January 28, 2015
Agriculture & Food Products
Historically, as important as lumber/forest products to the PNW.
Maybe one-third of the land in the region is used for agricultural production. Cropland accounts for about 42% of this, grazing land for 55%. This probably understates acreages in mixed forestry/grazing use. See table on p.77 in atlas.
Earliest of settlement had a significant agricultural element....and to today agriculture is a backbone of the
PNW economy.
Farm earnings as a share of total earnings as an indicator: for the region as a whole it is above the national average (less than 2%), but rises directly to over 25% in many counties east of the Cascades in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
See .ppt file related to agriculture for data on jobs, seasonality, and income.
PNW states all above the national average in dependence on farm income
Key subregions: E Wn. wheat lands
E Wn. irrig ag
E. Oregon: wheat lands/grazing
S. Idaho: grazing; irrig ag
See also map in atlas showing percentage of county in farms. ( p. 79) Key role of irrigated lands east of the Cascades on maps on page 77 & 78. Land counted as agriculturally used is likely underestimated due to grazing on federally owned lands, both BLM and USFS.
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Good maps in Chapter 9 on Farms, pp. 76-84.
Table 9-4 on page 80, omits potatoes as a key commodity. Please see the table below that has an estimate of “other commodities”, which is the residual of the commodity groups shown and total sales. I accessed the Census of Agriculture statistics on potatoes to get the values shown in this table; clearly a very important crop category in Idaho and Washington.
Value of Commodity groups, 2012, $millions
2012 Census of Agriculture / Washington / Oregon / IdahoMarket value of agricultural products sold ($ millions) / $9120.7 / $4883.7 / $7801.4
Crops / 6492.0 / 3247.4 / 3443.0
Livestock, poultry / 2628.7 / 1636.2 / 4358.4
(Govt. Payments) / 159.3 / 85.8 / 99.8
Grains / 1473.6 / 570.1 / 1448.1
Vegetables, melons, potatoes & sweet potatoes / 1064.1 / 492.1 / 967.5
Fruits, tree nuts & berries / 2931.4 / 515.6 / 21.0
Nursery, Greenhouse, floriculture, & sod / 333.3 / 756.5 / 53.2
Cut Christmas Trees / 18.9 / 107.8 / 2.8
Other Crops / 670.8 / 803.7 / 950.4
Poultry & Eggs / 262.0 / 127.5 / 49.7
Cattle & Calves / 994.8 / 894.5 / 1808.9
Milk from cows / 1136.9 / 519.8 / 2333.3
Hogs & pigs / 4.5 / 3.2 / 14.0
Sheep, Goats, wool, mohair and milk / 9.6 / 31.6 / 42.2
Horses, ponies, mules, burros & donkeys / 17.9 / 13.4 / 22.1
Aquaculture / 187.2 / 22.5 / 52.6
Other animals & animal products / 15.8 / 23.8 / 33.6
Location Quotients – Agricultural Commodities (2012) (U.S. as benchmark)
2012 Census of Agriculture / Washington / Oregon / IdahoMarket value of agricultural products sold ($ millions)
Crops / 1.32 / 1.24 / 0.82
Livestock, poultry / 0.62 / 0.73 / 1.21
(Govt. Payments) / 0.86 / 0.86 / 0.63
Grains / 0.49 / 0.35 / 0.56
Vegetables, melons, potatoes & sweet potatoes / 2.73 / 2.36 / 2.90
Fruits, tree nuts & berries / 4.90 / 1.61 / 0.04
Nursery, Greenhouse, floriculture, & sod / 0.99 / 4.21 / 0.19
Cut Christmas Trees / 2.46 / 26.17 / 0.43
Other Crops / 1.81 / 4.04 / 2.99
Poultry & Eggs / 0.27 / 0.24 / 0.06
Cattle & Calves / 0.56 / 0.95 / 1.20
Milk from cows / 1.39 / 1.18 / 3.32
Hogs & pigs / 0.01 / 0.01 / 0.03
Sheep, Goats, wool, mohair and milk / 0.44 / 2.72 / 2.27
Horses, ponies, mules, burros & donkeys / 0.56 / 0.78 / 0.80
Aquaculture / 5.22 / 1.17 / 1.71
Other animals & animal products / 0.56 / 1.57 / 1.38
But, agriculture is the tip of the iceberg of another complex of industry in the PNW: ag-food-distribution (class handout)
Diagram: Market Relations: Ag-Food products.
Key components of agriculture: field crops
vegetables & fruits
Livestock & dairying
Key components of food products processing:
meat products
dairy products
canning & freezing
baking
beverages
other food products
used to be sugar beets.
Where are these activities located?
How has this pattern evolved?
