Experts say it seems unlikely eco-terrorists would have purposely sown restricted biotech wheat in an Oregon field, discounting Monsanto's claim that the release was an act of sabotage.
"Western Innovators," an ebook about the best and brightest in Western ag, is free this week at http://bit.ly/WesternInnovators
Idaho's agricultural community is supporting a scrap metal bill that it hopes will help reduce farm thefts.
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.
To listen, click here.
New Mexico authorities have arrested three men found with a 220-pound calf in the backseat of their car.
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.
To listen, click here.
The Idaho State Brand Inspector's office is leading a multijurisdictional effort to solve a string of fatal cattle shootings that has claimed seven cows in three southwest Idaho counties.
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.
To listen, click here.
Most people when they think of Dawn Wells, they think of the perky Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island.
However, in the ag community she is a perky spokesperson that helps promote Idaho potatoes and gives great cooking tips in commercials and on YouTube like how to peel a potato with just hot water and some ice cubes.
However, now Wells might be too much a hot potato herself: The Idaho Potato Commission might want to stay away from using her to promote their healthy, wholesome product.
Seems there was more cookin’ lately with her…
An Associated Press story this afternoon said Wells will “serve six months’ unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car.” (Click here to see related AP video.)
More from AP:
Under a plea agreement, three misdemeanor counts — driving under the influence, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance — were dropped.
On Oct. 18, Teton County sheriff's Deputy Joseph Gutierrez arrested Wells as she was driving home from a surprise birthday party that was held for her. According to the sheriff's office report, Gutierrez pulled Wells over after noticing her swerve and repeatedly speed up and slow down. When Gutierrez asked about a marijuana smell, Wells said she'd just given a ride to three hitchhikers and had dropped them off when they began smoking something. Gutierrez found half-smoked joints and two small cases used to store marijuana.
The 69-year-old Wells, founder of the Idaho Film and Television Institute and organizer of the region's annual family movie festival called the Spud Fest, then failed a sobriety test.
Wells' lawyer, Ron Swafford, said that a friend of Wells' testified that he'd left a small amount of marijuana in the vehicle after using it that day, and that Wells was unaware of it. Swafford also said several witnesses were prepared to testify that Wells had very little to drink at the party and was not intoxicated when she left. He said she was swerving on the road because she was trying to find the heater controls in her new car."
It's not only Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and his family, friends and staff who will feel pain from the current scandal threatening his political career.
The state of Idaho and farmers all around the West will share his pain.
Last night was National Night Out Against Crime, and our neighborhood in Salem was one of the ones that participated by holding a block party.
Actually, a several-block party. The neighborhood association invited people from several blocks around to participate.
We all gathered at the end of a dead-end street, threw down a few lawn chairs and plastic tables, and shared a few dishes among our neighbors. Kids ran after each other in the street, adults introduced themselves to each other, and representatives from the local police department gave tips on how to protect us against crime.
We were assured that our street was one of the safer areas in town. Not all of us felt that safe, knowing of a few thefts on our block within the last three years. These ranging from a house break-in where a large number of tools were stolen, to someone stealing a few solar lanterns from someone’s driveway, to cars being stolen.
This morning, we woke up in time to see the neighbor across the street had his yard toilet-papered by possible vandals or friends: streams of paper all over a tree, ripped up chunks all over the lawn. We were a bit unsettled to know that we had calmly slept through it all.
We’ve had our share of suspicious activity, but when compared to other neighborhoods, this seems to be one of the luckier areas to live.
Advice from police
The police officer advised us all to keep an eye on our streets, lock our doors, register our bikes with the city, be careful with our valuables, and never leave unlocked vehicles idling in our driveways.
It’s sad, really, that we need such lessons. I think of how life is different from when I grew up on a farm where we encouraged to keep doors unlocked in case a neighbor visited us for something and we weren’t there to help. The neighbor could find that cup of sugar in the kitchen, tools in the garage or even borrow that vehicle for an emergency trip. All we asked in return was a quickly jotted note left on our kitchen table explaining where and why something had happened — and often there were such notes.
Vehicles were left unlocked with keys in the ignition. Part of it was because we were constantly on the go, and you never knew who would need which old pickup or grain truck at what time and for what purpose. Rather than wasting time scrambling for hidden keys, we just jumped in the vehicle we needed and headed for our destination.
Changing times
But as I listened last night to the list of what to do to protect property, I thought about how crime has begun to hit our farm and so many others. We have had various things stolen. We don’t trust strangers as much when they come to the yard. We lock our doors. We’re suspicious of why people ask us certain questions.
Back to life in the city: how was the event last night?
It served its purpose. We discussed crime and its prevention, but we also admired or sympathized with people’s projects in their yards and homes. We borrowed ideas from each other. We shared recipes and tips on raising kids and pets. And we plotted how as a community we could catch the raccoons, skunks and squirrels that seem to enjoy our areas as much as we do.
