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Barenbrug and Simplot Enter Into Agreement for the Sale of the Jacklin® Seed Business

The Royal Barenbrug Group and the J.R. Simplot Company announced they have agreed on terms for the sale of the Jacklin® Seed business to Barenbrug USA. The transaction is expected to close in the next few weeks, subject to standard closing conditions. Both Simplot and Barenbrug are privately held, family owned companies with storied legacies in agriculture and expect a smooth transition that will benefit Jacklin® Seed employees and both companies.

The combination of Jacklin® Seed’s deep portfolio with Barenbrug’s vision, R&D, and industry leading market development will provide a strong value to turf growers and distributors across the world.

“We warmly welcome Jacklin® Seed’s employees, growers, and customers to our global Barenbrug family,” said John Thijssen, Member Board of Directors, Barenbrug Group. “Their high-quality and wide-ranging seed experience will further strengthen and grow our position as a leading global grass seed supplier. By combining our skills and expertise, we’ll supply a greater range of premium grasses to our customers and create value for all our stakeholders worldwide.”

“We are pleased to partner with Barenbrug in this transaction,” said G. Rey Reinhardt, Simplot AgriBusiness division. “We believe that their ideals and goals as a generational, family-run organization align with ours and that the Jacklin® Seed employees will have a smooth transition into the Barenbrug organization.”

More information will follow after closing.

Originally published in SeedWorld, September 18, 2020

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Local Grass Seed Farm Boy Finds Niche in Developing Fine Whiskey

By Sarah Brown
Lebanon Local


DUSTIN HERB checks the oil level in a glass of Waterford whiskey as he explains how to experience fine whiskey. Photos by Sarah Brown

Dustin Herb considers his path in life part heritage, part hard work, and mostly luck.

If he could brag about anything – which isn’t a natural trait, he would say it’s that he got paid to go to school to drink beer and whiskey, and travel.

He was not, actually, a big beer drinker at the time, and he “couldn’t stand” whiskey, Herb said.

“I had to learn to love it, and then ended up loving the process behind it and the culture and the people.”

The plant breeder at OreGro has a side hustle in the pioneer development of terroir in whiskey, a movement started by Mark Reynier, founder of Waterford Distillery in Ireland.


Lebanon native Dustin Herb has become an expert in how the environment affects barley used in creating fine whiskey.

“Terroir is the relationship between the plant and the environment, and how it gets into the flavor,” Herb said. “So that’s our aim here, is to figure out how the barley is interacting with the environment in which it’s being grown, and the management – how it’s being grown – and how that contributes to the final product. In this case, whiskey.”

For centuries, terroir has played a significant role in the wine industry. Consumers look at the year, the “vintage,” of a bottle of wine, and they look at its terroir – where the grapes were grown, Herb said. Knowing each year’s climate in a particular location helps determine the quality of what’s in the bottle.

“So that’s a very similar thing that we’re looking at,” he said. “We’ve grown the same (barley) varieties on the same farms in two different soil types that have slightly different climactic regions in southeast Ireland, and they give different weather patterns.”

For the past four years, Herb and Waterford Distillery have been tracking all the data, including results from their weather stations and soil analyses, and working with a trained panel to define flavor aspects. The distillery would have made its first presentation at the World Distilling Conference in Scotland last May, but it was postponed due to COVID.

Herb’s story starts on the family farm in Lebanon.

He was born into one of the families that founded OreGro, a grass seed company out of Albany. Having always worked on the family’s research farm, it was natural for him to want to study turf breeding, but his dad told him instead to “go into something that somebody can eat or drink.”

That was because they were in the middle of the most recent recession.

So Herb attended Oregon State University, intending to study grain.

“Then the brewing thing, distilling, it all just sort of fell into my lap,” he said.

Following advice from a professor, Dr. Pat Hayes, a barley breeder and genetics teacher at OSU, Herb went to Texas A&M University to get his master’s degree. There, he studied energy sorghum.

“I worked with crushing sweet sorghum and carving out the juice and using ethanol for renewable energy.”


Herb stands in his research plot on his family’s Lebanon farm.

Then he returned to OSU for his Ph.D in the Barley Project under Hayes, researching whether barley varieties and their genetics play a role in beer flavor.

“It’s the first time that anybody ever looked at barley as a major flavor contributor to alcohol production,” he said.