Let us look historically first:
Hudson's Bay Company
Early W Wn-W. Oregon
Development of sheep trade & wheat lands before Palouse
Palouse impact
productivity of wheatlands vs. cost of export
Irrigated agricultures beginnings; rr land grant times
successors in the 1930's and beyond of federal projects: atlas discussion of water resources
How such ag developments occurred: subject of later discussion, but role of Bu Rec/COE
W of Cascades: market garden era....
recent history of urban impacts.....
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Problems in the farm sector: low income, seasonal
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Agriculture in the interior of the Northwest
This is our agricultural breadbasket today, with diverse production systems. These range from:
irrigated intensive cropping systems
extensive field crops systems
livestock grazing & fattening systems
all linked to food processing or transfer system for demands outside the region.
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Washington state pictures as prototypical for Northwest patterns...
Pictures show: orchards along river valleys with good air draining; wheat culture on Waterville Plateau, Channelled Scablands, Palouse Hills. Diverse irrigated agriculture in region covered by Columbia Basin Project. Livestock grazing on lands not croped. Irrigation runoff creating lakes and rivers which are now attractive to wildlife. Yakima RiverValley, Yakima Folds, and on South to the Columbia River. Slides showed diversity of irrigated agriculture in Yakima RiverValley. Rangeland at higher elevations; wheat in Walla Walla-Pendelton-Dalles axis. Fruit trees along the Columbia. Grazing land in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Fruits/vegetables near Boise on the Snake River Plain. Potato culture on the upper Snake River Plain. Crop rotation on lands devoted to potatoes. Grazing on grasslands/forests over much of the arid portions of Idaho, W. Montana.
Atlas Maps: emphasizing location, but not symbiotic production systems: the real interdependence of cropping patterns.....due to characteristics of key crops: esp. potatoes which can only be successfully croped triennially.
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Benefit-cost analysis - a vehicle for public works project decision making.
Was required to justify projects such as the Columbia Basin Project.
In the U.S., there are "principles and standards" for evaluation of these matters, developed by the Federal Water Resources Council, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
General approach is as follows:
a set of competing projects might be put forward in a given investment time period, such as a year in the Congressional budgeting process
these projects can be ranked in terms of the ratio of their benefits to costs, from the highest ranking ratio to the lowest, including projects where the benefits may be less than the costs (economically infeasible projects).
Given a budget constraint, an efficient allocation of resources would spend funds on the most efficient set of projects.
Benefit categories-for multipurpose water projects:
(1) irrigation benefits: increased crop values
(2) flood control beneifts: decreased flood damages
(3) power benefits: value of power sold
(4) navigation benefits: savings in transport costs over alternative modes
(5) recreation benefits: funds spent in a project region by recreators.
Cost categories:
(1) Physical construction costs
(2) Land/water space acquistion costs
(3) Environmental mitigation costs
Issues of valuation: •tangible vs intangible values
•direct vs. indirect benefits & costs
Project Lifetimes: typically benefit & cost streams over a project life, such as 50 or 100 years.
Present value of future benefits & costs: discounting and interest rates;
rules regarding induced development, measures of benefit & cost
Abuse of measures of benefit & cost....especially exaggerating benefits and underestimating costs.
Difficulties of evaluating impacts/effects that cannot be monetised -- translated into $$$$.
Lead to supplementation of the B:C analysis approach by the EIS process under NEPA of 1969.
Today NEPA statements often accompany B:C analyses for federal projects. States have passed similar legislation, which is applicable to state and local government projects, and often with regard to private developments.
Normally this process starts by use of a checklist of possible environmental impacts to make a threshold determination as to the significance of the proposed action on the environment. If this assessment indicates an important environmental impact, then an "Environmental Assessment is undertaken, which determines whether the EIS route must be taken. If a project does not have a significant impact, then no EIS is undertaken. However, in cases of a threshold determination of significant environmental impact, then an EIS must be undertaken. The NEPA approach uses the Environmental Impact Statement process as a vehicle for considering multidimensional environmental impacts of project alternatives. Agencies wishing to undertake some kind of project have to identify alternatives, evaluate the environmental impact of the various alternatives.
A Draft Environmental Impact Statement may or may not contain a preferred alternative. A public review process leads to comments on the Draft EIS, and agencies must provide responses to the comments in developing a Final EIS. Presumably, this process minimizes the environmental impact associated with accomplishing a project objective....this might come at the expense of maximizing B:C ratios. EIS's are typically "filed" with reviewing agencies, in the federal case with the Council on Environmental Quality in the President's Office. They theoretically have review for their adequacy, and may be directed to be improved if judged inadequate. There are many cases of litigation brought by interested parties on various EIS's in the courts, challenging adequacy, and often times resulting in their rewriting.