’s global<br />
grain trading. When the company buys Brazilian soy to<br />
sell into China, we have little if anything to do with that<br />
trade. Our core business is originating U.S. product from<br />
U.S. farms and trading it overseas.”<br />
As a result, Columbia Grain welcomes the promotional<br />
clout USW brings to the table and often tries to piggyback<br />
on it.<br />
“Any organization is only as good as the people on the<br />
ground, and while I can’t speak about other regions, my<br />
exposure to the Southeast Asian market is such that I can<br />
say U.S. wheat farmers are very lucky to have Mike Spier<br />
there. He is well received and well liked by the millers.<br />
He’s not just a salesman. They believe he has their best<br />
interest at heart,” he said.<br />
In export promotion, that “best interest” includes<br />
highlighting the benefits of U.S. wheat when contrasted<br />
WGC REPORTS WL<br />
Exporter applauds wheat’s indispensable player<br />
with other production areas of the<br />
world in order to point out the comparative<br />
advantages. Those advantages<br />
usually do not extend to price.<br />
As Haarmann explained, there are<br />
usually cheaper sources of wheat in<br />
the world year in and year out, but<br />
the U.S. does have among the highest<br />
quality wheat, calling it the “one<br />
true comparative advantage for our<br />
customers relative to other products<br />
available.”<br />
Another advantage enjoyed by<br />
U.S.-produced grain is the level of<br />
infrastructure the country enjoys.<br />
While Haarmann is very concerned<br />
about the long-term ability of the<br />
Black Sea region to grow more wheat, the lack of infrastructure<br />
there will make exporting greater amounts<br />
insurmountable in the near term.<br />
“America has the best infrastructure in the world to<br />
move grain from farm to export points. There’s nothing<br />
even close,” he said.<br />
Although Haarmann said it’s unlikely any less wheat<br />
would be traded in the world if USW were suddenly<br />
to disappear, he does believe less of that wheat would<br />
originate from the U.S.<br />
“You would see reduced wheat exports and a decline<br />
in market share of U.S. wheat in the world. And if you<br />
don’t have exports to support the price, you have a lower<br />
overall price which leads to decreased production and an<br />
ever vicious cycle lower,” he said.<br />
In fact, Haarmann said even with USW’s efforts<br />
around the globe, the competition for acres in the U.S.<br />
is very intense and very real, describing it as the biggest<br />
challenge wheat faces going forward.<br />
“Do we expand wheat production in other parts of<br />
the world, or are we going to going to embrace the next<br />
shift—biotech or whatever—that affords us the opportunity<br />
to feed the world?” he asked.<br />
Speaking of biotechnology, Haarmann believes when<br />
it comes, it will come quickly, with wheat farmers accepting<br />
the technology even faster than corn and soybean<br />
producers.<br />
“Who is going to guide that? Who is going to work toward<br />
consumer acceptance? Who will manage commercialization?<br />
Who will promote the necessary protocols to<br />
stakeholders?” he asked. The questions are meant to be<br />
rhetorical, and Haarmann leaves no doubt that when it<br />
comes to the challenges requiring global wheat leadership,<br />
U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates is the indispensable player.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 55<br />
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WL<br />
WGC REPORTS<br />
In winter wheat breeding, it’s all about the<br />
TRAITS<br />
By Arron Carter<br />
The goal of the Washington State<br />
University (WSU) winter wheat breeding<br />
program hasn’t changed much since<br />
William Jasper Spillman started crossing<br />
cultivars in Pullman more than<br />
115 years ago. Providing high yielding<br />
varieties to Washington’s growers is essential<br />
to maintain their profitability.<br />
It is, however, only one of several<br />
traits the breeding program focuses<br />
on. Although end-use quality is not<br />
something growers are paid for specifically,<br />
maintaining the highest quality<br />
is essential in an ever competitive export market. Agronomic adaptability,<br />
meanwhile, is something every grower needs, and is a target<br />
that changes on almost every farm. Disease resistance is another key<br />
element, and the program focuses on developing varieties which can<br />
withstand the state’s major pests.<br />
Although the goal of providing high yielding, agronomically adapted<br />
cultivars may sound simple enough, selection for multiple beneficial<br />
traits must be performed simultaneously, making it much more<br />
difficult to realize the objective. In order to find varieties with high<br />
yield potential, breeding lines are grown throughout the state under<br />
different agronomic systems to evaluate the potential of each. The first<br />
and second year of testing is done at the Spillman and Lind research<br />
farms. This first look allows us to eliminate all of the breeding lines<br />
that aren’t adapted to the specific climatic zones we are targeting.<br />
Once lines have demonstrated high yield potential at these locations,<br />
they are entered into advanced yield testing at multiple locations<br />
in each rainfall zone. This testing is executed on grower-cooperator<br />
fields. Without growers’ selfless donation of land, this multiple-site<br />
testing would be much more difficult. Lines with high yields after two<br />
to three years of testing in advanced trials are entered into the WSU<br />
Variety Testing program and are considered for release.<br />
Simultaneously, lines are evaluated for end-use quality potential.<br />
Samples from each yield plot are submitted to the WSU wheat qual-<br />
56 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
✔ Yield<br />
✔ End-use quality<br />
✔ Pest resistance<br />
✔ Disease resistance<br />
✔ Drought resistance<br />
✔ Climate adaptability
ity lab where tests are performed<br />
to evaluate the line’s performance.<br />
Seed is milled and either cookies<br />
or bread are baked as an end-use<br />
quality indicator. At more advanced<br />
levels, noodles and sponge cakes<br />
are also made.<br />
Quality testing actually begins<br />
before yield plots are planted. Seed<br />
planted into the first-year-yield<br />
plot testing is analyzed using<br />
small-scale predictor tests. Only<br />
lines with predicted high end-use<br />
quality will be advanced to yield<br />
testing.<br />
Due to the diversity of agronomic<br />
zones in Washington, we constantly<br />
screen our material for adaptability.<br />
Whether it is surviving the cold<br />
winters, coming up from a planting<br />
depth of eight inches or maturing<br />
at the proper date, we are always<br />
trying to attain wheat lines that are<br />
adapted to each individual growing<br />
region.<br />
Grants from various organizations<br />
