ag journal summer 2012

Ag JournalDaily Record Summer 2012

401 N. Main StreetEllensburg, WA 98926

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2 | Summer 2012 Ag Journal


Table of ContentsA

g Jo

urna

l4 The Stampflys: Longtime Kittitas Valley ranchers Mert

and Phyllis Stampfly are happy with their bit of heaven.

8 Timothy hay: Rain hit at the worst time, but it will be a while before growers know the financial impact.

14 Going up: The first phase of construction is nearly done for Stone Wings II hay processing facility.

16 Where the buffalo roam: New calves signal the rebuilding of a Teanaway bison rancher’s herd

20 Veggies are big business: Vegetable growers thrive throughout the Columbia River Basin.

22 Twin City Foods: Local food processing firm is doubling its sweet corn acreage in Kittitas County.

24 A new orchard in the valley: Chiawana Orchards plants honeycrisp apples outside of Ellensburg.

30 4-H preshow: Local youths got a crash course in fair showmanship at the 4-H preshow recently.

84

16 30

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Phyllis and Mert Stampfly pose, along with their dog Fred, at their home on July 11. At its height, the Stampfly cattle ranch was home to about 300 animals, but in recent years the couple has downsized their operation to about 180 head.

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By MARY SWIFTstaff writer

Even on a day when stout trees bend before the onslaught of buffeting winds, Mert and Phyllis

Stampfly look out the windows of their home in the Naneum Creek area northeast of Ellensburg and see not just fields, foothills and cattle, but a little bit of heaven — and a lot of the past.

If Mert’s roots are dug deep in the soil of the 480-acre cattle ranch he and Phyllis own, there’s good reason.

After all, Mert is the third genera-tion of his family to live on the ranch. Now 71, he was born there.

His maternal grandparents, Pat and Pauline Marks, settled on the land in the early 1900s, starting a homestead with dairy cows, swine

and poultry. Later, his parents, Walter and Thelma Stampfly, operated the ranch for many years, selling cream to Darigold, raising chickens and selling eggs. His father logged using draft horses to bring logs out of the hills and worked for other farmers. Fruit trees and a huge garden provided food and helped carry the family through the winter.

At 14, Mert began his own beef herd, buying his first Hereford heifers. Then came a bull and more cows. After high school, he headed to Washington State University with his herd in the care of his parents. It was at WSU that a pretty girl with a lively smile captured his heart. It didn’t hurt, she says now, that he was “tall, dark and handsome.”

“I can’t say that any more,” Mert says with a laugh and a verbal nod

at his now bald head. The couple marked their 49th wedding anniver-sary in April.

He worked for farm associations and cooperatives dealing with fertilizers, chemicals and seeds. She became a teacher. They had two sons, Randy and Scott. Weekends were usually spent helping out at the ranch. Forty years ago, tired of too many moves in a short time period, the couple came back to Ellensburg and built a home on the ranch.

“When I was with the Western Farmers Association we moved seven times in six years,” Mert recalls.

Randy, who passed away in 2005, ran the ranch for years, the couple says.

At its height, the Mert Stampfly ranch boasted some 300 cows and operated on more than a thousand

acres of owned or leased land. Now closing in on retirement, the Stamp-flys have downsized, reducing their herd to 180 cows and cutting down on their land.

“Originally, we started with Hereford cows and Hereford and Angus bulls,” says Mert. “Then we kept the Hereford-Angus cows and switched to Gelbvieh bulls. I’m all Angus (bulls) now. The cows are cross-bred.”

AdventuresFor Mert and Phyllis, life

wasn’t without adventure — or misadventure.

In 1965, a plane headed to Wenatchee crashed at the ranch, killing its three occupants.

Tending a piece of heavenLongtime ranchers Mert and Phyllis Stampfly are living out their dream

See Stampfly, Page 6

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Then there was that January evening in the early 1960s when Mert stopped by his parents’ place. Standing on a ladder 12 hay bale tiers high, he tried to knock a couple bales down for his parents’ cows. “The bales were kind of wedged together,” he says. A tie knot broke. Mert plummeted 15 feet, landing on his back.

The only thing that saved him was a foot and a half of snow. He knew he was hurt. He wasn’t sure how badly. So he yelled for help. But his parents’ house was 500 feet away. With a fire going and the TV on, they didn’t hear him.

Something else did. A pack of coyotes showed up to investigate.

“I found out my legs still worked,”

he says now, laughing. “I made it to the house.”

The next morning, realizing Mert was more than a little banged up, his father called for help. The late Bob Barret, then Kittitas County sheriff, responded, arriving in an old World War II Power Wagon to transport Mert to the hospital.

Phyllis remembers the phone call she got from her mother-in-law. “She had this way of saying things,” Phyllis says. “She always said, ‘I have a little bad news.’”

Phyllis drove to the hospital where Mert had been examined and X-rayed, picked him up, then drove him home to Toppenish. Every seam on the highway caused pain, he remembers.

StampflyContinued from Page 5

Stingley Photography

Longtime Kittitas Valley rancher Mert Stampfly addresses the crowd during the Kittitas County Cattlemen of the Year Field Day ceremonies in May. He and his wife, Phyllis, and their family were named the 2012 Cattlemen of the Year by the Kittitas County Cattlemen's Association.

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A week later, he says, there was a call from the hospital saying the X-rays had been misread. “I’d actually broken my neck,” he says. “It just hadn’t separated.”

Car crashNine years ago, still working in the

agricultural business, he was traveling near Quincy making sales calls late on a cold January afternoon. Rain fell on the iced-up highway. “I was going 35 and it was OK,” he says. “But these big rigs were going past me faster. I was afraid I was going to get hit.”