Industry leaders always considered the impact that malt, water, yeast and hops made as contributors of flavor, but never barley itself, he said.

Herb also added to his project the consideration of how the environment and the management of barley affects flavor. In other words, the terroir.

To complete his Ph.D, Herb needed to gain funding and experience from breweries across the U.S. They were called the “Flavor Seven Pack:” Sierra Nevada, Bell’s, Deschutes, Firestone Walker, New Glarus, Russian River, and Summit.

Herb also served an internship at Rahr Malting Company, which afforded him the opportunity to visit and work with some nearby funders on the Flavor Project.

Barley flavor is like the canvas of a painting, in terms of beer, he said. If beer is the finished work of art, then barley is the canvas.
“It’s the backbone, it’s the soul of the beer, a canvas on which these brewers paint.”

Brewers add malts of different intensities, hops of different flavors, different yeasts, and they play with the hardness of the water, he said. All those things add to the way the “painting” is going to turn out.

Now, when terroir is added to the metaphor, it becomes a discussion about whether the painting is on canvas material, printer paper, concrete, stainless steel, and so forth.

“You got different canvases now that you can play with,” he said.

Once his Ph.D was complete, Herb presented speeches on his papers. At the World Brewing Conference in 2016, his dissertation about barley variety and growing environment contributions to flavor was presented, and somebody tweeted it, he said.


Herb is with Mark Reynier, CEO of Waterford Distillery, which has added Herb to its research team.
Photo courtesy of waterfordwhisky.com

Enter Waterford Distillery. Reynier, the founder, has long touted the claim that terroir affects whiskey flavor, Herb said. Reynier had just started his new distillery when he saw the tweet, and determined he wanted Herb on his team.

“They wanted me to help design some experiments around their production to see if I could classify their terroir. They had already determined for themselves that terroir existed within whiskey, because they could taste it when they were making the whiskey, but they wanted my help to help quantify that.”

Classifying varieties and terroir is a nuisance for some big industry leaders, who have been selecting barley for consistency in their products for centuries, Herb said.

Many barley varieties have about 10 years of high production rates before they begin to taper and are replaced by varieties that have better disease resistance and better agronomics, Herb said. But a few varieties from the 1960s maintain low, yet constant production that brewers love.

“They always say there’s something about this variety, some kind of flavor, some kind of attribute that makes their beers, their product, unique,” he said.

Part of Herb’s Ph.D studies involved isolating the part of the barley’s genes that contributes to that beloved flavor, and mixing it with barley that has better agronomics.

So when they start establishing that barley varieties have different flavors, and add onto that the terroir aspect, the traditional brewers get nervous because they want their product to taste exactly the same from its original release to 500 years from now, he said.

So how do Herb and his team of sensory panelists classify flavor aspects of the same barley variety grown at different locations? The only way to test it is to taste it.

“It’s a really rough job,” he said with a laugh.

In addition, there are highly sensitive gadgets that isolate compounds of flavor in each whiskey, which are sent through an olfactory test.


Waterford’s whiskey includes details about its ingredients.

As Herb took a sample pack of Waterford’s first release of whiskeys, he explained how to examine its flavors.

First, he said, the glass of whiskey should be rolled in the hands to warm it up.

“When you move it around, the heat is going to help release its volatiles,” he said. “You want to get the ethanol out.”

After he warmed his glass, Herb swooshed the fluid around and observed the “legs” of oil dripping down, which adds a nice quality to whiskey, he said.

“It kind of helps the flavor sort of linger out and have a nice finish.”

Next, he smelled the whiskey to look for the “soul” of the drink. Does it smell like cereal or grain? Will it taste fruity or floral?

“Seems like a dry fruitiness, like an apricot, a slight apricoty, pruney flavor to it,” he said.

Following a first taste, he gave his interpretation, which, he said, can be subjective and vary based on where you’re at at the moment.

“I can taste cloves and ham. You got a little peppery spice to it. It’s got a nice lingering; it kind of sits on the tongue, especially as you breathe through it.”

He added: light floral, a little bit of honey, fresh and dried fruit flavors, and light maltiness.


A sample from a different farm elicited a different analysis: more peppery, more earthy and herbaceous, more cereal, and not as fruity or floral.