help us complete needed research<br />
to identify lines with specific<br />
adaptations. The Amen Foundation<br />
funds research on identifying lines<br />
which can germinate under low<br />
water conditions and emerge from<br />
deep planting depths. The U.S.<br />
Department of Agriculture-funded<br />
Triticeae Coordinated Agricultural<br />
Project (T-CAP) is dedicated to<br />
identifying lines which perform<br />
well under drought conditions.<br />
Along with agricultural diversity<br />
comes pest diversity. We constantly<br />
screen our breeding lines for<br />
stripe rust resistance, snow mold<br />
resistance, foot rot resistance and<br />
Cephalosporium stripe resistance.<br />
Emerging pests like nematodes and<br />
wireworms are also on our radar<br />
screen, and efforts to identify resistance<br />
have begun.<br />
None of this work is done solely<br />
through the efforts of the winter<br />
WGC REPORTS WL<br />
wheat breeding program. We work closely with both the spring and USDA<br />
breeding programs to mitigate many of the pest issues we are facing. Since all<br />
wheat, whether spring or winter, is affected by similar pests (stripe rust for<br />
instance), we have found it is better to join forces to fight the battle together.<br />
Stephen Guy, agronomist in charge of Washington State University’s variety trials, speaks at the St.<br />
John field day as behind him, Arron Carter looks over his notes in preparation for his presentation<br />
on new winter wheat cultivars.<br />
Justice could never be done trying to name the numerous groups we collaborate<br />
with to solve wheat production concerns, but we work closely with<br />
entomologists, pathologists, molecular geneticists, cereal chemists, agronomists,<br />
cropping systems specialists, soil scientists and weed scientists in order<br />
to develop new varieties of wheat. We also team up with groups throughout<br />
the nation and around the globe.<br />
Although collaboration with outside groups is important, the technicians<br />
that work under the breeders are what keep us running. Kerry Balow maintains<br />
the greenhouse program 365 days a year, doing crossing, seed increases<br />
and doubled haploids, not to mention assisting with many research projects<br />
for graduate students. Jenny Hansen works tirelessly in the lab running DNA<br />
markers and identifying lines with certain combinations of genes needed<br />
to succeed under field conditions. She also leads our doubled haploid effort.<br />
Ryan Higginbotham and Gary Shelton work all summer long to ensure data is<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 57<br />
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WGC REPORTS<br />
In the toolbox<br />
NEW FIELD TOOLS ENHANCE WSU BREEDI<strong>NG</strong><br />
By Gary Shelton<br />
There has been a great deal of excitement in<br />
wheat development technology in the past few<br />
years. Catch phrases like double haploid, molecular<br />
markers, sequencing, association mapping and<br />
genomic selection are just a few used to describe<br />
much of the ongoing wheat research effort here at<br />
Washington State University (WSU).<br />
These powerful technologies promise to change<br />
the face of wheat breeding and speed up the release<br />
of new and better varieties. Most of this work is done<br />
in a laboratory or greenhouse, but to fully realize the<br />
benefits of such technologies, a robust field research program<br />
needs to be in place. That’s where the rubber meets the road,<br />
since there is no technology currently available that will predict<br />
with certainty how a breeding line will perform outside the<br />
laboratory or greenhouse.<br />
The WSU Winter <strong>Wheat</strong> Breeding Program has a robust field<br />
component with 11 breeding locations and nine satellite locations.<br />
In 2012, nearly 120 individual field trials were established.<br />
More than 25,000 plots and nearly 30,000 individual<br />
breeding lines were planted and evaluated for the crop year.<br />
Through the generous donations of the Washington<br />
Grain Commission and the funds garnered from competitive<br />
grants, multiple improvements have been realized<br />
for the winter wheat field research component. Here are<br />
highlights of some of the equipment we are currently<br />
utilizing to enhance the speed and precision of research<br />
conducted in the field.<br />
It takes a village to manage all these field trials, and<br />
knowledge of the new technology is paramount. Much of the<br />
effort to understand the new devices and conduct<br />
the work falls on the back of research technicians,<br />
graduate students and undergraduate<br />
student workers.<br />
As a group, we would like to thank<br />
Washington wheat growers for the check-off dollars<br />
they so generously provide the Winter <strong>Wheat</strong><br />
Breeding Program. The addition of the latest<br />
equipment enhances our efforts in an increasingly<br />
competitive market.<br />
58 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
Zurn Plot Combine: Two combines, which are shared<br />
by the winter and spring wheat programs, are being<br />
used for the first time this season. These machines<br />
collect yield, test weight and moisture, thereby eliminating<br />
the need to process grain by hand.<br />
CropScan Multispectral Radiometer:<br />
Measures reflectance of specific wavelengths<br />
of light transmitted by the wheat canopy.<br />
These wavelengths are useful in quantifying<br />
stresses of various kinds, such<br />
as drought or foliar disease.<br />
Trimble GPS: These<br />
units are being used<br />
in establishing trials<br />
across the state.<br />
Guided with auto<br />
steer and connected<br />
to the planter, seed<br />
can be planted with<br />
a precision of less<br />
than one inch.
Perten NIR: Utilized as a screening tool prior to<br />
submitting seed for end-use quality evaluations, it<br />
measures test weight, protein content, kernel hardness<br />
and moisture.<br />
(From left) Gary Shelton, James Lewis, Austin Garza, Megan Lewein, Shiferaw Gizaw,<br />
Yukiko Naruoka, Ryan Higginbotham, Ivy Shipley-Johnson, Nick Gruenenfelder,<br />
Caleb Squires, Josh DeMacon, Kerry Balow, Arron Carter and Jonathan Kuehner. Not<br />
pictured is Jenny Hansen.<br />
Minolta SPAD<br />
Meter: Used to assess<br />
chlorophyll and<br />
nitrogen status of<br />
plants in a nondestructive<br />
manner.<br />
Data generated<br />
indicates the relative<br />
health of the wheat<br />
plant during the<br />
growing season.<br />
WGC REPORTS WL<br />
collected on yield trials and that they are<br />
managed properly.<br />
The bottleneck for the breeding programs<br />
is the harvest and planting cycle.<br />
We have about five weeks from harvest<br />
until we have to plant again. During this<br />
time, all harvest data must be collected<br />
and analyzed, selections made, quality<br />
analysis completed and selections made<br />
again and then the seed organized and<br />