He sped up. Then his pickup began fishtailing.

By the time the truck had stopped moving, it had rolled twice and dropped off one roadway onto another below it. The truck’s roof line was smashed down level with the hood. Trapped inside, Mert waited for help. Emergency crews arrived, then realized they needed the Jaws of Life, a device for extricating accident victims trapped in their vehicles. Another hour passed. Eventually, Mert was pulled free and taken to a hospital in Quincy.

“I’d made my peace,” he says now. “I

didn’t care if I died. I wanted morphine but there were only a couple of nurses there, and the doctor was the only one who could authorize it.”

He got the pain medicine, then was transported to a hospital in Wenatchee where he had surgery to rebuild his hip. The top of his femur had broken off.

By then, he knew he wanted to live.These days, he walks with a

slight limp and the help of a cane, both vestiges of the accident that “hamburgered” his leg.

Cattleman of the YearIn May, Mert was honored as the

Kittitas County Cattleman of the Year. More than 250 people showed up for the catered luncheon which, as is tradition, was held at the home of the recipient.

“He just glowed,” Phyllis says of Mert’s reaction.

“It’s a real honor,” he says. “In this valley it really means something.”

Tip Hudson, Kittitas County Washington State University Exten-sion range land and livestock specialist, says there were several

reasons the Stampflys were chosen.“They’re one of the families who

have been around a long time,” he says. “And one of the families that did horse farming. They raise quality beef.”

The Stampfly farm also was one of the first in the area to take advantage of a new trend in marketing, selling their calves at video auctions rather than at the auction yard.

Mert, who worked 40 years in the ag-chem business and Phyllis, who taught school for 31 years at Royal City and in Toppenish, are now headed toward serious retirement. The couple says ranching is hard but rewarding work.

If you can make it work financially, ranching is about “independence and freedom,” Mert says. Neither he or Phyllis have any desire to move.

“Our plans are to stay here as long as we can crawl,” Mert says.

Peace and quietPhyllis, who grew up in Seattle,

says the ranch “is like a permanent vacation home. It’s scenic. It’s quiet and it’s peaceful. There are only

three families living on this road. They’re all nice people.”

Neighbors include wildlife. Elk and deer migrate along the edge of the foothills.

“We also have cougars and an occasional bear,” says Phyllis, a Seattle native who found it easy to fall in love with the ranch despite the occasional rattlesnake.

The couple’s surviving son, Scott and his wife, Yvonne, and their three children, Sonora, Rita and Jeana, live in the Ellensburg area. So does Randy’s son, Mitch Stampfly.

It’s 12-year-old Jeana, the Stamp-flys say, who is likely to carry the Stampfly cattle banner forward. Her show steers will make her the fourth generation of Stampflys in cattle, Mert says.

He never knew his grandfather who died before he was born.

“But I can tell you one thing,” he says. “My grandmother was a polite, pleasant lady and a very good person. If everyone was like her and my parents, we wouldn’t need policemen.”

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Rain hits at worst possible timeBy MIKE JOHNSTON

senior writer

Rain, the bane of timothy hay growers at harvest time, came to the Kittitas Valley at the worst

possible time this summer, but it’s too early to tell how much of the crucial first cutting was damaged.

Rollie Bernth, president of Ward Rugh Inc. in Ellensburg, said it’s hoped damage to the hay’s color isn’t widespread throughout the valley, but cautioned that local processors and exporters, like himself, are still assessing the extent of damage as the first cutting draws to a close.

“I would think that nearly every grower got some level of damage, from very little to a lot,” Bernth said on July 9. “This doesn’t look like a good year for quality for timothy hay grown in the Kittitas Valley.”

Overseas buyers of the valley’s timothy hay prize a consistent, deep green color throughout their bales, with no discoloration or other grasses mixed in.

DiscolorationIf it rains on hay that’s cut and

drying in the field, the hay can turn a yellowish green or light brown, depending on how long it takes to dry out and other factors.

Discoloration can reduce the value of hay by up to a half depending on the extent, growers say.

The farm-gate value to growers of timothy hay for overseas sales has been estimated at $38 million or more annually in Kittitas County. It’s the single-largest cash crop in the county with 90 percent or more going overseas for dairy, cattle and race horse markets, of which 90 percent goes to Japan, with South Korea, Middle East counties and China also receiving some.

Here comes the rainStarting June 22 after the beginning

of the first cutting, light and not-so-light rain fell off and on in the Kittitas Valley in between periods of sun and drying wind.

See Hay, Page 11

It’s too soon for area hay growers to tell how badly weather hurt crop



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HayContinued from Page 8

The total rainfall came to about a quarter of an inch going into the weekend of June 30-July 1.

Growers say a deluge of rain in the late afternoon of June 30, at scattered locations around the valley, did significant damage to much cut hay on the ground.

A short stretch of mostly clear weather followed, with stiff winds at times, accompanied with a welcomed warming trend.

Weather turned hot going into the first weekend of July, and heavy rains and hail fell from sky in several valley locations July 8 as a severe thunderstorm went through the area.

National Weather Service officials said thundershowers at different valley locations likely ranged from .06 of an inch to up to a half-inch. Some areas didn’t get any showers.

Dry, hot and wind-at-times weather returned the second week of July. Growers and exporters contacted July 9 estimated at that time about 80 to 90 percent of the first cutting had been cut, and, of that, 70 percent or more has been baled and stored.

Wait and seeThe quality and pricing of the first

cutting is crucial to valley farmers because it has historically produced 80 percent or more of their annual revenue.

