Seasons of digital change measured in ag growth online

By Gary L. West
Associate editor, Capital Press

I took last week off. But if I had truly wanted a vacation from agriculture news and information, I went about it all wrong.

I spent most of the week visiting family in Oregon's Umatilla County, smack dab in the middle of farming country, where many of the recent headlines we have printed in Capital Press and posted on CapitalPress.com were affecting my family and a wide swath of the countryside.

For example, the cool, wet spring had crops behind. It was common to see alfalfa fields with windrows of hay on the ground turning brown because the rains wouldn't stop long enough to bale the hay. Some fields had standing water in them from recent flooding of streams like Butter Creek.

There was talk about Hermiston's trademark watermelon crop would be several week's later than the Fourth of July holiday, leaving a short season for growers. And in the dryland areas were large fields of wheat afflicted with stripe rust, giving the grain a golden tint long before it is ripening for harvest.

My dad and cousin work in businesses connected to spraying farm crops for insects, weeds and diseases like stripe rust. My dad attacks the harvest robbing threats from the air. My cousin attacks them on the ground. And conversations with both of them centered on issues like this season's unique challenges, taxes, fees, regulations and just the physically exhausting nature of the work.

Of course, they both took advantage of my presence to get a little work out of me too. For my dad, I shot some photos of his planes at work. For my cousin, I wound up helping him move equipment from job site to job site a few times, and helped him change the massive tires on his ground sprayer one day.

I have to admit, it felt good to be outdoors for several days, enjoying some warmer temperatures than the Willamette Valley had experiences so far this spring. It also felt good to be out taking photos again. It even felt good to be exercising some muscles I don't ordinarily use when sitting at a desk all day in the Capital Press office in Salem.

The timing was interesting too. Because this week marks the anniversary of my start date at the Capital Press. It was 6 years ago today that I came to work here. That vacation vividly illustrated to me how my early life growing up in the country and professional life as a journalist, which once took very divergent paths, have come together.

This anniversary is special, in that it now marks the longest tenure I've spent with any media organization in my 20-plus year career. I've spent some time looking back at my time here too as this anniversary has approached, which led me back to this blog. Nearly 6 years ago, when this blog started, it was a way I could work around some of the shortcomings of our website software. At the time, it was somewhat unusual for an organization connected to production agriculture to be blogging. In one of the earliest posts on this blog, I asked the question: Do farmers blog? In 2005, the answer to that was that a few did, but not many. It was difficult to come up with even a handful of agriculture blogs back then. Now, there are lots of farmers who blog, and/or tweet, and/or have a Facebook page or YouTube account and use a variety of Internet tools to tell their story, connect with business associates or people that eat what they grow. Today, we follow more than 3,000 people on Twitter, the majority of which are posts by or about agriculture topics and we have more than 3,700 following our main Twitter account, plus more than 2,700 fans on our main Facebook page. Today we have several blogs, are about to launch a new podcast, multiple Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, a YouTube channel where we post 5 video news updates a week and other videos related to our stories, and a growing group of websites. And agriculture's use of smart phones and online services have exploded behind the efforts of groups like the AgChat Foundation.

That's pretty dramatic change and growth in just 6 seasons.

Thanks for sharing part of this journey with us. And thank you to the past and current staff of the Capital Press and East Oregonian Publishing Co. for letting me, and others on staff here and at our sister publications, push the edge of that envelope a bit for the last 6 years.

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You can follow Capital Press on Twitter @capitalpress or follow Gary's behind-the-scenes tweets at @CapitalPressglw or connect with Capital Press on Facebook or connect with Gary on Facebook.

Mixing business and football

I attended the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation's Fall Harvest Dinner on Saturday, but I have to admit, it was a little difficult to pull myself away from my truck in the parking lot and walk in to the Linn County Fair and Expo Center.

It's not that I didn't want to go in or support this great cause, but the Oregon State-University of Washington football game was still in the first half. Come to think of it, it was awfully hard to leave the house, where I had the game on the TV, to get into the truck in the first place. But I at least knew I could hear the game on the radio.

My resolve to walk into the Expo Center was strengthened by seeing so many Oregon State Beaver bumper and window stickers on the other rigs in the parking lot. I knew someone would be getting score updates.

What I didn't know, is that the best source of information would be the biggest man on the OSU campus. OSU President Ed Ray and his wife were in attendance at the event and Ray's Blackberry kept him up to date on developments in Husky Stadium.

Ray was gracious enough to let me interrupt his dinner for one update and thoughtful enough to share the final score with event organizers so it could be announced to the assembled crowd, which was heavily laced with OSU alums and fans. So while the alumni of Oregon State — sometimes known as Moo U or the Cow College and Corvallis is sometimes called Corn Valley (in spite of the dearth of corn there) — got to support a great cause in teaching young people about the importance of agriculture in classrooms around Oregon, we also got to follow our beloved Beavers too.