prepared for planting. It gets crazy during<br />
those five weeks, but with the guidance of<br />
Gary and Ryan, along with the assistance<br />
of Jenny and Kerry, the process is an efficient<br />
one.<br />
Although breeding goals have not<br />
changed much over the past century,<br />
the tools and technology at our disposal<br />
have. Gone are the days of collecting data<br />
by paper and pen. Data is entered directly<br />
into data loggers which can then be<br />
downloaded into computers at the end of<br />
the day. This allows for faster analysis and<br />
fewer mistakes. Field collection equipment<br />
now exceeds what the human eye<br />
can see, and we can look at how plants<br />
are behaving in the near infrared. New<br />
combines allow yield data to be collected<br />
instantly, eliminating the need to bring<br />
grain samples back for processing and<br />
again allowing for immediate analysis of<br />
data. GPS technology allows auto-planting<br />
of research plots, reducing the errors<br />
made in planting. Molecular marker<br />
technology ensures certain genes for<br />
resistance are present before the breeding<br />
lines even leave the greenhouse, making<br />
field selections more efficient.<br />
The list goes on, and as part of our efforts,<br />
we continue to look for new technologies<br />
that will enhance our ability<br />
to effectively select adapted wheat lines<br />
as efficiently as possible. Much of this<br />
new technology has been made possible<br />
by the contributions of Washington<br />
growers through the Washington Grain<br />
Commission. In today’s fast-changing<br />
era of wheat breeding, I believe such<br />
assistance, along with the efforts of the<br />
entire breeding team, will enable WSU<br />
to extend its 115-year legacy of providing<br />
high yielding varieties to Washington’s<br />
growers.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 59<br />
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WHEAT WATCH<br />
WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON GRA<strong>IN</strong> CO<strong>MM</strong><strong>IS</strong>S<strong>IO</strong>N<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> exports expected to strengthen in 2012/13<br />
For more than a decade, Glen Squires has assessed the state<br />
of the wheat market in his four-times-a-year <strong>Wheat</strong> Watch<br />
analysis. His appointment as chief executive officer of the<br />
Washington Grain Commission has required him to reapportion<br />
his responsibilities. The new <strong>Wheat</strong> Watch will appear<br />
monthly and be written alternately by Washington State<br />
University agricultural economist Randy Fortenbery and Mike<br />
Krueger of the Money Farm.<br />
By T. Randall Fortenbery<br />
U.S. wheat trade is expected to improve<br />
this marketing year compared to<br />
year-ago levels (the wheat marketing<br />
year runs from June through May). The<br />
increase in U.S. exports comes despite<br />
a 10 percent reduction in overall world<br />
trade compared to the record trade<br />
level last year.<br />
U.S. exports across all wheat classes are currently<br />
projected to total 1.2 billion bushels, an increase of more<br />
than 14 percent over last year. As a result, the U.S. share<br />
of world trade in wheat, flour and products is expected<br />
to increase to 24 percent from less than 19 percent last<br />
marketing year (Figure 1).<br />
The expected increase in U.S. wheat<br />
exports is driven entirely by increases<br />
in hard winter and soft red wheat.<br />
Hard spring and durum exports are<br />
projected to decline modestly from last<br />
year, and white wheat exports are projected<br />
to be down 22 percent relative to<br />
the 2011/12 marketing year.<br />
Despite current forecasts of increased<br />
exports, however, export<br />
activity through early September<br />
has lagged last year’s pace. Total U.S.<br />
wheat exports through Sept. 6 were<br />
268.7 million bushels, compared to<br />
284.5 million bushels at the same time<br />
last year, a decline of more than 5.5<br />
percent. Only white wheat is ahead of<br />
last year’s export pace, although outstanding<br />
sales (wheat sold but not yet<br />
exported) are behind last year, making<br />
total commitments for white wheat<br />
(actual exports plus outstanding sales)<br />
60 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
29%<br />
27%<br />
25%<br />
23%<br />
21%<br />
19%<br />
17%<br />
15%<br />
less than year ago levels.<br />
The good news is that inspections for export picked up<br />
in September, and on Sept. 17, recorded their largest level<br />
of the year at 29.4 million bushels, well above the weekly<br />
pace needed to meet U.S. Department of Agriculture’s<br />
(USDA) export projections for the year. This increase<br />
in activity is likely to continue given a reduction in the<br />
world wheat production estimate in mid-September. The<br />
largest production decline comes from Russia, where the<br />
Siberian harvest is expected to be the lowest in 50 years.<br />
This will result in reduced export competition from<br />
the Black Sea region and work to the advantage of U.S.<br />
exporters.<br />
Based on improved export prospects coupled with<br />
an increase in domestic feed use of wheat, total ending<br />
stocks for U.S. wheat on May 31, 2013, are expected to be<br />
6 percent lower than May 2012. This leads to an expected<br />
increase in the average farm price compared to last year,<br />
despite a slight increase in expected world ending stocks.<br />
The USDA currently projects the average U.S. farm<br />
price for all wheat to be between $7.50 and $8.70 per<br />
bushel. Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between the<br />
average U.S. farm price for wheat and the average futures<br />
price for soft red winter wheat traded in Chicago. The<br />
Figure 1: U.S. market share of world trade<br />
in wheat, �our and products<br />
(Marketing years run from June 1 through May 31)<br />
2008/09<br />
2009/10<br />
2010/11<br />
2011/12<br />
2012/13
futures price average is calculated from the closing prices<br />
of the futures contract closest to delivery on each trading<br />
day of the year.<br />
Using this information, we can get a sense for whether<br />
current futures market prices support the USDA cash<br />
price forecast. Note that generally, with the exception of<br />
2007/08 and 2010/11, the average U.S. farm price is quite<br />
close to the average annual futures price. Through the<br />
week of Sept. 14, the futures price for the 2012/13 marketing<br />
year was near the midpoint of the current USDA<br />
price forecast range for 2012/13. Nearby futures prices<br />
have averaged $8.16 per bushel since June 1, and the midpoint<br />
of the USDA forecast is $8.10 per bushel.<br />
As we look forward, however, futures prices for later<br />
delivery (delivery through May 2013) are substantially<br />
higher than the average futures price from June 1<br />
through mid-September. Combining average futures<br />