Mark Anderson, CEO of Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc. in Ellens-burg, said more will be known in two weeks or so about the overall quality of the valley’s hay and the market outlook, including pricing.

Overseas buyers, including from Japan, are visiting the valley to inspect the hay and enter into talks with exporters about grades of hay and prices.

“It’s definitely been a much more challenging first cutting than we’ve had for some time,” Anderson said.

Timothy grower Brian Cortese, who farms off South Ferguson, Denmark and Thrall roads, said it’s going to be a tough year for hay growers.

Cortese, also president of the Organization of Kittitas County Timothy Hay Growers and Suppliers, farms with his father-in-law and mother-in-law, Paul and Ginny

Sorenson. They were able to get their hay baled and into the barn by July 7.

Some of it looked like it had varying degrees of rain damage. He said a lot of the operation’s cut hay was caught out in the field when rain hit the area June 30.

Cortese said about .22 of an inch fell in 12 minutes, according to an on-farm gauge, and perhaps a third of an inch in all.

“But when it dried and we baled it, thankfully the rain didn’t seem to have hurt it much,” Cortese said.

Glass half fullBadger Pocket grower Brent

DeKoning, former organization president, said some of his family’s hay was hit with rain.

“I’d say for this year it’s (the first cutting) been real frustrating,” DeKoning said.

Some growers tried to wait the rain out before cutting and their crop got a bit too mature; others cut before the rain, in between the rain, and some got caught in the July 8 storm, he said.

Jeff Calaway, president of Calaway Trading Co. in Ellensburg, said several factors are involved in the extent a grower sustains: how much rain fell, how thick was the affected stand, when in the drying process after cutting the rain came — right away or later, and others.

“Some level of rain damage will be noticed,” Calaway said. “Each grower will be different; the rain was spotty, and there was no overall pattern to it. Welcome to agriculture.”

He said some Midwest farmers face not having much of a crop at all, or next to nothing because of drought.

“All things being equal, I’d take the rain,” Calaway said. “I have a glass-half-full attitude. At least we have a crop that we can sell. Thank heaven there’s at least a crop.”

The question, he said, that’s yet to be answered is how much timothy hay growers get for their crop that’s partially damaged from rain.

DeKoning said he hopes the quality hay that he and his family got baled and put up before rain fell will offset any drop in the price he’ll get for his rain damaged hay.

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It’s a family affairBy MIKE JOHNSTON

senior writer

Kittitas Valley timothy hay grower Brian Cortese will readily acknowledge that he’s still new to

commercial agriculture and is learning something new nearly every day.

Cortese, 36, was recently selected to be the board president of the Organi-zation of Timothy Hay Growers and Suppliers.

He farms with his father-in-law and mother-in-law Paul and Ginny Sorenson southeast of Ellensburg.

Cortese hadn’t farmed commercially before joining the Sorenson family farm, but he was no stranger to rural living and hard work.

“The Sorensons have been so supportive in all that I’ve done here,” Cortese said recently. “I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, that’s for sure, but I’ve learned along the way,

too, with help from a great family and a loving wife.”

A settled lifeCortese met his future wife, Becky

Sorenson, while attending the Univer-sity of Portland.

Timothy grower Brian Cortese says he couldn’t do it without help


Brian Cortese irrigates a corn field on South Ferguson Road.

“This is truly a family operation, made possible with a lot of cooperation and friendship. I’ve been helped

by so many wonderful people, the Sorensons, other farm families, just everyone in the community. I really couldn’t have done it on my own.”

Brian Cortese, timothy hay grower

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They married in April 2000. The couple have two children, Ella, 6, and Nate, 8.

Cortese was in the university’s U.S. Air Force ROTC program and was gaining his degree in electrical engineering with Air Force help. After graduation he was commissioned as an Air Force officer and went into active duty.

His wide-ranging work in military applications of infrared light research took him to Boston and later to Las Vegas, along with testing sessions in Texas and Alabama.

“I wouldn’t have traded my Air Force experience for the world, but with a family and children, I really wanted to be with my wife more, have more room for my son to grow up and for us to live a more settled life,” he said.

Farming was what he settled on.

Some experiencePrior to completing his Air Force

duties, Cortese had helped with duties on the Sorenson farm for brief periods in 2004 and 2005, and knew what it would take to farm full-time.

He grew up in Butte, Mont., and regularly visited a set of grandparents on their Minnesota farm, which gave

him some understanding of farming.His father, Jim Cortese, worked

in the Butte-area copper mines as a young man, and the value of daily, hard physical labor and getting a job done was passed on to him.

Brian Cortese and his family moved to the Kittitas Valley in spring 2007. They were followed by Brian’s parents, Jim and Joanne Cortese, who moved to the valley in spring 2011 and are helping out.

A family affairBrian said Sorenson family relatives

and friends assist in the hectic harvest time, and he and the Sorensons help other farm families.

“This is truly a family operation, made possible with a lot of cooperation and friendship,” Brian said. “I’ve been helped by so many wonderful people, the Sorensons, other farm families, just everyone in the community. I really couldn’t have done it on my own.”


Brian Cortese, 36, is the board president of the Organization of Timothy Hay Grow-ers and Suppliers.

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Work is expected to be completed soon on the first phase of the Stone Wings II hay processing and export facility on Kittitas Highway.

The firm aims to purchase a variety of forages in the region for processing and export to Middle Eastern countries.

The first phase of the $7 million, 24-acre facility 2 1/2 miles east of Ellensburg includes a steel building for hay compression, the first of three hay storage barns and an office. Truck scales and concrete pads for hay bale stacking were previously installed.

Site preparation work began in October.Future phases will add more storage buildings

and stack pads and a hay storage and fumigation building.