“A good way I describe it is barnyard-y, like wet hay cut in the field. It’s dried, but then it rains a little bit and you get that kind of a sharp, sort of a grassy flavor. So it has that sort of a wet hay, slightly pungent (taste).”

Maybe that’s because the sample came from a farm more inland, where the deeper, heavier soils are, he said.

Herb noted that people who “shoot” whiskey, who  typically consume it quickly, from a shot glass, always in a single gulp, are not actually experiencing and enjoying whiskey,” Herb said.

“They just want to get drunk.”

Distilleries such as Waterford spend time and money to make a product that should be enjoyed, he said.

“This has got class. This has got style. This has got craft in it.”

Granted, novices to whiskey will say it all tastes the same, Herb noted. They’ll taste the burn, the alcohol, the spicy smokiness.

It’s connoisseurs and trained tasters who will notice the subtle differences.

A decade ago, Herb said, he would’ve only tasted the burn, the spicy smokiness, and he certainly wouldn’t have been drinking it for fun.

But here he is now, “just a normal person from Lebanon,” growing grass and training specialists to differentiate flavor aspects of terroir in fine whiskey. It’s been a trip.


Dustin shows a sample of Waterford whiskeys while sitting at his river-side property.

“I was not expecting to make the jump from sorghum to barley and beer, and then from barley and beer to whiskey. That was not on my radar at all.”

Addendum: A note from Mark Reynier

“I first learned about Dustin when he published a thesis while at Oregon about the barley flavours, a subject that has been of great interest to me since my days last Bruichladdich Distillery and now at Waterford.

I noticed that during his trials and tests he had somewhat inadvertently demonstrated that the principle of terroir could exists for barley. We got in touch and I explained what I was wanting to do – the definitive proof that terroir exists for barley and the whisky distilled from it; extraordinarily, it appears no one, not even the French, had bothered to proof the concept of terroir; they just accept it as Gospel. So for the last three years we have worked together to do the definite study which will have far reaching implications – a bit of a grenade in the heavily consolidated industry. We are also embarking on a similar trial but for sugar cane and rum in the Caribbean island of Grenada.”

Originally published 8/18/20 in Lebanon Local

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DLF Pickseed Announces New Company Promotions

Over the past couple years, DLF Pickseed has been working on succession planning and development. It is a valuable process to ensure continuity, leadership, and success. As a result of their work and conversations, the company has two exciting changes to share.

Sean Chaney was promoted to vice president of the Pro Turf Division.

Chaney is an Oregon native who has been involved in the Ag community since childhood. His first experience with seed was hands-on – working in fields and warehouses as a teenager. Beginning at age 14 and on to his graduation from the University of Oregon, Sean worked for a local seed producer and marketer. He learned about the seed production process, and was able to bring many of these skills to DLF Pickseed. Chaney was hired 6 years ago, beginning as a buyer and a sales representative. He continued in the buyer role as his sales and brand management duties expanded. As time went on, he also added international sales experience to his resume, something he has been doing for over 3 years now.

During this same period Chaney started a dual-degree program that resulted in a Master of Business Administration from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.  In addition to receiving his degree, he also worked on and received a Masters in Agricultural Business from Purdue University.

Michael Billman was promoted to export director.

Billman is also an Oregon native who grew up in the grass seed country. He graduated from Oregon State University, a passionate Beaver Baseball fan, who began his agricultural career long before college. His vast experience working on seed farms and other local Ag endeavors has helped him with his success over the years.

Billman began his official seed industry career at Zajac Performance Seeds in 1996 in operations. Following his operational role, he decided to join CHS as key account manager. Billman’s next career move was to join International Seeds as a domestic and export sales representative for five years. From this experience as a sales representative, he then went into the specialty seed business at S & S Seeds as general manager for 10 years. He returned to CHS as a location manager before joining DLF Pickseed as a key account sales rep for the Seed Research of Oregon brand. Only a year later, he was promoted to a brand management role for Seed Research. Over the last 3 years, Billman has continued to show his dedication to DLF Pickseed USA. His role and responsibilities have expanded heavily into the export business.

Bill Dunn will serve as transition manager.

Dunn will manage and facilitate the transition in his new role. Over the next year, he will work closely with the sales team to ensure an exemplary transition of the key roles and duties within the Pro Turf Division.