Karie Hoffman of Molalla, Ore., Walks through the crowd at the Oregon Ag in the Classroom Fall Harvest Dinner carrying a tricycle decked out in Oregon State colors and logos. Hoffman, a member of the Oregon State University Collegiate FFA, was assisting with an auction of items to benefit the Ag in the Classroom Foundation. Capital Press photo by Gary L. West

Shein brought added dimensions to paper and blog

The Capital Press and Blogriculture are about to lose a key member of our team.

If you have been a regular reader of this blog, you know that Elaine Shein, the executive editor of Capital Press, has been the primary contributor here for quite a while. Well, Elaine is soon to be moving on to other pastures. I know not everyone who reads this site also reads the Capital Press, so you may not have heard that news or read the column published Friday by Carl Sampson, the managing editor of Capital Press.

In these, her final days with us, I wanted to make sure you all got a chance to learn about her pending departure before she was gone.

What follows is Carl's column about Elaine's departure.

Shein brought added dimensions to paper
After five years, executive editor moves to DTN in Nebraska

By Carl Sampson
Capital Press

Next week will be Executive Editor Elaine Shein's last with the Capital Press. She has accepted a position with DTN as an associate managing editor at its Omaha, Neb., headquarters. DTN provides market and weather information, as well as news to customers in agriculture and other industries.

During her five years at the Capital Press, Shein has brought added vigor and intelligence to our coverage of Western agriculture. She has traveled around the region learning about the issues facing farmers and ranchers and applied that knowledge to our news reports.

She also helped lead special projects that broadened our coverage. Shein was a key player in our first special report on "Water in the West." That report received a first-place award from the American Agricultural Editors Association, as did the two following special reports.

She shepherded another award-winning series on climate change that involved editors, reporters and photographers from our sister newspapers in the East Oregonian Publishing Co. that received several national and international awards.

Shein's tenure at the Capital Press has been about more than winning awards. Her membership and participation in agricultural organizations such as Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation and the Agri-Business Council of Oregon have brought those groups fresh ideas to help get the word out about the importance of agriculture to every American.

This year she served as Oregon's AITC president, secretary for ABC's executive board, and also chair of the Keeping Ag Viable committee for ABC.

Last fall, she facilitated a retreat for representatives from agricultural groups around the state that led this spring to a consumer survey on agricultural attitudes.

Shein, 43, is a native of Alticane, Saskatchewan, where her parents run a farm that produces beef cattle, wheat, oats, barley, rye, canola, peas, lentils and forage.

She is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan. Shein started her career as a reporter for the Leader-Post in Regina, Sask., while working on a second degree, in journalism and communications, from the University of Regina.

She worked for several months at Gemini News Service in London before joining the Western Producer, Canada's largest agricultural newspaper that covers much of western Canada.

During her 14 years there, she worked her way up the ladder to become editor and deputy publisher.

In her new job in Nebraska, Shein will find herself in a place that is in many ways different from the West. In the Midwest, corn, soybeans and wheat are king and cattle and hogs are the mainstay of livestock producers.

In other ways, though, she'll find herself right at home among the farmers and ranchers that she has cared about most during her career here and in Canada.

We all wish Elaine the best in her new job.

Managing Editor Carl Sampson is based in Salem, Ore. E-mail: csampson@capitalpress.com.

Want to get better at ag trivia?

As you begin to search for calendars for the new year, why not support a good cause and have fun learning agriculture facts when getting your next calendar.

Oregon’s Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation is selling its school-year calendar that shows artwork by students from around the state. The calendar is great for several reasons: It showcases some terrific artwork, it supports important ongoing activities of the AITC organization, but most importantly it educates and promotes agriculture.

The artwork shows images of agriculture, but also each day of the month includes some facts or trivia about agriculture in Oregon and the rest of the country. Anyone getting one of these calendars will be intrigued by the information, and not just to be better prepared for the next game of Trivial Pursuit.

Some of the facts in the calendar (one for each month):

• 100 percent of all U.S. grown hazelnuts come from Oregon.
• The average American eats 21 lbs. of onions per year.
• Turkeys have 3,500 features at maturity.
• Pig fat is used to make crayons, cosmetics and chalk.
• Bees must fly 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey.
• FFA Officer teams may travel 30,000 miles during the year.
• Rhubarb is a vegetable.
• Earthworms have five hearts.
• Americans spend 7.1 percent of the income on food.
• Dairy cows can produce 125 lbs of saliva a day.
• The first ice cream parlor in the U.S. was opened in 1776.
• An acre will produce enough wheat for 2,500 loaves of bread.

The calendar contest is one of the most popular events held by the AITC Foundation. This year, more than 1,500 students in 24 counties entered the competition. During the State Fair in Salem, the winners of the contest are recognized for their accomplishments and given a chance to talk about the pictures they submitted. Their parents and teachers are also invited to speak.

The students talk about why they like to do art, but also what agriculture means to them. For some students, they’re inspired as they look out their house window — and see family members operating farm machinery in the field. For others, their teachers have given them lessons about agriculture that help.