— Mike Johnston, Daily Record

New hay processing facility nearly done


The first phase of the $7 million, 24-acre facility 2 1/2 miles east of Ellensburg includes a steel building for hay compression, the first of three hay storage barns (at right) and an office (facing page). Truck scales and concrete pads for hay bale stacking were previously installed (above).


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JUN


By MARY SWIFTFor the Daily Record

Jim Hanson sat in his truck in the middle of pastureland in the Teanaway Valley one day in

June and couldn’t help smiling.A short distance away, a half

dozen baby bison — their hides the striking bright orange that testifies to their newness — stood amid their mothers and stared back at him.

Hanson, a 54-year-old firefighter with the Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue, lives in Ellensburg. But this grassy spread east of Cle Elum has

been home to his family for genera-tions. A moss-covered wooden windmill, reportedly built in 1887, sits a short distance from the carefully maintained farmhouse his great-grandfather John Hanson built six years later. Jim Hanson grew up on the property.

A land where the buffalo roamLike his father, grandfather and

great-grandfather before him, he harbors deep love for the land.

It’s unlikely, however, that Hanson’s great-grandfather ever envisioned a time when bison would roam the family’s pastureland or that the enterprise Jim Hanson calls Swauk Prairie Bison would be born at the site. Blame his fascination with western history, one that grew into curiosity about buffalo.

“Buffalo is a slang term given by early French fur traders,” Hanson says. The accurate name is bison.

In 1991, he bought a bull and a cow. Some calves were born. He purchased more cows. At one point, he had 55 bison on the land. At the height of his operation in 2009, he butchered 25 bison.

In recent years, the number has dwindled.

“I’d been buying calves (to raise and butcher) for a number of years but am now back to raising my own,” says Hanson who has 27 bison at the ranch, seven of them calves. A 17-year-old cow, officially known as No. 501, was expecting but hadn’t yet given birth.

New calves signal the rebuilding of Teanaway bison herdWhere buffalo roam

More infoTo learn more about Swauk

Prairie Bison, contact Jim Hanson at 504-929-4182 or www.spbison.com.


Newborn bison stand with their herd at Jim Hanson’s ranch in the Teanway Valley in June.


“She’s an old cow. I keep her to keep things calm,” Hanson says. “She’s had a calf every year for 15 years. A friend had a cow that had a calf every year until she was 28. And she lived until she died at 33.”

No. 501, he says with a smile, “will be here until she dies. She’s an old favorite.”

The appeal of buffalo meatCompared to beef production, the

amount of bison meat produced in the U.S. is minimal, Hanson says.

That said, there’s growing demand for the product, and Hanson, who never ate bison until he started

raising it, says there’s good reason: increased public awareness of the advantages of eating bison versus other forms of meat.

“It’s got less cholesterol and fat than chicken or fish,” he says. “I’ve been told that it’s the only non-aller-genic red meat. There’s no marbling and no fat.

“The last three years, the price of buffalo has gone up three times. I actually got a call from someone in Nebraska wanting to know if we had live animals to sell. I said, ‘No, you have it backward. We buy from you.’”


Rancher Jim Hanson puts food out for his bison herd on his ranch in the Tean-way Valley in June.

See Bison, Page 18

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Hanson sells directly to consumers. “It’s not USDA meat so the animal is sold ahead of time,” Hanson says. “I facilitate custom slaughtering and wrapping.” Typically, his grass-fed bison are butchered as young adults at 30 months. It’s a kind of industry standard likely aimed at making sure the meat is tender, he says.

For his own use, Hanson prefers an older animal. “Bison meat becomes more flavorful as it ages,” he says, “and the tenderness hardly changes.”

Typical “hanging weight” is about 600 pounds for a 30-month-old bull, considerably less than a similarly aged steer, he says. Several customers often go together to buy an animal. Figure about $5 a pound as the average cost. In addition to buffalo meat, Hanson and his wife, Sue — the other half of Swauk Prairie Bison — also sell skulls and buffalo hides.

Advantages of buffalo ranchingCompared to cattle ranching,

raising bison is easy, Hanson says. “They do it themselves,” he says, noting that he set his operation up so they have to come in to the corrals for water, something that makes it easier to round them up when it’s time for slaughtering.

Winter weather poses little problem. “It’s nothing compared to the weather where they came from,” he says. “They love to play, and they love to play in the snow.” Summer heat doesn’t faze them. They don’t need shade.

While scientists have confirmed the presence of a wolf pack in the Teanaway, Hanson didn’t need science to tell him the wolves were there.

“You can hear them up there at night,” he says with a nod toward the hills beyond the 85 acres of sprawling grassland, surrounded by a powerful electric fence, that he devotes to raising bison. “You can imagine them looking down at the animals.” Not, he says, that he’s ready to pass any judgment about wolves just yet.

A step back in timeBuffalo, which can grow to 2,200

pounds or more, are an imposing presence. Barring breeding season or some special circumstance, they’re typically docile unless disturbed, he says.

BiSonContinued from Page 17

Brian Myrick Daily Record

ABOVE: Bison rancher Jim Hanson brings hay to his herd last month at his Tean-away Valley ranch.

LEFT: Hanson looks up at a mounted head of one the bulls raised on his Upper County property.


“They’re a prey animal in the wild so they’re very cautious, very careful,” he says.

Calves are up and nursing by the time they’re 15 minutes old, running at their mother’s side within half an hour. Adult buffalo, capable of running 30 to 35 miles per hour, are large enough to hold their own when threatened.