Published by SeedWorld, July 13, 2020

 

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Chris McDowell: Starts seed business with her daughters

Chris McDowell’s long history in the grass seed industry has taught her and her two daughters that Oregon is fertile ground for more women in agriculture.

McDowell has been a part of the mid-Willamette Valley’s grass seed production operations for nearly 40 years, she said, while daughter Marissa Donahue transitioned from production into turf grass sales in 2008.

“We’d been working together long enough and she had been in the industry for a long time and had all this knowledge and relationships, which was essential,” Donahue said. “But we work together well, which can be considered a big advantage.”

In 2014, McDowell, Donahue and her other daughter, Mandi Mack, decided to toss the dice and start their own business, which they called Vista Seed Partners.

“We saw the need in the industry of a real customer-based seed company,” McDowell said. “The timing was right in 2014, so we just said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Today, Vista markets high-performance grass seed varieties and blends for professional landscapes (Central Park in New York City is a client), sports turf, golf courses and sod applications. Turfgrass products include Bermudagrass, perennial ryegrass, Kentucky bluegrass and others.

Forage products are also developed at Vista, including tall fescue and orchardgrass.

The three women co-owners title themselves as “sales” staff, though each has significant experience in the field.

Donahue has served on the board of the Oregon Grass Seed Advisory Council and is currently on the board of the Independent Turf and Ornamental Distributors Association.

Mack held a sales and marketing role for a large multinational turf grass company for more than a dozen years before Vista Seed Partners was formed. She commutes from Salem to Vista’s Shedd, Ore., headquarters.

McDowell is a turfgrass industry story by herself, though.

“Back when I was first doing seed sales in the early 1980s there were probably only three or four women doing what I was doing,” McDowell said. “It was kind of a Good Ole Boys Club for a long, long time.

“But things changed,” she said, “and I got involved in the Oregon Seed Trade Association, and I became the first woman president of the Oregon Seed Council.”

McDowell also has chaired the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program board and on the American Seed TradeTrade Association’s Lawn Seed Division.

“I think that there’s this misconception that women are in competition with one another,” Donahue said. “But in my experience, I’ve not felt that in this industry, where people are nothing but supportive.”

 

By GEOFF PARKS For the Capital Press Jul 2, 2020

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Consumer demand overwhelms vegetable seed producers

Jun 3, 2020

The panicked rush to buy vegetable seeds in the wake of this year’s coronavirus pandemic is something that farmer Frank Morton has seen before.

Previously, the surge in demand was spurred by the Great Recession over a decade ago, and before that, by fears of the Y2K glitch causing technological mayhem at the turn of the new millennium.

Worrying about widespread havoc tends to make humans prioritize basic biological imperatives, said Morton, who started his Wild Garden Seed company in 1994 near Philomath, Ore.

“When tensions are high and economic prospects are threatened, one of the first things people remember to buy — after toilet paper — is seeds,” he said. “There’s a certain victory garden mentality that’s taken hold. There’s a return to the garden.”

Vegetable seed sales were already strong during the typical peak sales season in February, which Morton attributes to a “hangover from the impeachment trials,” as political turmoil also spurs interest in self-sufficiency.

Once sales began taper off before the spring planting season, however, a national emergency related to the coronavirus was declared, he said.

“All the sudden, the orders went through the roof,” Morton said. “It shot back up the same as the peak or more.”

Morton estimates his sales this spring were three times what they’d normally be, which is akin to having “two selling seasons in one year.”

“For companies like mine, it was the sunny side of the coronavirus,” he said.

The phenomenon of “cocooning at home,” avoiding travel and saving money by growing food will probably endure at least as long as the economic turbulence in the U.S., said Tom Johns, president of the Territorial Seed Co. in Cottage Grove, Ore., which grows seed and contracts with farmers.

“It’s going to take a longer time to get out of it than it took to get into it,” Johns said, adding that his company projects two years of increased sales, though not the “panic buying” seen in 2020.

“I think we’re going to have a more steady flow of business, but business will be more robust,” he said.

In the past three months, seed wholesalers have shipped 25-35% more seed than they would on average, resulting in shortages of certain popular varieties, said John Wahlert, co-owner of Wild West Seeds in Albany, Ore., which contracts with farmers and sells in bulk to seed retailers.

“Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong, and they’re looking out for their own. They don’t realize that one packet or two packets would be enough for their whole family,” he said. “The garden seed industry does its best on the worst of days.”

An increase in vegetable seed production is likely to “refill the coffers” for next year, though the prices to growers will depend on what happens in global markets, he said. “To move the seed, I’ve got to be competitive.”

For his part, Wahlert hopes that wholesale buyers will have an incentive to offer farmers higher prices to grow vegetable seeds.

“If I don’t have good growers, I’m not in business,” he said.

Siskiyou Seeds, which grows its own seeds in Williams, Ore., and contracts with other farms, has seen its sales quadruple so far in 2020, said Don Tipping, the company’s founder.

“What was a multiple-year supply is getting sold out in one year,” Tipping said.

Even after doubling the employment level at his company by hiring new workers and extending hours for others, Siskiyou Seeds was unable to keep up with demand and was forced to suspend new orders for five days in April.

Tipping and other seed sellers say they’re not complaining about getting slammed with demand, especially when so many are suffering financially.

“It’s a huge blessing to be busy at a time people are unemployed,” he said.

Tipping said the coronavirus pandemic has caused people to want “more agency over their food supply,” and has probably inspired “hundreds of thousands if not millions of new gardens this year.”

“We were exposed to a lot of new customers who will probably continue to be customers,” he said.

Even so, the boom in demand has overwhelmed the current capacity at Siskiyou Seeds, which will likely need to contract with more growers and expand purchases from existing ones, he said.

Inventories of certain vegetable cultivars were depleted, so Siskiyou Seeds may have to temporarily pare back its usual seed offerings from 700 varieties to 550 varieties, he said.

Most of the demand spike experienced by High Mowing Organic Seeds, a Vermont-based company that contracts with about 40 Northwest farmers, was from home gardeners, though farmers also increased their seed purchases as an “emotional insurance policy,” said Tom Stearns, the company’s founder.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen, and seed lasts,” he said.

Due to the limited number of organic seed producers in the Northwest, Stearns said he’s most likely to expand purchases from existing farmers. To keep up with demand, he’s already increased contracted volumes of seed grown in 2020 by 35-50%, depending on variety.

“If there is a similar surge next year, we will be better prepared,” Stearns said.

Originally published in the Capital Press.

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Container service returning to Portland, Oregon

SM Line will start calling the Port of Portland’s Terminal 6 on a weekly basis in January.

Farmers and other shippers in Oregon got some good news this week when the South Korea-based container carrier SM Line announced it will bring weekly container shipping service back to Portland early next year.

The service “will create more jobs for Oregonians and more opportunities for local companies to grow as they market Oregon products overseas,” Gov. Kate Brown said. “Oregon sent $1.7 billion in exports to South Korea last year.”

She said that during a recent trade mission to South Korea, “we met with SM Line executives and made the case for continuing connections with our trading partners in Asia. I’m delighted they made the decision to come to Portland.”

Portland has been without direct container service since 2017.

“We are thrilled to welcome SM Line and give regional shippers more options and better connect Oregon businesses to global markets,” said Curtis Robinhold, executive director at the Port of Portland. “This service will help reduce the number of trucks on the road and decrease regional environmental impacts of freight movement.”

SM Line’s Pacific Northwest Service will start including a Portland call, with the ship leaving the port of Ningbo in China, on Dec. 22, 2019. The service uses six vessels with capacity of 4,300 to 4,500 TEUs.

With the addition of Portland, the full port rotation for the service will be Yantian, China; Ningbo; Shanghai; Busan, South Korea; Vancouver, British Columbia; Seattle; Portland; Busan; Kwangyang, South Korea; and Yantian. The first ship is expected to arrive in Portland in January 2020.

“The re-establishment of ocean container service  to Asia from the Columbia River is long awaited and vital for agriculture and forest products exports,” said Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition. “The benefits will extend not only to those who source in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, but also those who approach the West Coast gateway ports from further east by train.

“While the majority of agriculture and forest products exports will continue to move through the Puget Sound marine terminals in Tacoma and Seattle, any new Columbia River service, even at much smaller volumes, will provide an alternative to the costly truck dray up the congested interstate. It will make hours of service less costly for truckers bringing product from Oregon sources. This will also provide an opportunity for the ILWU Local which will be working these ships, to demonstrate their willingness and ability to match or hopefully exceed productivity elsewhere on the West Coast,” Friedmann added.