prices from the start of the marketing year with current<br />
futures prices for delivery through May 2013 suggests<br />
the current market expectation is for futures to average<br />
about $8.60 per bushel over the entire marketing year<br />
(the $8.10 per bushel it has averaged thus far, combined<br />
with the current prices for December, March and May<br />
going forward). If cash prices maintain their historical<br />
relationship to futures, then we might expect the average<br />
2012/13 farm price for all wheat to be near the top<br />
end of the USDA projected range. However, since cash<br />
prices are already near the top end of the range in most<br />
PNW markets, producers who continue to store wheat<br />
WHEAT WATCH WL<br />
Figure 2: <strong>Wheat</strong> futures vs. cash prices Futures through Sept. 14,<br />
$9.00<br />
$8.00<br />
$7.00<br />
$6.00<br />
$5.00<br />
$4.00<br />
$3.00<br />
$2.00<br />
$1.00<br />
$0.00<br />
2005/06<br />
2006/07<br />
2007/08<br />
2008/09<br />
Soft red wheat futures<br />
2009/10<br />
2010/11<br />
All wheat cash<br />
2011/12<br />
cash is the mid-point<br />
of the USDA forecast<br />
2012/13<br />
unpriced are essentially betting that both the futures<br />
market and the USDA are too low in their current price<br />
expectations, and prices will increase going forward at<br />
least enough to cover storage costs.<br />
From early 2011 through midsummer 2012, wheat<br />
prices were heavily influenced by fundamentals and<br />
price activity in the corn market. In recent weeks, wheat<br />
appears to be breaking free from the corn market and<br />
trading based on its own fundamentals.<br />
As of mid-September, Chicago wheat futures prices<br />
for December delivery were $1.30 per bushel higher than<br />
December corn futures, despite the drought damage<br />
done to the midwest corn crop. Likewise, July 2013 prices<br />
for soft red wheat were nearly $1.20 per bushel higher<br />
than corn prices for July delivery. These premiums are<br />
more consistent with relative prices observed prior to the<br />
overall run-up in commodity values experienced in 2008.<br />
With the wheat market starting to separate itself from<br />
corn, price activity the remainder of the marketing year<br />
will be quite sensitive to activity in the export market.<br />
Maintaining current price levels will require the recent<br />
surge in export inspections to be maintained and translated<br />
into actual shipments.<br />
T. Randall Fortenbery holds the Tom Mick Endowed Chair in<br />
Grain Economics at Washington State University. He received<br />
his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of<br />
Illinois-Urbana/Champaign.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 61<br />
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WIDE WORLD OF WHEAT<br />
An early winter frost and then drought has dramatically<br />
reduced RUSSIA’S wheat crop, but the country’s agricultural<br />
minister says there will not be a repeat of the 2010<br />
embargo. Nikolai Fyodorov said, “All instruments are on the<br />
table, except for an embargo, which could do more harm<br />
than good.” Estimates have put Russia’s wheat harvest at<br />
40 million metric tons (mmt), which is actually less than the<br />
41.5 mmt harvested in 2010. Not to mention a survey of 10<br />
market analysts believe the country will run out of 2012/13<br />
exportable grain in November, potentially requiring the government<br />
to impose export restrictions that may include duties.<br />
“We believe export restrictions may be imposed before<br />
the end of the calendar year,” said Jenia Ustinova, an analyst<br />
for the Eurasia Group. Dan Hofstad of <strong>IN</strong>TL FCStone Inc., a<br />
risk management consultant, said it is highly likely Russia will<br />
have to resort to some sort of export control before year’s<br />
end. The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects Russia’s<br />
wheat exports to fall to 8 mmt from 21.6 mmt last season.<br />
The country reportedly has two special state reserves holding<br />
some 23 mmt of grain for emergency situations.<br />
A scientist working for AUSTRALIA’S national science<br />
agency, CSIRO, accidentally happened upon a new wheat<br />
line that could result in a major yield leap. Matthew Morell<br />
was looking to breed a wheat line with lower starch content<br />
and viscosity for industrial uses. Instead, he created a new<br />
cultivar that could increase wheat yields by 30 percent. The<br />
new wheat, bred using genetic engineering, has a naturally<br />
occurring enzyme gene in the plant’s genetic makeup which<br />
has been silenced or turned off. The chance discovery has<br />
been described by some as one of the most exciting scientific<br />
advances for wheat in decades. Plants with the silenced<br />
gene grew 30 percent larger with 30 percent bigger heads<br />
and 30 percent increase in grain yield. The new wheat has<br />
piqued the interest of Bayer CropSciences, which signed a<br />
joint venture agreement with CSIRO to take the advance<br />
through to international commercialization.<br />
Mitsubishi and Toyota want it. The Japanese government<br />
wants it. But farmers in JAPAN don’t like the Trans-Pacific<br />
Partnership (TPP) trade pact that is being pushed by the<br />
Obama Administration. The idea behind the TPP is to<br />
dramatically reduce tariffs and other trade barriers throughout<br />
the Pacific Rim. Currently, tariffs protect $48 billion in<br />
Japanese agriculture produce. Without them, said Tetsuro<br />
Shimizu, manager of the agricultural cooperative, JA Group,<br />
99 percent of the wheat, almost all the sugar and most<br />
beef production in Japan would stop being competitive.<br />
Currently, Japan depends on agricultural products from<br />
abroad for 60 percent of its food. Without the tariffs, that<br />
62 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
number would climb to 90 percent. But Tetsuhide Mikamo,<br />
director of research at Marubeni, Japans biggest trading<br />
house (which operates Columbia Grain in Portland), said protecting<br />
farmers has only weakened their competitiveness.<br />
Both U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates and the National Association of<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> Growers support TPP.<br />
Once the breadbasket of Africa, ZIMBABWE’S wheat<br />
harvest is expected to be just 20,000 tons in 2012/13, a far<br />
cry from the 300,000 tons the country produced in 2001.<br />
Bread is the country’s second most popular staple, and more<br />
than 450,000 tons is needed to help feed the population of<br />
13.5 million. Officials blame everything from poor planning,<br />
an expensive and erratic electricity supply, dilapidated irrigation<br />
infrastructure and lack of credit for the problem.<br />
<strong>Wheat</strong> imports into MEXICO through June rose by nearly<br />
a third, registering a new<br />
record for the first<br />
half of the year. Much<br />
of the increase is the<br />
result of livestock<br />