Once, Hanson says, a six-point bull elk mixed it up with his top bull. The encounter left the bison with three ribs partially exposed. As for the elk, “it got away but the aftermath was pretty impressive,” Hanson says.

Pitchfork in hand, he moves around the side of his pickup, tossing loose hay to massive animals just a short distance away.

“It’s kind of like a step back in time here,” he says with a laugh. “This is just a sideline. But I like it.”


Bison graze last month at Jim Han-son’s Teanaway Valley ranch.

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By MIKE JOHNSTONsenior writer

The sweet corn, peas, carrots and lima beans that are processed at Twin City Foods Inc. in Ellensburg are one part of a

major industry in Central Washington.Grant, Kittitas, Benton, Adams, Franklin,

Klickitat and parts of Yakima counties grow vegetables for the commercial fresh, frozen and canned market; others grow vegetables with smaller total acreages.

“Right now, you could say I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll continue to see a growing demand for what we raise,” said Dustin Cook, president of the Pacific Northwest Vegetable Association. “Populations are going up, the amount of farm land is shrinking and compa-nies still want our products.”

Cook, who grows vegetables on 8,000 acres as part of Mercer Canyon Inc., has fields in Benton and Klickitat counties. The firm is based near the community of Paterson in Benton County.

Earlier this year, he said he had to turn away representatives of a few vegetable processing firms looking for more acreage to contract for growing their product.

Mercer Canyon also takes in vegetables from Franklin County.

Looking goodThe demand for vegetables now and into the

near future looks good, he said, and so do the jobs they create on farms and in processing plants.

“The processing and transportation and sale of our vegetables support a huge number employees, their companies and a whole lot of local businesses in their community,” Cook said. “The benefits spread out economically far and wide.”

Cook said Grant County likely is the county in the state with the single-largest vegetable production output, and he’s right.

Grant County had an estimated 102,000 acres of vegetables in 2007, according to the most recent federal figures.

Grant County leads in production and spurs processing jobs in regionVegetables a big business in basin

Local employmentThe Twin City Foods Inc. processing, freezing, storage and

repacking plant in Ellensburg has 125 year-round employees. When seasonal processing is at its peak in the summer, employment can climb to more than 350.

Grant County agriculturen Grant County is the fifth largest county in the United

States and the largest county in Washington based on acres irrigated. Only four counties in California have more acres in irrigated agriculture than Grant County.

n A conservative estimate of the overall economic impact from irrigated crops in Grant County, including the related business activity it creates, is between $2 billion and $2.5 billion each year, and it is responsible for creating or supporting, directly or indirectly, almost 20,000 jobs, or 50 percent of Grant County’s jobs in 2009.

— Ag Power Users of Grant County, “White Paper”

Submitted

Carrots are harvested during fall

2011 in the Columbia

Basin east of Ellensburg.


Processing and packing equals jobs

Grant County’s farm and beef ranching industry is estimated to have a annual farm gate value of $1.19 billion. The county is the location of several large food processing plants, along with packing firms, according to the Grant County Economic Development Council.

Out of the $1.19 billion, the 60 types of crops produced carry an estimated yearly farm-gate value to growers of nearly $850 million in Grant County, and a large part of that is from vegetables for processing.

According to development council, the 28 food processing, packaging, packing and storage firms in Grant County give full-time work to more than 3,540 people, not counting all trucking and transportation-related jobs and separate firms in the county that directly support the companies’ local, ongoing operations.

Obviously, not all the firms handle

vegetables. According to the develop-ment council, some of the larger Grant County firms, and their number of full-time employees, are:

Allen Produce: Fresh pack vegetables, 110 employees.

Basic American Foods: Dehydrated potato products, 115.

Columbia Colstor: Cold storage warehouse, 105.

National Frozen Foods: Frozen vegetable processing, 500.

ConAgra: Frozen potato products, 400.

J.R. Simplot: Frozen potato products, 330.

ConAgra/Lamb Weston: Frozen potato products, 300.

Quincy Foods LLC: Frozen vegetables, 550.

Royal Ridge Fruit: Processed cherries, 180.

Skone & Connors: Packing and vegetables, 120.

Washington Potato: Processed potatoes, 200.

The value to farmers for all vegeta-bles grown was $205 million that year in Grant County, with those headed for processing making up the lion’s share. Statewide in 2010, commercial vegetable crops were valued at nearly $484 million, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

Wanting moreGrant County, with well more than

1 million acres in farm production and nearly 2,000 farms, also is the No. 1 producer in the state for corn for grain, potatoes and forage and hay of all types.

Cook said Mercer Canyon Inc. grows carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, green beans, sweet corn and broccoli, along with some alfalfa hay and wheat.

He’s sold some of his crops in the past to Twin City Foods, and currently sells to large processing firms in Quincy, Pasco, Hermiston, Ore., and Central California.

He said working with processors is a partnership.

“If we didn’t have someone to

take our product and process it for the consumer and market it and sell it, well, obviously, we’d be out of business,” Cook said.

The growers, along with proces-sors, make it possible for hundreds of other businesses and services to exist in the community, Cook said, everything from irrigation and farm equipment suppliers to fertilizer firms all the way to supermarkets.

“We’re continuing to produce a high-quality product, and the market wants more of it nearly every year,” Cook said.

“If we didn’t have someone to take our product and process it for the consumer and market it and sell it, well, obviously, we’d be out of

business.”Dustin Cook, presiDent of the

paCifiC northwest VegetaBle assoCiation

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Doubles acreage in the Kittitas Valley this year


Twin City Foods Inc. doubled the amount of acreage in 2012 contracted for sweet corn compared to last year in the Kittitas Valley.

