The Environmental Protection Agency’s Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Advisory Committee last week submitted a list of recommendations to administrator Michael Regan on the intended revision of the definition of “Waters of the United States.”
Washington state has for years had the Voluntary Stewardship Program, which is aimed at improving salmon habitat along rivers and streams. Under the VSP, farmers, ranchers and other landowners…
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(THE CONVERSATION) The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines bioengineered food as food that “contains detectable genetic material that has been modified through certain lab techniques that c…
Time was, most business on the farm was done with a handshake. When someone promised to do something, his, or her, word was enough to seal the deal.
The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the Biden administration’s COVID vaccination/testing mandate for large employers.
HB 1838 asks Washingtonians to save fish habitat at the expense of rural communities. The bill proposes an expansion of riparian mitigation areas from their current range of 50 to 100 feet fro…
School teachers like to see their students alert, attentive and engaged, so when some of the students start to get drowsy, the teacher (hopefully) knows that it’s not due to a boring lesson or…
Editor’s Note: Rep. Cliff Bentz spoke on the floor of the U.S. House on Jan. 12 in opposition to the River Democracy Act, which is sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. These are his remarks.
President Biden wants to help beef producers get better prices for their cattle, while at the same time he wants to help consumers get a break on high beef prices at the grocery store.
The courts are full of cases in which one party agrees to do something in return for money or other assets and, for one reason or the other, welches on the deal.
Fire season is ever-present on Idaho’s seasonal calendar. Last summer’s fires arrived with clockwork precision.
Commentary: What's the difference between sugar, other natural sweeteners and artificial sweeteners?
(THE CONVERSATION) A quick walk down the drink aisle of any corner store reveals the incredible ingenuity of food scientists in search of sweet flavors. In some drinks you’ll find sugar. A die…
When the Oregon Legislature meets next month, the question of ending the overtime exemption for farmworkers will again be on the agenda.
It’s no secret that trans-Pacific shippers face steep obstacles these days.
Global fruit production has not only persevered in the face of a worldwide health crisis, but it has also continued to adapt in response to the evolving landscape.
What takes priority in Washington state, solar farms or sage grouse habitat?
Recently on this page we urged Oregon politicians to go to rural parts of the state and seek out the opinions of the people who live there. Why? Because political leaders need to reflect the v…
Common sense isn’t so common these days. I read all of the opinions on dam removal and the great cost it would impose on the taxpayer.
Last week the Capital Press printed an editorial in favor of the program established by the Oregon legislature to protect farmland through “working land easements” that “limit the non-farm act…
The good people of Idaho are embarking on an effort to “protect” farmland. They want to stop — or at least limit — the conversion of farmland to other uses such as housing and commercial devel…
The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission last week voted 3-to-1 for a sweeping “Climate Protection Program” that will require fuel suppliers in Oregon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fro…
Catching-up on my print media and appreciated your opinion “650 days of emergency and counting” with Governor Brown in her ivory tower extending our never-ending state of emergency yet once ag…
GREEN BAY, Wis. — In early October, we finally got a glimpse into the Biden administration’s approach to trade when USTR Ambassador Katherine Tai outlined a “New Approach to the U.S.-China Tra…
‘Tis the season not only for Christmas trees and year-end celebrations but for Oregon’s gubernatorial candidates to shift into high gear in anticipation of the 2022 election.
We are happy that the Washington Department of Ecology has put the brakes on adopting a policy that would require every livestock owner to have a permit to water their animals from a stream.
This Christmas we will celebrate at The Farm for the last time. The property is in probate, which will force its sale, a casualty of Oregon’s land use laws (SB 1, which labels the land exclusi…
The holidays have arrived, a time for faith, family, and friendship. But this year, new worries weigh on the season. Small businesses and families across Idaho are confronted with broken suppl…
COVID-19 has reached endemic stage, which means it will be with us in one form or another for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, there appears no end to the exercise of unfettered “emergen…
The decision to mandate “clean” electric trucks in every state on the West Coast has all of the makings of a perfect bureaucratic bungle, and Americans will be paying for it for years in the f…
Like many of you, I wrote my legislators, testified and fought against the cap and trade proposals in front of the Oregon Legislature in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
In Southern Oregon, the Nature Conservancy, U.S. Forest Service and Klamath Tribes set up what became one of the nation’s largest outdoor laboratories.
The Biden administration has announced a two-step process to write new rules governing regulation of the waters of the U.S. — WOTUS.
“Drink your milk.” That’s an admonition every smart mother has given her children.
It has been a difficult year for all of us.
Even governors sometimes run headlong into reality.
In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln made an appeal for unity on the eve of the Civil War.
I love fossil fuels. I love energy. Kyoto. Paris. Rio. And now Glasgow. Promises. Promises. The world will drown in two years if we don’t end...
We suspect the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate will do more to increase workplace hostility and divisiveness than it will to increase safety.
Pacific Northwest FFA members and their legions of supporters are bursting with pride these days. At the recent national convention in Indianapolis, two of them were selected to be national officers.
The Idaho Department of Water Resources was pleased NASA recently announced the availability of a new open-source satellite-based tool (OpenET) that calculates evapotranspiration, which is the…
The current UN climate change summit (COP 26) is designed to lower carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The two largest polluters, the leaders of China and Russian, are not attending. China is …
In Oregon, the deadline for state workers to be fully vaccinated has passed. Gov. Kate Brown imposed the mandate in an attempt to increase the number of Oregonians who are fully vaccinated. Un…
Pardon us if we stifle a yawn in response to a letter 21 U.S. senators penned the other day.
With hunting season underway, a familiar challenge unfolds. Hunters seek publicly managed wildlife, but much of the prime habitat is owned by private landowners. While most landowners aren’t o…
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden has proposed adding over 4,700 miles of waterways to the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers System in Oregon. With half-mile no-touch buffers, the “Rivers Democracy Act” will a…
I own a small on-farm USDA inspected red meat and poultry slaughter and processing plant. Each year, we raise, process and market as much as a million pounds of pastured pork and poultry.
For more than 20 years, a group of plaintiffs led by a litigious special interest environmental group have held our region hostage, threatening to breach our dams and drain the lifeblood of ou…
There are assessments, and then there are sales pitches.
If you follow the news, it’s easy to feel a bit dispirited — the pandemic, inflation, political discord.
Seven years ago, Oregonians were told that by legalizing marijuana and hemp they could solve an array of problems. Pot smokers could come out of the shadows and hemp could take its place as a …
The state of Oregon and the federal government are in a dispute over the water in Upper Klamath Lake.
It’s time to put to rest the myth that foreign guestworkers take away farm jobs from Americans and others who are in the country legally.
It was just 13 months ago that Oregonians were singing the praises of firefighters and EMS personnel who raced up Santiam Canyon to rescue those in the path of a wildfire racing down.
Over 2 million acres of working forests managed by the State of Washington provide a sustainable and continuous supply of timber, clean water for salmon, habitat for wildlife, family-wage jobs…