operations importing<br />
cheaper wheat for feed<br />
as corn prices spiked. For the<br />
first half of 2012, Mexican wheat imports<br />
totaled 3.13 million tons, nearly<br />
double the amount imported during<br />
the same period last year.<br />
The high price of wheat would logically<br />
dictate that farmers in ARGENT<strong>IN</strong>A<br />
plant more. Instead, farmers have planted<br />
22 percent less wheat this season than in the<br />
previous crop year. Growers seeded 8.9 million<br />
acres with 2012/13 wheat. The USDA estimates<br />
Argentine wheat production at 12 mmt, down<br />
from 14.5 mmt the prior crop year. Argentine<br />
wheat is planted from June to August and<br />
harvested from November through January.<br />
Many farmers are shifting out of wheat and<br />
towards barley to avoid government-imposed<br />
wheat export limits. The curb is meant to<br />
ensure ample supply domestically, but farmers<br />
say it hurts profits by reducing competition among<br />
buyers.<br />
Western CANADA wheat farmers who were convicted<br />
of taking their grain across the border in the 1990s to sell in<br />
the U.S., were recently pardoned by Prime Minister Stephen<br />
Harper. He said the farmers, who drove small amounts of<br />
MEXICO<br />
ARGENT<strong>IN</strong>A
grain across the border as<br />
part of a symbolic rebellion<br />
against the Canadian <strong>Wheat</strong><br />
Board, were responsible for initially<br />
bringing the controversy<br />
to public awareness. “Never,<br />
never again will western<br />
farmers—and only western<br />
farmers growing their<br />
own wheat on their<br />
own land—be told how<br />
they can and can’t market<br />
their products,” he<br />
said. In some cases, farmers<br />
were jailed, one for<br />
several months, for crossing<br />
the border with grain. One spent 23<br />
days in jail for taking a bag of wheat<br />
to donate to a 4-H club in Montana.<br />
“For these courageous farmers, their<br />
convictions will no longer tarnish<br />
their good names,” Harper said.<br />
Increasing the price for domestically<br />
produced wheat in EGYPT should<br />
increase domestic production, right?<br />
Unfortunately, the price premium<br />
paid to its farmers has given some<br />
a golden opportunity to pass off<br />
cheap foreign grain as locally grown.<br />
Although it happens every year,<br />
this year it’s happening even more<br />
because the spread between cheap<br />
origin wheat and Egypt’s local wheat<br />
price is bigger. Egypt pays $63.60<br />
per 140 kg bag for local wheat. It’s<br />
reported that imported wheat, represented<br />
as local, can result in a $100<br />
per ton profit. A ministry spokesman<br />
said the government has tried to control<br />
questionable claims by clamping<br />
down on small farmers selling large<br />
quantities of wheat. “Now when we<br />
come to buy the wheat from farmers,<br />
we require to see documentation to<br />
see how much land he owns.” For the<br />
last three years, Egypt has consistently<br />
imported between 10 and 11<br />
mmt of wheat.<br />
The tiny country of KOSOVO,<br />
which was wracked by war in 1998<br />
and 1999, is taking measures to<br />
reduce its dependence on wheat,<br />
flour and corn imports by subsidizing<br />
farmers who grow the crops with a<br />
ARGENT<strong>IN</strong>A<br />
ALGERIA<br />
GERMANY<br />
KOSOVO<br />
ALGERIA<br />
GERMANY<br />
BULGARIA<br />
KOSOVO<br />
BULGARIA<br />
EGYPT<br />
ZIMBABWE<br />
RUSSIA<br />
JAPAN<br />
AUSTRALIA<br />
$127 per hectare (2.4 acres) payment.<br />
Financial support for wheat production<br />
reached $5.6 million in 2012,<br />
with an additional 14,800 acres of<br />
wheat planted as a result. Kosovo, a<br />
country with a population of 1.8 million, generally<br />
needs around 410,000 tons of wheat annually. The<br />
country’s overall wheat import is 130,000 tons, mostly from Serbia and Russia.<br />
ALGERIA, a country of 34 million, is beefing up its large-scale agricultural<br />
production ability by creating a “motoculture” unit which has spent $122 million to<br />
buy 1,250 combines, 350 tractors and more than a thousand seeders. The Algerian<br />
Grain Office also plans to equip a grain area of 1.2 million acres with supplemental<br />
irrigation systems, up from the 234,000 acres currently equipped. The country<br />
reserves a total of 8.1 million acres for grain production.<br />
A climate friendly cellulose ethanol pilot plant fed by wheat straw has been<br />
opened in GERMANY. Located in Straubing, Bavaria, the $36 million pilot project<br />
will produce up to 1,000 tons of cellulosic ethanol from around 4,500 tons of<br />
wheat straw. It’s estimated around 22 million tons of wheat straw in Germany can<br />
be used for energy production without compromising essential soil regeneration.<br />
That’s enough to cover 25 percent of the country’s gasoline needs. The pilot plant<br />
is intended to prove Sunliquid technology, which is said to reduce production<br />
costs enough to make the cellulosic process commercially viable.<br />
BULGARIA is playing up its role as home to einkorn, an ancient variation of<br />
wheat. Part of the diet of Copper Age man, the 5,300-year-old man dubbed Otzi,<br />
found frozen in the Alps in 1991, had einkorn in his colon. In Bulgaria, the grain can<br />
be traced back to the Neolithic Age 9,000 years ago. Wild varieties still grow in the<br />
country, but even under cultivation, its yield is low, its hulled ears need additional<br />
processing, and it has a type of gluten that makes baking problematic. With interest<br />
in ancient grains growing because of renewed health consciousness, however,<br />
einkorn is making a comeback. From no production in 2009, there is now almost<br />
1,000 acres in Bulgaria. Studies show the grain is richer in proteins, and the level<br />
of antioxidants that fight aging and chronic diseases is almost eight times higher<br />
compared to cultivated wheat.<br />
EGYPT<br />
ZIMBABWE<br />
RUSSIA<br />
AUSTRALIA<br />
JAPAN<br />
<strong>IN</strong>DIA<br />
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WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
From Germany<br />
with Love<br />
In Eastern Washington, you don’t have to look far to see the area’s German heritage. From surnames to sausage<br />
feeds to Oktoberfests, the influence is clear.<br />
The German road to Eastern Washington began in 1763, when Russia’s Catherine the Great invited European<br />
colonists to settle the region around the lower Volga River in Russia. Those colonists, mostly made up of Germans,<br />
established more than 100 colonies along the river and greatly contributed to Russia’s wheat exporting dominance in<br />
the middle 1800s. Often referred to as the Volga Germans, this group of people began immigrating to the U.S. in the<br />
late 1800s due to rising tensions between them and the Russian government.<br />
Richard D. Scheuerman, a professor at Seattle Pacific University and an Endicott native, and Alex McGregor, an<br />