One of the young artists who really made an impression during the awards ceremony this past fall was Tyler S., who attended Grade 6 at Brooklyn Elementary in Baker City, Ore. His entry, published for December in the calendar, showx a logging operation with the machinery used to extract the trees and place them on the truck. On the side of the truck, a sign says Baker County Logging.

Tyler did more than just talk about his art when he accepted his award. He explained how important logging is to his county, and how it gave jobs to people in the community. He also talked about the impact of what happens when environmentalists or others shut down logging operations, and how it can hurt families who depend on logging.

It was clear that this was more than just an art contest to Tyler: To him, this calendar contest was a chance to explain to others why logging is such an important economic activity to his area of the state.

To see Tyler’s art as well as the work of other students that appears in the calendar, see: http://AITC.oregonstate.edu.

To order a calendar for $5 each, contact Oregon Ag in the Classroom at AITC@oregonstate.edu or Phone: (541) 737-8629.

Here are links to websites for the national Agriculture in the Classroom program and programs in other Western states:

• California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom
• Idaho Ag in the Classroom
• Washington Ag in the Classroom

(Elaine Shein is executive editor of Capital Press, and also the president of Oregon Ag in the Classroom Foundation).

Technorati tags: Agriculture

AITC executive director does double duty

For Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom executive director Tami Kerr, this weekend was a time of double duty.

Most people probably know her from her involvement with AITC: she has played a key role in the success of the program that helps teach students in Oregon schools about the importance of agriculture. She has helped develop and coordinate resources that teachers can use in the classroom, and along with education program assistant Cathy McClaughry in Corvallis they visit classrooms to teach hands-on learning about agriculture.

They also have been very busy in the last few weeks: each year they coordinate a calendar art contest. They collect entries, arrange to have them judged by AITC board members, and then contact award winners to ensure they attend the Oregon State Fair to be honored for their excellent work.

However, this ends up being an even busier time for Kerr: when she wasn't at the Jackman-Long Building helping with AITC duties and the calendar reception, she could be found in the cow barns. Kerr and her family own and operate the Mistvale Holsteins dairy at Tillamook, and several family members worked together to show Holstein cattle.

While her brother and niece worked in the barn and helped show the cattle, Kerr did most of her work in the barn this year — and had her relatives collect the winning ribbons for all of them to celebrate.

This weekend, their best win was when their four-year-old cow Mistvale Durham Mia won the 2007 Grand Champion Holstein title.



Kerr didn't have much time to celebrate, as she kept busy preparing for the AITC reception Sunday afternoon. After the reception, she hurried back to the barn to help her family get the cows ready to go home. For a few brief moments, she sat down with some of the AITC board members across from the stalls that held the cattle the family so proudly showed at the fair.

As her niece helped sweep straw back into the stall, and her brother finally had a chance to eat a turkey leg before milking time, Kerr pointed out some of the posters and printouts she displayed in the barn stall so people could continue to learn about the cattle they saw during the fair.

There on the wall was the 24x26 Grown in Oregon poster, showing the various counties in the state and some of the commodities they grow — an identical poster had been on stage at the calendar reception.

For Kerr, her love for agriculture — and teaching people about it — never ends.



Technorati tags: Agriculture

Calendar winners honored at State Fair

Today several families gathered from around the state to congratulate the winners of the annual calendar art contest held by the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation.

The calendar shows the talented art work from 13 students from grades K-6; the kids, their parents, and their teachers were all invited to the Oregon State Fair to receive some of the new calenders, certificates, and $50 savings bonds. The majority of them came, unless they had other conflicts.

There was also a chance for the students to talk about what inspired them to do the pictures, what they have learned about agriculture from their parents or teachers, and how long it took them to do the pictures. Some of them talked about their loyalty to certain brands (such as John Deere), the important of county fairs in their rural communities, their obsession of cows, their love of horses, and the importance of timber.

Parents had a chance to say how proud they are of their children and their talent, but also explain a bit more about their kids' artistic talent. A couple of mothers laughed and shared how glad they were that the kids now drew on paper — compared to walls or even the back of car seats when they the children were younger. Many of the kids said art was their favorite hobby, and they loved to draw or paint all the time.

Teachers talked about the students but also about how they use AITC resources in their classrooms and how this helps teach students about important commodities in the state. They expressed their thanks to AITC for the support they receive, from lesson plans to resources they can use for the students.

The students who participated in the contest definitely showed great talent but also expressed their interest — and in some cases, passion — for agriculture. Even those who admitted they did the art because it was a class assignment admitted they had fun and learned a lot about agriculture.

For those who live on farms, they revealed what agriculture means to them personally as a way of life but also something they respect deeply.

It's important to have programs like AITC in Oregon and other states to encourage this next generation to learn about agriculture but also to share this message that they care about what happens to farms in the future.

Technorati tags: Agriculture