Grant Craig, Twin City Foods’ Ellensburg operations manager, said contracts to farmers in Grant County and other parts of the Columbia Basin who grow peas, carrots, lima beans and sweet corn also have had their contracted acreage increased.

The crops are harvested by Twin City Foods or by contracted harvesters and brought to the Ellensburg plant for processing for the fresh-frozen market.

“This is good news for our growers and for us and the community,” Craig said recently. “It’s definitely a two-way street; we need the growers and they need someone to buy and process their product.”

Good rotation cropTimothy hay growers in the Kittitas

Valley use sweet corn as a rotation crop. It allows them to use chemical treatments that take out stray grasses on acreage they plan to later seed for new timothy.

This helps clear a field of stray grasses that can get into a timothy hay bale and, sometimes, lower the value of a bale that’s being sold to overseas buyers.

Growers also like sweet corn as a rotation crop because they can get a good return for it.

Timothy hay, Kittitas County’s single-largest cash crop, by some estimates generates $35 million to $38 million annually for local growers in two cuttings.

Historically, 90 percent or more of the valley’s timothy hay goes to the overseas dairy, cattle and race horse market. About 90 percent goes to Japan, with South Korea, Middle East counties and China also receiving some.

EmploymentTwin City Foods in 2011 contracted

for nearly 1,000 acres of sweet corn from local growers, but no contracts were offered in 2010.

2010 was the first year since the late 1960s that global and national market conditions, as well as an oversupply of product in inventory, caused Twin City Foods to not contract with Kittitas Valley growers.

Twin City Foods bought the Ellensburg plant in 1965. In the most recent years leading up to 2010, TCF contracted 2,500 to 3,000 acres of sweet corn a year in the valley.

The serious downturn in the U.S. economy, the slower-than-expected economic recovery, falling commodity prices and a huge oversupply of frozen sweet corn nationwide from a 2009 bumper crop in the Midwest caused Twin City Foods Inc. in Ellensburg to not offer contracts in 2010.

“The industry’s inventories have been reduced and we’re seeing the need for product increase,” Craig said recently.

EmployerThe Twin City Foods Inc. plant in

Ellensburg employs 125 full-time, year-round employees to pack frozen products for many brands in the United States and around the world.

When sweet corn processing is in high gear, the firm can have up to 350 full-time and seasonal employees working.

This year the processing of peas began in early June, starting with the overflow of product from the firm’s Pasco plant.

More peas are soon to come in from Grant County and the Columbia Basin, followed by early-planted sweet corn starting the first of August.

After the early sweet corn, lima beans from the basin will be processed starting around mid-August followed by later-planted corn from the Royal City area and from the Kittitas Valley.

The later corn processing likely will come to a close by the end of September, and carrot processing will take place in October.

Craig said the plant schedule is tenta-

tive but is based on information gleaned by Twin City Foods field managers. He said how the crops grow and their quality at harvest depends on several factors, including weather.

“And, when you come down to it, there’s not much you can really do about the weather,” he said.

Twin City Foods contracts more corn


Twin City Foods, Inc., has doubled the amount of Kittitas County acreage it will use to grow sweet corn this year.

Multiplier on that crop

By one conservative estimate, every dollar paid to an agricultural producer in farm-gate value for their crops generates another $2.30 to $3 in related employment and supportive businesses and services locally, nationally and internationally, including through processing, product transportation, accounting, packing, canning, marketing and sales, to name a few.


ValleyValleyin theJazzJazz15th

Don’t miss the fun this year!

$35 for all 3 daysGood at all venues | Most venues welcome all ages.

July 27, 28, & 29 • 2012Historic Downtown Ellensburg, WA

Friday, July 275:30pm - 8:30pmSidewalk Stompers (Dixieland) · Around Town

JAZZ IN THE VENUES8:00pm - 11:00pmSue Orfi eld Band (Jazz) · Moose Lodge

Three Guitars (Blues ) · The River @ Grand Central

Barry Bergstrom Quartet & Eagle Wing (Jazz) · Club 301

8:30pm - 11:30pmQED Trio (Latin) · JJ’s on Main

Reggie Miles (Blues ) · Rodeo City BBQ

Gary Scott Quartet (Jazz) · Gallery One

9:00pm - MidnightLinda Hornbuckle Band (Blues) · Rotary Pavilion

Tom Wakeling - Steve Christofferson Quartet (Jazz ) · Clymer Museum

File Gumbo (Cajun) · Raw Space

Savani World Jazz Quartet (Jazz) · Dakota Cafe

Saturday, July 28JAZZ IN THE VENUES8:00pm - 11:00pmJake Bergevin & the Javatown Swing Orchestra (Swing) · Moose Lodge

The Fonkeys (Funk ) · The River @ Grand Central

Son Jack Jr w/ Michael Wilde (Blues) · Club 301

8:30pm - 11:30pmPaul Green & Brian Butler Duo (Blues) · JJ’s on Main

J Squared D + One Jazz Quartet (Jazz ) · Rodeo City BBQ

Mel Brown Hammond B3 Organ Quartet (Jazz) · Gallery One

9:00pm - MidnightRandy Oxford Band (Blues) · Rotary Pavilion

Trombanga (Latin ) · Clymer Museum

Little Bill & The Blue Notes (Blues) · Raw Space

Hook Me Up (Jazz) · Dakota Cafe

Sunday, July 29MAIN STATE ROTARY PAVILION

10:30am - NoonTotal Experience Gospel Choir (Gospel)

12:30pm - 2pmThe John Moawad All-Star Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Vocal Jazz)