Eastern Washington farmer and businessman, have co-authored a book, tentatively titled Harvest Home: Heirloom<br />
Crops and Agricultural Origins of the Pacific Northwest, looking at the influence of the Volga Germans on<br />
Washington’s agriculture. Here is an excerpt:<br />
A harvest scene, presumably<br />
taken by Joshua Elmer, near<br />
Odessa between 1905-1915.<br />
64 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ODESSA PUBLIC LIBRARY, WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON RURAL HERITAGE AND WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON STATE UNIVERSITY
TThe approaching 2013 sesquicentennial of Tsarina<br />
Catherine the Great’s 1763 “Manifesto of the Empress”<br />
inviting European colonists to settle in Russia will commemorate<br />
the remarkable global travels of a people who<br />
have significantly influenced Pacific Northwest agriculture.<br />
Popularly known as the Volga German “Magna<br />
Carta,” Catherine’s invitation 250 years ago led to the<br />
eastward immigration of some 27,000 colonists—mostly<br />
Germans, who established 104 colonies on the fertile<br />
steppes of the lower Volga River. Similar legislation enacted<br />
a generation later by Tsar Alexander I brought a similar<br />
wave of German colonist farmers to Ukraine’s Black Sea<br />
region and Bessarabia. After several years of challenging<br />
adjustment to conditions on the empire’s frontier borderlands,<br />
the German colonies began to flourish and significantly<br />
contributed to Russia’s position by the middle of<br />
the 19th century as Europe’s largest exporter of wheat. The<br />
Russian-Germans were heavy consumers of inexpensive<br />
rye bread flour and yellow millet, but grew semi-hard red<br />
spring Saxonka (Saxon) bread wheat for export as well as<br />
the Saratov and Beloturk durums.<br />
A rising tide of conservative pan-Slavism led to the<br />
undoing of many settlement privileges extended to the<br />
Germans by Catherine and Alexander. After 1871, their<br />
young men were subject to formal instruction in the<br />
Russian language and the dismal prospect of military<br />
service, while the dramatic rise of their population had led<br />
FEATURE WL<br />
to recurrent redistribution of farmland leaving many with<br />
uncertain prospects for the future. Volga German colony<br />
leaders began sending scouts to the U.S. in 1871, which led<br />
to the immigration of significant numbers to Kansas and<br />
Nebraska throughout the decade and until the Bolshevik<br />
Revolution in 1917. An intrepid cadre of these people<br />
relocated to Portland, Ore., in 1881 searching for available<br />
farmland, and some were directed to the Palouse Country<br />
a year later by representatives of Henry Villard’s Northern<br />
Pacific Railroad. Villard had just organized the Oregon<br />
Improvement Company to promote sales of the railroad’s<br />
150,000-acre Palouse tract of “the finest agricultural lands<br />
in the northwest” and other land grant properties to the<br />
west in present Adams and Lincoln counties.<br />
The Kansas group, including the families of Phillip<br />
Green, Peter Ochs, Henry Litzenberger, Henry Repp,<br />
Conrad Schierman, John Kleweno and John Helm, traveled<br />
by rail and wagon in the fall of 1882 from Portland<br />
to the vicinity of present Endicott, Wash., where they<br />
settled along the Palouse River. In later years, Helm often<br />
reminisced about the vanguard’s first glimpse of the area’s<br />
steeply rolling prairies which his grandson, Palouse country<br />
native Harry Helm, rendered into verse.<br />
Grandpa said:<br />
The grass was like Europe’s grass,<br />
Soft and waving like a sea.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 65
WL<br />
A<br />
FEATURE<br />
It hissed and whispered like a friend<br />
In well-known German words to me.<br />
The hills were like German hills,<br />
Green plumed against a feckless sky.<br />
As I went riding bunchgrass trails,<br />
Where the prairie chickens fly.<br />
Clear waters tumbled through the trees<br />
In every golden, sun-swept vale.<br />
While flowers tipped their hats to me,<br />
As they touched my prancing pinto’s tail.<br />
A Nebraska colony of Volga Germans led by Frederick<br />
Rosenoff, Henry Kanzler, Jacob Schoessler, George Dewald<br />
and Jacob Thiel journeyed in the spring of 1881 from<br />
Hitchcock County to Ogden, Utah, by rail where they<br />
joined with others to form a train of 40 wagons for the trek<br />
northward. The column lumbered along the Oregon Trail<br />
to Walla Walla where some remained to scout the area for<br />
settlement prospects while some continued on to Portland.<br />
Jacob Thiel was among the Walla Walla contingent and<br />
found employment from pioneer developer Phillip Ritz,<br />
who had recently acquired 5,000 acres from the railroad in<br />
the vicinity of present Ritzville. The promoter encouraged<br />
Thiel and his kinsmen to settle in the area which led to the<br />
genesis of significant Russian-German immigration to the<br />
fertile Ritzville-Odessa grain districts.<br />
Black Sea German farmers familiar with Russian<br />
Ukraine’s famed, high-quality Turkey Red bread wheats<br />
began settling in Washington’s Big Bend grain belt<br />
from Lind northeast to Ritzville and Odessa following<br />
66 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ODESSA PUBLIC LIBRARY, WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON RURAL HERITAGE AND ODESSA H<strong>IS</strong>TOR<strong>IS</strong>CHES MUSEUM<br />
Gottlieb Pflugrath’s exploration of the region in 1887. Their<br />
Mennonite kinsmen had introduced drought-resistant,<br />
winter hardy Turkey Reds to Kansas in 1874 which transformed<br />
the Midwest wheat industry. Russian-German<br />
farmers from the Beresan colonies settled in near Eugene,<br />
Ore., beginning in 1891, while Bessarabian German families<br />
settled soon afterward near Marlin, Ruff, and Warden,<br />
Wash., areas. Leaders of some Midwest Mennonite colonies<br />
like Cornelius Jantz, J. R. Schrag and Adolf Gering<br />
relocated to the Ritzville-Odessa area to establish the first<br />
Mennonite colonies on the Columbia Plateau around the<br />
turn of the century. The names of several Adams County<br />
rural districts like Batum, Moscow and Tiflis (Tbilisi)<br />
testify to the area’s original South Russia immigrant origins.<br />
“Wherever wheat is grown you’ll find Mennonites,”<br />
observed Jantz’s son and colony historian John Jantz.<br />
Historian Richard Sallet estimated that by 1920, approximately<br />
21,000 Germans from the Volga and Black Sea<br />
regions were living in the three Northwest states, where<br />
most were engaged in farming.<br />
— Excepted from Harvest Home: Heirloom Crops<br />
and Agricultural Origins of the Pacific Northwest<br />
By Richard D. Scheuerman and Alex McGregor<br />
W<br />
While the Volga Germans weren’t the only German<br />
immigrants to settle in Eastern Washington, they were the<br />
majority, and there are several websites and organizations<br />