Terminal 6 was the scene of a protracted labor dispute among the terminal operator, the U.S. subsidiary of International Container Terminal Services Inc., ICTSI Oregon, which operated the terminal from 2011 and 2017, and the union representing longshoremen at the terminal, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

As productivity at the terminal plummeted, shipping lines stopped calling Portland, and the port eventually ended its lease with ICTSI Oregon.

Among the carriers that formerly called Terminal 6 were Hapag-Lloyd, Hamburg-Sud and Westwood. Korea’s Hanjin had also called the terminal prior to becoming insolvent in 2016.

Earlier this month, a federal jury awarded $93.6 million to ICTSI Oregon after finding ILWU members engaged in illegal work practices such as work slowdowns and stoppages.

The union contended ICTSI’s closure at Terminal 6 was caused by “ICTSI’s own mismanagement, the constraints of the Columbia River regarding oceangoing shipping and the financial troubles faced by the ocean carriers themselves that were unrelated to any actions taken by the ILWU or Local 8.”

After ICTSI left, the Port of Portland and BNSF Railway started using Terminal 6 as an inland rail intermodal terminal, shuttling containers to and from container terminals at the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma, which are operate together as the Northwest Seaport Alliance. As a multipurpose facility, Terminal 6 is also used to load and discharge automobiles as well as breakbulk and project cargo.

Ken O’Hollaren, marine marketing director at the Port of Portland, said the intermodal rail service to Seattle and Tacoma — which is offered by Hyundai Merchant Marine, COSCO Shipping, and CMA CGM and its APL subsidiary — will continue.

O’Hollaren said the size of the ships deployed by SM Line means they will have no problems navigating the 43-foot channel along the Columbia River or being worked at Terminal 6.

He also said the Port of Portland would encourage the revival of container on barge service along the Columbia River. In the past, those services had moved containers from as far inland as Lewiston, Idaho.

“We look forward to this new service in Portland, which will expand our trans-Pacific service coverage and better connect SM Line with customers in the region,” said Kee Hoon Park, CEO of SM Line, in a statement.

SM Line launched in 2017 and also operates a service between China, Korea and the Port of Long Beach.

Originally published by American Shipper

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Grass seed moves to #4 in Oregon commodities

Greenhouse, nursery products top Oregon’s ag products

Followed by cattle and calves, hay and grass seed

SALEM, Ore. – Greenhouse and nursery products remain Oregon’s leading agricultural commodity, with an annual value of nearly $1 billion, based on data collected by the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Sources include USDA National agricultural Statistic Service (NASS), Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Oregon Wine Board. This is an increase for Oregon’s greenhouse and nursery industry up from $94.7 million last year. Oregon is one of the top three nursery production states in the U.S.

Continue reading Grass seed moves to #4 in Oregon commodities

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Weaver Seed Receives 2019 Leadership Award

Weaver Seed of Oregon was chosen to receive the 2019 Leadership Award at the Celebrate Trade event in Portland. The Celebrate Trade event is the “Oregon International Business Awards and Consular Corps Scholarship Gala” held during Oregon’s World Trade Week to help build the next generation of leaders.

See this video clip on the work done by Gary and Andy Weaver with the Albany Boys and Girls Club.

Continue reading Weaver Seed Receives 2019 Leadership Award

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Northwest agriculture: You’re not in Kansas

By Brad Carlson, Capital Press
May 16, 2019

A drive through Oregon’s Willamette Valley will quickly convince any Midwesterner that agriculture in the Pacific Northwest is far different from the Corn Belt.

Rows of hazelnut trees line up next to fields of Christmas trees, and grass seed fields are surrounded by blueberries — more than 200 different crops are grown in the sprawling valley that stretches 110 miles between Eugene and Portland in Western Oregon.

Continue reading Northwest agriculture: You’re not in Kansas

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Harper: When the farm calls you home

By Tiffany Harper in the Register-Guard, February 27, 2019

Leaving the family farm for more stable and lucrative opportunities is nothing new.

As a young farmer, I knew that many people leave the farm to find more promising jobs, but I also had other reasons to question my future in agriculture. Not only was I female, I was a biracial female who did not fit the stereotype of a “traditional farmer.”

Continue reading Harper: When the farm calls you home