2:30pm - 4:30pmThe John Moawad All-Star Big Band (Jazz) - Chris Bruya, Director

* artists & venues subject to change

Saturday, July 28MAIN STATE ROTARY PAVILION

Noon Linda Hornbuckle Band (Blues)2 pm Savani World Jazz Quartet (Jazz)3 pm Mel Brown Hammond B3 Organ

Quartet (Jazz)4 pm Hook Me Up (Jazz)5 pm Paul Green & Brian Butler Duo (Blues)6 pm Groove for Thought (Vocal Jazz)Between Acts : Sidewalk Stompers (Dixieland)

WINE TASTINGEnjoy some of the Northwest’s premium wines paired with specialty foods and wonderful artwork. Script is interchangable at both locations.1:00 PM - 6:30 PMGallery One • 408 N. Pearl St. 509-925-2670Will feature fi ne wines, Seattle Chocolates and Vinman’s specialty breads. A silent auction of wine and art will also be featured. $10 per person includes a souvenir wine glass.

Clymer Museum of Art • 416 N. Pearl St. 509-962-6416Will offer a fi ne selction of Washington wines and cheese. $10 per person includes a souvenir wine glass.

AMAZING GRAZING1:00 PM - 6:30 PMCheck out the fresh produce as well as arts and crafts at the Farmers Market on 4th Avenue, between Ruby & Pearl Streets.www.kcfarmersmarket.com

LOCAL HISTORY10:00 AM - 4:00 PMView local history exhibits at the Kittitas County Historical Museum. 3rd & Pine St., 509-925-3778. Free admission.

FUN FOR KIDS10:00 AM - 5:00 PMChildren and their grown-ups explore, imagine and learn through play at the Children’s Activity Museum. 118 E. 4th Avenue, 509-925-6789.

2012 POSTER ARTDon O’Connor’s original artwork will be on display at the Clymer Museum of Art in July for a silent auciton. Bidding ends Sunday, July 29 at 2:00pm

ORDER YOUR FESTIVAL PASSES online, by phone or in person at Kittitas County Chamber of Commerce • 609 N. Main Street • Ellensburg

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Manastash Ridge commer-cial tree-fruit grower Fritz Glover of Payne Road has

been monitoring the development of a new, modern apple orchard on lands below his property and recently said the changes have been fascinating to watch for those inter-ested in Kittitas Valley agriculture.

Glover said the coming of Yakima-based Chiawana Orchards to the north-facing slopes of Manastash Ridge above the valley is a positive sign for the county’s agricultural economy and the community as a whole.

Wally Meyer, one of the owners of

Chiawana Orchards, said the firm purchased about 40 acres in two parcels off Payne Road last fall, and work began almost immediately to ready the land for a high density apple orchard of Honeycrisp apples.

Work at the site southeast of Ellensburg hit high gear in February and March. According to the Kittitas County Assessor’s Office, the 40.63-acre site was purchased for $360,000 on Sept. 30, 2011, from William V. Hahn and Martha L. Roper.

There was land leveling, drainage put in, an up-to-date irrigation system installed, top soil condi-tioning and much more.

ProfitableThe Honeycrisp variety, at this

time, is one of the most profitable apples for the fresh market ever, but it’s a challenge to grow, requiring intensive work and monitoring and careful picking.

Returns can be high. The less than 10 commercial tree fruit growers on the ridge also have portions of their land in Honeycrisp orchards.

Meyer said the Honeycrisp nursery trees will begin bearing marketable fruit in three to four years

Chiawana Orchards is the growing arm of Columbia Reach Inc. of Yakima, with orchards in the Royal Slope area, Mattawa and the Yakima Valley.

Local tree fruit economic impact, acreage

The following 2011 estimates were developed for Kittitas County from U.S. Department of Agriculture and Washington State University Extension information, and contact with growers, packing and shipping companies and company field representatives:

Acreage of tree fruit in Kittitas Valley (slopes of Manastash Ridge including Zirkle Fruit Co. land and less than 10 other independent, commercial growers): Apples 1,000-plus acres; pears 345 to 400 acres.

Acreage of tree fruit with Auvil Fruit Co. (south of Vantage) and Larson Fruit Co. (Yakima River Canyon): More than 2,230 acres of apples countywide.

Farm gate value of tree fruit (apples/pears) grown in Kittitas Valley (not counting Auvil Fruit Co. and Larson Fruit Co. produc-tion): $6.4 million to $8 million annually.

n Agricultural economists estimate that, conservatively, for every $1 in farm gate value to the grower, there is an estimated $2.50 to $3 generated in business value created locally, state and nationwide and internationally.

n Thus, the farm gate value of $6.4 million to $8 million for apples/pears in Kittitas Valley annually generates a range of $16 million to $24 million in additional local, state, national and international business.

A new orchard in the valleyChiawana Orchards plants Honeycrisp apples on Payne Road property

Land leveling, irrigation pond installed since September

Submitted

Spray work is under way at the newly planted Chiawana Orchards apple orchard off Payne Road southeast of Ellensburg.


Columbia Reach Inc. processes, packs and stores the Chiawana apples, and a firm in Wenatchee markets and sells them.

More comingMeyer said Chiawana doesn’t

plan to develop other orchards this year on its other properties in Kittitas County, 19 parcels located on Manastash Ridge and off Kaynor Road, farther southeast from Payne Road.

Meyer said Chiawana’s other lands are either open ground or being leased out for hay or other crops.

“But we’ll be planting more (orchards) in the future on those properties,” Meyer said.

According to news reports in 2009, Columbia Reach that year worked on plans to build a 66,880-square-foot controlled atmosphere storage facility and a 56,250-square-foot cold fruit-storage facility near its existing facilities in Yakima.