dedicated to this group of people. The Center for Volga<br />
German Studies at Concordia University in Portland<br />
(cvgs.cu-portland.edu/index.cfm) is dedicated to preserving<br />
the history and traditions of the Volga Germans.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MANUSCRIPTS, ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECT<strong>IO</strong>NS, WSU LIBRARIES,<br />
WHITMAN COUNTY LIBRARY AND WAS<strong>H<strong>IN</strong></strong>GTON RURAL HERITAGE<br />
Townspeople gather for a parade in Uniontown, Wash. Date unknown.<br />
EASTERN OREGON FARMS<br />
Umatilla County, Pendleton, OR<br />
2835.21 acres, rare find winter cattle ranch with 577 acres of wheat<br />
ground planted to grass. Winter feed source of 120 irrigated acres, 40<br />
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and trout. Good hunting for deer, turkey, pheasant, chukar, huns.<br />
Good water fowl hunting for ducks and geese.<br />
$1,650,000 #WL02210<br />
Lake County, Fort Rock, OR<br />
5,957 total deeded acres of which 744 ac circle irrigation with balance<br />
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livestock facilities, hay shed and other amenities.<br />
$5,500,000.00 #WL02211<br />
Umatilla County, Pilot Rock, OR<br />
1998 (+/-) acres of mountain, pasture and timberland. Has cabin with<br />
pond and trees for a relaxed setting. Used as summer grazing unit.<br />
Great views and recreation. Live stream with springs and ponds.<br />
Good hunting for big game deer and elk, with upland birds.<br />
$1,200,000 #WL01511<br />
Union County, Elgin, OR<br />
NE Oregon mountain and timber tract that borders Grande Ronde<br />
River. 477+ acres that has merchantable timber with recent cruise.<br />
Very private with great views. LOP tags for hunting. Big game<br />
hunting, fishing on river. Salmon, steelhead, trout.<br />
$550,000.00 #WL03511<br />
Gilliam County, Arlington, OR<br />
Located in Gilliam County, the Blalock Canyon Farm contains 195<br />
total acres of which 140 acres are irrigated. Contains 3 Zimmatic<br />
pivots and 2 wheelines. Includes main residence, guest quarters,<br />
horse/livestock barn, shop and hay barn. Water is provided from<br />
agricultural well with 250 HP motor. $685,000 #WL00912<br />
www.whitneylandcompany.com<br />
FEATURE WL<br />
The center, opened in 2009, is staffed by<br />
trained volunteers. Their website contains<br />
extensive history and research, as well as<br />
links to literature, genealogy information<br />
and upcoming exhibits and events.<br />
Another informative website is the<br />
Columbia River Basin Ethnic History<br />
Project (archive.vancouver.wsu.edu/<br />
crbeha/home.htm). Covering the<br />
Columbia Basin and all the ethnic groups<br />
that settled there, the website has a section<br />
dedicated to German immigrants, as<br />
well as links to other useful websites.<br />
The American Historical Society of<br />
Germans from Russia (www.ahsgr.org/<br />
index.htm), based in Lincoln, Neb., is a<br />
good resource for all things related to<br />
German settlers in Russia. And finally, a<br />
little closer to home, HistoryLink.org is<br />
an online encyclopedia of Washington<br />
state history and includes essays and<br />
information on various communities and<br />
regions around the state.<br />
WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 67
WL<br />
FEATURE<br />
Locally celebrating<br />
German food, drink<br />
Besides farming, Eastern Washington’s German settlers<br />
also brought a love of food and drink with them,<br />
and that influence is alive and well throughout the<br />
region. Here’s a look at several of the German-themed<br />
festivals and events held in our region.<br />
Deutschesfest, Odessa. One of the largest German<br />
festivals in the Eastern part of the state, Deutschesfest is<br />
held on the third full weekend of September each year.<br />
The four-day event draws more than 6,000 visitors to<br />
this small rural community, situated 200 miles east of<br />
Seattle and 75 miles west of Spokane. The<br />
festival includes German music, traditional<br />
German food which is all locally<br />
made, a parade, arts and crafts exhibits,<br />
sporting events and a biergarten.<br />
According to Korianne Scheller, advertising<br />
chair for the Odessa Chamber<br />
of Commerce, the festival began in 1971<br />
to celebrate the German heritage of the<br />
Odessa area.<br />
“Most of our forefathers were Germans who migrated<br />
from Russia or Germany and settled here as farmers,”<br />
she said. “The festival takes a lot of community<br />
involvement to run. Volunteers run the booths, and all<br />
the food is homemade by church groups, youth groups<br />
and different nonprofit groups in town. Everyone from<br />
the very young to the very old gets involved. It is very<br />
much a town event.”<br />
The festival typically starts on Thursday evening<br />
with races and the opening of the biergarten which<br />
will host live music for most of the festival. On Friday,<br />
68 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF ODESSA CHAMBER OF CO<strong>MM</strong>ERCE<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF ODESSA CHAMBER OF CO<strong>MM</strong>ERCE<br />
the food booths open, along with the arts and<br />
crafts booths. Saturday morning starts with a 5k<br />
and a 10k fun run and a parade, and the festival<br />
wraps up on Sunday, with the food booths usually<br />
closing earlier in the day due to a shortage of<br />
food, Scheller said. For more information, visit the<br />
Deutschesfest website at www.deutschesfest.com.<br />
Sausage Feed, Uniontown. On the first<br />
Sunday in March, the small farming community<br />
of Uniontown, located about 90 miles south of<br />
Spokane and 15 miles south of Pullman, serves up<br />
homemade sausage and sauerkraut as a fundraiser<br />
for the Uniontown Community Building. The sausage<br />
feed includes a beer garden that runs throughout the<br />
day.<br />
Besides the sausage feed, Uniontown also celebrates<br />
its German heritage by holding an Oktoberfest on the<br />
third Sunday in October. For more information, visit<br />
www.uniontown.us.<br />
Leavenworth. No discussion about German festivals<br />
in Washington state would be complete without talking<br />
about the town of Leavenworth, one of the state’s<br />
major tourist draws. Leavenworth began as a logging<br />
town, but was forced to redefine itself in the early 1900s.<br />
Taking advantage of the mountain scenery, the people<br />
of Leavenworth turned the town into a year-round<br />
Bavarian village that celebrates all things Bavaria. As<br />
to be expected, Leavenworth’s Oktoberfest is one of<br />
the nation’s top-ranked Oktoberfest celebrations and is<br />
held on the first three weekends in October. For more<br />
information, visit www.leavenworth.org.<br />
Besides Leavenworth, many towns in the region celebrate<br />
fall by holding an Oktoberfest, including Spokane,<br />
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Sandpoint, Idaho.