We heard how three big raccoons have terrorized cats and dogs, chewed on sprinkler heads, enjoyed snails and fish from ponds, and generally made a nuisance of themselves yet successfully avoided all our efforts to trap them.
Time to leave
As the evening ended and people began to fold up their chairs and wander down the street to their homes, someone mused how it would be great to have these events more often and not just once a year.
In rural areas, there are fowl suppers, dances, weddings, funerals, local school graduations, bingo nights or local drama events that tie a community together. Everyone gets to know their neighbors for miles around.
In a city, sadly, we often don’t even know our next door neighbors.
Technorati tags: Agriculture
National Night Out
crime
Salem
Watching all the heart-wrenching coverage of those who grieve such a senseless crime at Virginia Tech university, we all keep wondering how can someone become such a hateful person seeking so much bloodshed?
Growing up in a very small isolated rural community, I never had to worry about whether I would be alive at the end of the school day. There were no fences around our schoolyard, no metal detectors at the door, no police or security officers to patrol the hallways to keep us safe. There simply was no need. Heck, we were just a bunch of farm kids and small town school students.
Sure, there were bullies. There were physical fights, verbal attacks, and psychological torture that kids can all be so great at inflicting upon each other, and particularly on the most vulnerable children in the schoolgrounds and classrooms.
To pretend none of that existed would not be realistic. To say that all of us were perfect and never said or did a mean thing to another kid would be a lie. Sometimes we gave, sometimes we received. Sometimes we cried, sometimes we laughed. Sometimes we all worried whether we would survive the day, but life was so exaggerated in our minds that it probably wasn't as much of a life and death struggle as we thought.
So instead, we'd swallow our pride, carry home our wounds and shame, and quietly went about doing our chores, and often pretended nothing happened in school that day to us. After others hurt us, we slowly healed and hopefully forgave. Sometimes we were bullied — and sometimes we were the bullies. Things are never black and white in those school years. There is always someone stronger and someone weaker.
While we hate to admit it, we probably rarely gave a second thought to the other kid we ganged up on and teased or tormented, because it just seemed like fun in our immature minds. It just all seemed to even out.
At least, that was what it seemed like, until we became acne-faced, gangly awkward teenagers and suddenly the games became more cruel, more painful, more horrible in their consequences.
High school years triggered — even in small rural schools — suicide attempts by peers.
There was always the hushed voices of the teachers as they tried to herd students away from the location of where something had happened. There were gasps, sobs and shock among the students when they learned what happened, although usually everybody attempted to keep things quiet. There were rumors of emergency races to the hospital, of the amazing efforts of doctors and nurses, and somehow, miraculously, these kids pulled through. They might be gone a few days, a few weeks, the rest of the school year. But these kids usually came back.
And we, the fellow students, never felt the same in our small rural school — while those kids were gone or when they were back. We couldn’t understand what had happened, yet were furious at ourselves for not doing more, for not reaching out, for somehow preventing whatever happened whether it was our best friends or just a passing acquaintance.
But we didn't know what to say or do when these people returned to our classes. We always wondered what was this person thinking, feeling, and whether a suicide attempt might happen again.
In high school, there were several suicide attempts — that we know of, but how many never even made the rumors?
It was a world where we learned that sometimes life became so challenging to our peers that they felt they needed to end it all. However, at that time, it always was against themselves that they did this. It never crossed our minds that these kids would ever endanger the lives of their classmates. We were still innocent, Columbine and other tragedies still years away.
University was supposed to be better. The knowledgeable, the wiser, the more mature, the strangers who know nothing about your past, your family, your living conditions. Everyone was supposed to start new, fresh, equally inexperienced, we thought. We were eager to seek these halls of higher learning.
How quickly reality hit. There was pressure from professors, competition among students, and suddenly everyone treated us like adults — which we wanted so desperately to be, and yet in many ways really weren't ready to handle — and we now needed to worry about more than just our homework being done.
We needed to think about rent, food, transportation, living expenses, relationships with others. We worried where the money would come for next week, and how to pay for all those expensive text books.
Some of us took part time jobs to help us afford university. We took what we could get.
That was how my friend Brad and I became security guards for one of the colleges. Our duties were simple. We took turns doing lock-up at night. We would carefully walk through all the college, check every classroom, hallway, bathroom stall, even church chapel pews to make sure no one was hiding in the college. We checked behind pop machines in the cafeteria, the heavy curtains on stage in the auditorium, behind sofas in the lounges. There was a bank attached to the college, so there was even more pressure on us to make sure no one was left in the building.
Sometimes a pack of friends would accompany us, sometimes the two of us would go together for moral support. For the most part, we did our jobs alone, flicking lights on and off, jingling keys, opening and closing doors and locking them tight.