Although Meyer said he didn’t have any figures available, it’s

estimated that there could be around 50,000 early-bearing Honeycrisp apple trees in the new orchard.

Welcome newsGlover said his orchard of apples

and pears averages 315 trees per acre or, perhaps, only one-fifth the density of trees in the new orchard that some have estimated at 1,500 trees per acre.

“This significant, private invest-ment is welcome news for our county,” Glover said. “We cannot expect to return to economic growth driven solely by housing construction.”

Glover added that, fortunately, the agribusiness sector is moving forward with developments like the new Stone Wings II hay processing and export facility, and the production of Honeycrisp apples on land purchased by regional fruit companies.

“We are attracting new private investment and, I believe, building a sustainable agricultural ecosystem,” Glover said.

Submitted

A large, newly developed irrigation pond sits on the propert at Chiawana Orchards LLC facility off Payne Road.

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By OLIVER LAZENBYStaff Writer

Most 4-H members purchased their lambs or goats just days before, but on June 9 it was time to show them in front of judges for the annual lamb and goat preshow at the Kittitas Valley Fairgrounds.

The preshow is a necessary stop on the way to the fair for members who want to sell their market lamb or goat. Nearly 50 members of various Kittitas County 4-H clubs showed up and

learned how to judge meat animals for market value, how to show off their animals to the judges, and what to do with them in the months

leading up to the fair to make them valuable for market.

The day started in Bloom Pavilion with a practice run where 4-H members judged a variety of lambs and goats. They looked at the size, posture and amount of muscle on each animal.

“We’re looking for which one would make the best dinner,” 4-H senior Travis Guillen said.

After judging animals, 4-H members took their turn being judged in the feeder lamb competi-

tion. They paraded their new lambs around while Washington State University Animal Scientist and Extension Meats Specialist Jan Busboom scored, critiqued and ranked the animals based on market value.

Busboom walked in slow circles around the lambs, scrutinizing them from every angle. Eventually, he placed them in an order he liked, and then tinkered with the order for several more minutes until he settled on the ranking of the lambs.

Kittitas County Fair

When: Aug. 30 – Sept. 3Where: Kittitas County Fairgrounds

4-Hers gearing up for the fairPreshow prepares youths for rigors of the big event Labor Day weekend

Oliver Lazenby / Daily Record

Jan Busboom, Wasington State University animal scientist and extension meats specialist, explains to 4-H members how he ranked their lambs for market value at the lamb and goat county fair preshow.


“Judging prospect lambs is tricky. This challenged me,” said Busboom, who raises lambs himself. “There’s a lot we don’t know about these animals at this point.”

Busboom looked for animals with the proper amount of muscle and weight for their size. He also looked at the lamb’s structure and posture and gave 4-H members tips on the best posture for their lamb.

Proper posture can make a lamb’s legs look full, thick and muscled, he said.

“We want to have big lamb chops,

not skinny little ones.,” Busboom said. “In the preshow I don’t look at how much fat they have because that doesn’t matter much. They shouldn’t be too fat, but fat enough to have good flavor.”

Busboom’s main message to the youth was that a lot can happen between now and the fair.

“I think it will be a really competitive show come August,” Busboom said. “It’s a great experience to learn the respon-sibility in taking care of an animal.”

Oliver Lazenby Daily Record

Members of the 4-H interme-diate division practice judg-ing animals on their market value.

See 4-H, Page 28

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Kimberly Lonowski’s lamb made it into the top four in the market lamb competition. Lonowski has been raising lambs for four years. She said showing market lambs is less stressful than the showing and fitting competi-tion, where showmanship is judged.

“You want to try to show it to the best of your ability, but it doesn’t matter as much as for showing and fitting,” she said. “It’s a lot of work but it’s a lot of fun.”

In fitting and showing, the animal’s market value isn’t important, but the way the animal is shown is. To properly show an animal in front of judges, 4-H members execute some fancy footwork to make sure they don’t get between their animal and the judge.

Fitting and showing is stressful for some kids, Agnese Husko said. Husko’s lamb, Annie, got fourth place in her division. Husko said she needs to practice a lot more before the show and learn to switch directions better while showing her lamb.

4-HContinued from Page 27

See 4-H, Page 30


ABOVE: Moira Turner, right, explains her judgements of market goats and sheep to Jan Busboom, WSU animal scientist and extension meats specialist. FACING PAGE: 4-H members line up their lambs to be inspected by Busboom.

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During the fitting and showing preshow, Busboom also quizzed 4-H members about animal body parts, biology and a variety of terms.

“It’s very much like a job inter-view,” Busboom said. “They have to answer the questions and they have to seem natural and make a good impression.’

Amelia Daniel won the gold medal in the junior division for fitting and showing, and she learned what she needs to do this summer before the fair. She got her lamb four days prior

to the event, and said she’s lucky the animal was small and easy to handle.

Daniel said she needs more practice walking her lamb with a halter and she has to keep her lamb looking her best.

“It was really fun to win,” she said. “I was expecting it because no one else is doing it.”

For 4-H members in Kittitas County, all that’s left between now and the county fair is a summer of training, feeding and grooming.

4-HContinued from Page 28


Agnese Husko poses with her lamb, Annie. Husko won the silver medal in her division of the fitting and showing competition.

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FAR: Jan Bus-boom, WSU animal scientist and extension meats specialist quizzes Amelia Daniel about sheep body parts during the fitting and showing com-petition. Daniel won her divi-sion of fitting and showing.

NEAR: Diana Tasker holds onto a goat as 4-H juniors practice judg-ing goats for market value.

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ag journal summer 2012

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