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Your Supplier of Quality Fuel and Lubricants<br />
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 69
Your<br />
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Send photos<br />
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Dale Landreth Farms near Reardan.<br />
Dale Landreth photo<br />
(Above and below right) 2012 harvest at KW Farms of Wapato, Wash.<br />
Kylee Wilcox photos<br />
Cropdusting near Pendleton, Ore.<br />
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 71
(Above) Jorgensen Farm’s first day<br />
of harvest northwest of Coulee City,<br />
July 2012. (Right) Cultivating the<br />
fields on Jorgensen Farms.<br />
Conor Jorgensen photos<br />
2012 harvest on JBS Farms near Waterville, Wash.<br />
Jacque Clements photo
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WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012 73
Advertiser Index<br />
2nd Harvest Food Bank .........................69<br />
Ag Enterprise Supply Inc. .......................19<br />
AGPRO .......................................71<br />
AmericanWest Bank .............................9<br />
Biagro Western ................................17<br />
Butch Booker Auction ..........................13<br />
Byrnes Oil Co. .................................25<br />
Citizens For Mary Ruth Edwards ................13<br />
Class 8 Trucks .................................25<br />
Coleman Oil ...................................71<br />
Committee To Elect Jeff Holy ....................21<br />
Committee To Elect Mary Baechler ...............9<br />
Committee To Re-Elect Maureen Walsh ..........19<br />
Connell Oil Co. .............................38, 69<br />
Cooperative Ag Producers Inc ...................71<br />
Country Financial ..............................21<br />
CrustBuster Drills ..............................9<br />
Diesel & Machine ..............................27<br />
Edward Jones ..................................31<br />
Evergreen Implement ...........................40<br />
Farm & Home Supply. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17<br />
Great Plains Equipment ........................39<br />
Great Plains Manufacturing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4<br />
Jones Truck & Implement .......................35<br />
Kelleher Motor Co. .............................73<br />
Kincaid Real Estate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13<br />
Klesor Equipment ..............................37<br />
Landmark Native Seed .........................27<br />
Lange Supply Inc. ..............................37<br />
Les Schwab Tire Centers ........................35<br />
Meridian Manufacturing Group .................13<br />
Micro-Ag ......................................21<br />
North Central Washington Fence ................39<br />
Northwest Outdoor Properties ..................74<br />
NU-CHEM ....................................19<br />
OXARC .......................................67<br />
People For Joe Schmick .........................25<br />
PNW Farmers Cooperative ......................40<br />
Perkins & Zlatich P.S. ..........................71<br />
Pomeroy Grain Growers Inc. ....................73<br />
RH Machine ...................................69<br />
Scales Northwest ...............................74<br />
Seedmaster Drills–Kevin Klein .................73<br />
Spectrum Crop Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71<br />
SS Equipment .................................73<br />
State Bank Northwest ..........................26<br />
Syngenta–Vibrance .............................75<br />
T & S Sales ....................................25<br />
The Whitney Land Co. ..........................67<br />
U.S. <strong>Wheat</strong> Associates ..........................11<br />
Walter Implement ..............................31<br />
Washington State University–CAHNRS ..........40<br />
Western Reclamation ...........................17<br />
Wilbur-Ellis–AquaFusion .......................76<br />
Wilbur-Ellis–Till-It Zoned .......................7<br />
Windermere Blue Mountain Realtors ............40<br />
74 WHEAT LIFE OCTOBER 2012<br />
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YOUR SCALES SPECIAL<strong>IS</strong>TS<br />
We Now Stock and Rent Rice Lake<br />
Mobile Livestock Scales<br />
Certifiable! Affordable!<br />
Axle Scales • Truck Scales • Livestock Scales • Floor Scales<br />
Electronic Low-Profile Scales • Portable Truck Scale Rentals<br />
Self-Contained Livestock Scales<br />
Mechanical/Electronic Pit (and Pitless) Scales<br />
ATV Portable Scales with Steel Ramp<br />
• Proven Design • Long <strong>Life</strong><br />
• Low Maintenance •ATV Full Electronic Portable<br />
• Permanent or Temporary Installations<br />
MA<strong>IN</strong> OFFICE SPOKANE OFFICE<br />
Powell Scales NW, Inc. Inland Scales NW<br />
39120 West Scio Rd., Scio, Oregon 97374 5602 E. Desmet Ave.<br />
(503) 394-3660 PO Box 11335, Spokane, WA 99211<br />
Fax (503) 394-3502 (509) 535-4295<br />
Toll Free: 1-800-451-0187 Fax (509) 535-4296<br />
www.scalesnw.com • SteveOrr@ScalesNW.com • SCALES 800-451-0187<br />
SCALE SERVICE • SYSTEMS • PARTS • SALES AND CONSTRUCT<strong>IO</strong>N
WHAT HAPPENS BELOW THE GROUND <strong>IS</strong> JUST AS<br />
IMPORTANT AS WHAT HAPPENS ABOVE.<br />
Bare patches and thin or uneven stands are telltale signs of cereal seedlings<br />
under attack. New VIBRANCE Extreme seed treatment fungicide protects<br />
your young crop from seed and soil-borne fungal organisms, including<br />
Rhizoctonia, by forming a zone of protection around the plant’s root system.<br />
The result is stronger, healthier roots below ground, and a plant with higher yield<br />
potential above. To learn more about Rooting Power, talk to your Syngenta<br />
seed retailer or visit us online at FarmAssist.com/VibranceExtreme.com.<br />
©2012 Syngenta. Important: Always read and follow all bag tag and label instructions before buying or using Syngenta products. The instructions contain important conditions of<br />
sale, including limitations of warranty and remedy. Some crop protection products and seed treatments may not be registered for sale or use in all states or counties. Please check<br />
with your state or local extension service before buying or using these products. Rooting Power, VIBRANCE, the Alliance Frame, the Purpose Icon and the Syngenta logo are trademarks of<br />
a Syngenta Group Company. MW 17CE2025-P1 9/12
Extra time, priceless.<br />
If you could get five<br />
days of pre-plant aqua<br />
injection done in just four,<br />
what would you do<br />
with your extra day?<br />
maximize the Power of n<br />
Studies have shown that using<br />
aquaFusion ® over the Grower Standard<br />
program resulted in a 4.85 bu. / ac.<br />
increase in yield and 23% reduction of<br />
total N application volume.<br />
With aquaFusion you get:<br />
⊲ Less ammonia volatilization<br />
⊲ Reduced nitrate leaching<br />
⊲ Lower use rates, resulting<br />
in more acres per load<br />
exclusively from Wilbur-ellis,<br />
contact your local dealer for more information.<br />
AdAms | OR<br />
⊲ 541.566.2783<br />
COlfAx | WA<br />
⊲ 509.397.3421<br />
COltOn | WA<br />
⊲ 509.229.3791<br />
fAiRfield | WA<br />
⊲ 509.283.2411<br />
Genesee | id<br />
⊲ 208.285.1741<br />
OAkesdAle | WA<br />
⊲ 509.285.4511<br />
POtlAtCh | id<br />
⊲ 208.875.1141<br />
tekOA | WA<br />
⊲ 509.284.6501<br />
tROy | id<br />
⊲ 208.835.4701<br />
WAitsbuRG | WA<br />
⊲ 509.337.6751<br />
For information only. Not a label. Prior to use, always read and follow the product label directions.<br />
WILBUR-ELL<strong>IS</strong> Logo, Ideas to Grow With and aquaFusion are registered trademarks, and Maximize the Power of N is a trademark of Wilbur-Ellis Company. K-0812-621<br />
WAllA WAllA | WA<br />
⊲ 509.529.5381