We had our regulars we needed to deal with and sternly order to leave. The students who liked to drink alcohol in the student offices in the back. The homeless woman who wore a cape with some religious writing sewn on the back, and rode city busses to keep warm if she didn't find a chapel’s wooden pew as a bed at the college.
There is one person who especially stands out in my mind. Considerably older, he was the perpetual student who never seemed to earn his degree. He was a loner with no real friends, yet liked to lurk on the fringe of other groups of friends or students. Occasionally he spewed religious rants — he had changed religions already several times — and sometimes he just made very rude, inappropriate comments. But at the college, my friends and I still tried to treat him kindly.
His behavior became more erratic, and we all increasingly felt more uncomfortable around him, but still didn’t think of him as a threat.
One night, Brad and I went into one of the college study lounges to lock up when we stopped abruptly and stared: there was that guy, and he was red-faced, upset, agitated, acting erratic, and swearing out loud. In a frenzy, he scribbled all over the blackboards in big, chalked letters words that made our hair stand on end. Occasionally he read out the words, like a mantra.
Kill, mangle, destroy. Kill, mangle, destroy. He wrote those words over and over again along with various profanities.
We quickly exited the room, afraid to do anything. We didn't return for an hour or longer, until we were sure he had finally left out a side door. Long into the night, my friend and I talked about what we witnessed. We later talked to others. It was a sleepless night.
Most people felt it was a joke. Surely it was a joke. No one could really be like that, no one could have that dark of a side, right?
Years later, listening to what happened in a university so far away from the one I attended, I find I still shudder, thinking back to what evil might have lurked among us. I wonder what that student was capable of doing — and what ultimately prevented anything from happening — and the rest of us becoming some horrible statistic. I sometimes wonder what happened to him.
My friends and I have been blessed to have gone on with our lives. We have graduated, many of us now have spouses, families, careers in different parts of the world.
We see the sun rise, feel the wind against our faces, hear the laughter of children, and tell our loved ones what they mean to us. We welcome spring, celebrate special occasions, and almost every day we communicate with our friends, family or others who may have influenced our lives in some way.
For those at Virginia Tech, so many lives have been robbed of that: those who died, and those who loved them. So many suffer so greatly from what one person inflicted in so little time.
Our innocence is gone in schools and universities, whether we live in big cities or even in rural communities, but we must stay vigilant and be our brother's keeper for the future.
Life is too precious to let it escape in such a way in such a tragic ending. Whether a young kid or a teenager, they deserve us to be on guard for them. We need to protect them, whether it’s from us, from each other, or from themselves.
It is time for the violence to end.
Technorati tags: Agriculture
Virginia Tech
The shooting today at Virginia Tech is dominating the news on national mainstream media outlets, including Associated Press. The death toll has now topped 30. It's still too early in the investigation process to know what motive the shooter may have had in this deadly rampage.
As a Land Grant university, Virgina Tech is one of the higher education institutions in this country with an agriculture college. In recent days and weeks we've had coverage on this blog and our main site related to some of the West Coast's ag education institutions. Fortunately, we have been able to share some of the good things going on at West Coast colleges. Even coverage and commentary related to some of the budgetary woes some schools are facing, while serious, is not so dire as the tragedy the this East Coast ag school and their families are facing.
It's almost too stunning to comprehend.
At first it looked like a tough nut to crack.
For the farmers who had shelled out a lot of money to produce their crops, they were frustrated when thieves stole large caches of tens of thousands of pounds of almonds and walnuts in California. Millions of dollars were shaken from the profits of these producers.
But police have pried open this mysterious case.
As a recent Capital Press story explained, mysterious activity at a warehouse led police to find suspicious business rolling along: apparently, almonds were being repackaged in unmarked boxes for possible shipment or resale.
Police forces from three counties helped to make the arrests of the alleged crooks tied to the stolen nuts.
One of the detectives was thankful for the additional manpower. “ We have two rural crime detectives, so it was nice to have a Rural Crime Task Force in place to get 12 or 13 detectives to respond on a Sunday evening. It shows the kind of intensity behind this investigation for them to drop everything on a Sunday night and go to Sacramento,” said Stanislaus County sheriff's deputy Royjindar Singh.
Although the story didn’t say it, probably the alleged thieves and the police had a similar line about dropping everything on a Sunday night, whether it was the police dropping other work or family activities or the suspects dropping the stolen goodies at the warehouse.
“Ah, nuts,” might have been an appropriate line.
On a more serious note, the two people arrested have been charged with stealing $1.7 million worth of nuts in the last year.
The stolen nuts that were dug up so far in the case are worth about $400,000, so police will continue to scurry around looking for more evidence of the thieves’ trail, a mix of thefts from different processors in several counties.
Anyone who continues to squirrel away any evidence or can help lead police to net any more arrests can contact the Rural Crime Prevention Task Force in Tulare County.
Links:
Capital Press story
Technorati tags:
Agriculture
I've been of playing rodeo reporter for a few days, but meanwhile back at the ranch, the Capital Press staff has been putting some finishing touches on some special packages for our Sept. 22 issue. This is going to be a big one folks.
Inside this week's edition will be a 12-page special section on climate change. The package, the third part of an on-going series, looks at how a changing climate, whether part of earth's natural cycle or man-made causes, could affect all things that grow. Specifically the package will look at the impacts on the plants and animals that make up our environment and our food-and-fiber supply here on the West Coast.
The package is produced in conjunction with our sister publications in the East Oregonian Publishing Company, particularly the Daily Astorian and East Oregonian.
And that, in addition to our regular news and farm feature coverage would be plenty for most issues, but that's not all you'll find this week. We will also have a two-page special package of coverage on rural crime. Stories will look at how farmers and ranchers have been targets for specific types of crimes and will include details on how some are choosing to fight back.
And readers of some of our Northwest editions will also get a one-page photo package, featuring the work of our photo coordinator, Mark Rozin, from last week's Pendleton Round-Up.
And all this comes to you in the Friday, Sept. 22 edition of Capital Press and online at capitalpress.com.
So, I guess that means I better get back to work.
Agriculture
Climate change
Rural crime
Pendleton Round-Up
By Elaine Shein
When you live in a rural community, you often know your neighbors for a few miles around. You meet them at local events, you call them when the cattle have escaped through a broken fence and you share local gossip.
City life is different. You can live across the street or down the block from neighbors and not know even what their faces look like.
The only time you might see them is when you’re collecting your mail at the same time, dealing with some weather related incident, being approached by them for fundraising events for their kids or they’re attempting to get you signed up for a political party during an election year.
Sometimes it might be a crime in the area that stirs neighbors to finally unite in an effort to share information and prevent further crimes from taking place.
The Neighborhood Watch program is a good one that is built on the latter reason to unite neighbors, but also gives an opportunity for neighbors to meet each other socially.
This week across the country there was an event called National Night Out, encouraging people to get together with events such as potluck dinners so they can get to know each other better but also learn tips on how to fight crime.
In Salem, Ore. alone there were a record 132 block parties held on August 1. Police representatives received more than a hundred requests to attend these parties, and really attempted to get to as many as possible. Some officers attended several in one evening, with helpers to keep them on track.
Attending the local potluck event in my area, I realized just how many people I didn’t know from down the street or even within a 4-block area. There were the familiar greetings of “which street do you live on? Which house is yours?” but also questions like “What vehicle do you drive? Do you have any kids? Pets?”
Depending on your answers, it could open up a great conversation or lead to some awkward moments. “Oh, that’s YOUR dog that barks all the time? That car that speeds all the time belongs to YOUR husband? You mean those loud teenagers that hang out at 2 a.m. on our street with the blaring stereos are YOUR horrible, undisciplined offspring?”
And of course there is the realization that those ignored healthy dandelions hidden in your yard might be the ones happily replanting themselves in the yards of these nice neighbors.
Awkward moments aside, the meeting was a success. Contact sheets were handed out so people know who their neighbors are and how to contact them at work and home in case of emergency. The police officer gave details on programs to prevent car thefts, mark possessions better in case they are stolen, and encouraged people to know more about each other — such as when are people away on vacation, or on prolonged business trips — so they can contact the police department if something suspicious happens in the area.
Among the suggestion was that people write or engrave OR (for Oregon) and their drivers’ license number on possessions so if they’re stolen, police can quickly return the possessions if they are found later.
Another suggestion was that people buy $2 stickers from the police department to put on vehicles. If that vehicle with its sticker is spotted on the streets between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., the police will stop it to ensure the car has not been stolen.
While some people thought this was a great idea, other people admitted being paranoid of having stickers that invite police to follow and stop them. After all, what if that person was occasionally out driving during those times? Or maybe was not wearing a seatbelt or had a few too many social drinks earlier?
The police officer gave a lot of statistics at the block party, but perhaps the most convincing one was that 98 percent of the crimes done in this city are in neighborhoods that don’t have Neighborhood Watch programs.
On that reason alone people should consider bonding together under Neighborhood Watch programs more to help prevent crimes in their areas, whether in urban or rural areas.
In rural areas, distances between neighbors leads to crime problems since they can’t see each other’s houses or fields. It has been terrible that rural areas have been hit for theft for everything from fuel to cattle to irrigation equipment parts that are resold as scrap metal by meth addicts.
But hopefully warning signs and vigilance by neighbors will help protect areas in the future while also encouraging people to feel more like a protective community, rather than a group of single vulnerable dwellings.
Agriculture
