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Mid-sized family farms are becoming less common in Idaho. The costs of operation combined with generational shifts are driving a trend of consolidation in agriculture.
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IDAHOSTATESMAN:AMcClatchyNewspaper, 1200N.CurtisRoad,Boise, ID•P.O.Box40,Boise, ID83707• (208)377-6200•©2014 IdahoStatesman,Vol. 149,No. 307, 5sections,34pages
INSIDETODAY “Youhave togetout.” AHMEDASANI, 48, ofAleppo, about the violence in the Syrian civilwar NATION/WORLD,A5
IdahoStatesmanWEDNESDAY,MAY28,2014 72° / 43° SEEA10
PARTLYCLOUDY
75CENTS
OBAMAMAPS OUT TIMELINE FOR AFGHANISTANWITHDRAWAL A5
Whatkindof project is this? It’s acenter for busesoperatedbyValleyRegionalTransit, theTreasureVal-ley’spublic transportation authority.It’s under the areaofTheGrovePlaza.The hub isone componentofCityCenterPlaza, a two-building, $70million project thatwill include retail,office, convention andparking space.Who’sdoing thisproject?TheGardnerCo., the SaltLakeCity-baseddeveloper that built 8th&Main.Whoelse is involved inCityCenterPlaza?Tech firmClearwaterAnalyt-ics ispartneringwithGardneron the
ClearwaterBuilding, a206,000-square-foot retail andofficebuildingjustwestof theU.S.Bank tower.TheGreaterBoiseAuditoriumDistrictwillpay forconstructionof aballroom,kitchen andother space in abuildingjust southof the tower.Boise’s urbanrenewal agency isputtingup someofthemoney for the transitcenter.What kind of groundbreakingceremony canwe expect?TommyAhlquist, ofMeridian,COO forGardnerCo., didn’t givemany de-tails: “Should be a big deal.We areexcited.”
GARDNER SET TO KICK OFF NEWEST PROJECTUNDERGROUNDTRANSITHUBGROUNDBREAKING IS JULY 1
CLEANENERGY
One man’sinventions bringhigh hopesNATION/WORLD,A5
ECONOMY
CEO pay rises for4th straight year
BUSINESS,B1
CATCHITWHILEYOUCAN
COPPERRIVERSALMON6RECIPESTOENJOYTHEHEART-HEALTHY FISH,
INCLUDINGPERUVIANCEVICHE, SALMONCAKESANDMAPLE-BOURBONGLAZEDSALMONFILLET
LIFE,L1, L6
The Idaho family farmendures—fornow
BYAUDREY [email protected]
© 2014 Idaho StatesmanThree generationsof farmerswill
spend this summerworking the 400acres of soil known as Sunny ViewFarms, on the outer edge ofCaldwell. The Freeman familygrows everything from sugar beetsand onions towheat and seeds thatother farmers rely on to grow theirown crops.
Sid Freeman, 53, is the owner.Hisseptuagenarian father, Loren, is “re-
tired,” which really justmeans he works less,SidFreeman says.
The youngest SunnyView farmer is 21-year-oldWes Freeman, a stu-dent at Boise StateUni-versity who expects totake over the business
someday.Hehopes to share the farmwith his older brother, Justin, whoworks in agribusiness upnorth.
They come from a long line offarmers— seven generationsnow.
“Each generation (before SidFreeman) has stood on its own,nothing passed on to the next,” SidFreeman said. He bought his
The costs of operationcombinedwith
generational shifts aredriving consolidation
DARINOSWALD/ [email protected] irrigationwater flowingata freshlyplantedpinto-beanfieldwestofCaldwellonFriday.His father,SidFreeman,ownsthefarm thatheacquiredfromhis father,LorenFreeman.
Confrontingearly-onsetAlzheimer’s
[email protected]© 2014 Idaho Statesman
LisaDeDapperhashelda rangeof leader-ship positions at Idaho nonprofits, but she’staking a public leadership role now that shehadn’t expected orwanted.
At age 57, she’s been diagnosed withAlzheimer’s disease and is helping raiseawareness about the sixth-leading cause ofdeath in theU.S.
DeDapper speaks about Alzheimer’sfrom a valuable perspective, because she isyoung and otherwise healthy. Most peopleare diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at a mucholder age,whenother compromising healthissues canbe in play.
“I’mhelping theAlzheimer’sAssociationhave a face that can get out there in public,that people can see,” said DeDapper, whospoke last week at theGreater IdahoChap-terof theAlzheimer’sAssociationbreakfastin Boise. She agreed to share her story withthe Statesman.
Boiseanwants to ‘plug away’ atstaving off thedisease’sworst effects.
Exercise canput spring inelderly steps
BYGRETCHENREYNOLDSNEWYORK TIMESNEWS SERVICE
Regular exercise, includingwalking, sig-nificantlyreduces thechance thata frail old-er person will become physically disabled,according to one of the largest and longest-running studiesof its kind todate.
The resultsof the study, oneof the largestand longest running of its kind to date,waspublished Tuesday in the journal JAMA, Itreinforced the necessity of frequentphysical activity for our aging parents,grandparents and, of course, ourselves.
While everyone knows that exercise is agood idea,whatever your age, the hard, sci-entific evidence about itsbenefits in the oldand infirmhasbeen surprisingly limited.
Anewstudy showsolderpeople canhelpwardoff disabilitieswith regularworkouts, includingwalking.
See EXERCISE,A8
See FAMILY FARMS,A8
[email protected]© 2014 Idaho Statesman
The late, great Boise Cascade Corp. tracesitsorigins to thecelebrated 1913mergerofBar-berLumberCo.andPayetteLumberandMan-ufacturing Co. The rise of Boise as a lumber-and-paper-products center took a big step in1957, when the Boise Payette Lumber Co.mergedwithCascade LumberCo. ofYakima,Wash., to formBoiseCascadeCorp.
BoiseCascade grew into a national power-house for paper andwood products, raking inmore than $4 billion in revenues and employ-ing nearly 20,000people in 1991.
But it fell on hard times. Boise CascadeCorp.’s reign as a public company ended in2004. A series of sales and transactions overthenextnineyears led to the sale of its timber-lands and morphed its paper-and-packaging
1913:Seedsofatimbergiantplanted
TOP50STORIES
from150yearsof theIdaho Statesman
Tocelebrate150yearsofproducingthisnewspaper,weare re-printingoneofourTop50storieseachdaythrough July6.ThenyoucanvoteforyourTop10stories,whichwillappear inourcommemorativespe-cialsectionon July26.
ABOUTTHISSERIES
SeeBOISE CASCADE,A8
!REGISTERFORTHELONGESTDAYFUNDRAISER IdahoStatesman.com
FindoutmoreaboutAlzheimer’s and the Idahochapterof the association.
QUICKFACTSABOUTTHEDISEASEBACKPAGE
SeeALZHEIMER’S,BACKPAGE
52.857.656.554.1
THETRENDS See chartson farmers’ages,whoowns farms.A8
LorenFreeman
!SEEMOREABOUTTHESTATESMAN’S
SESQUICENTENNIALIdahoStatesman.com/150years
Themarriageof two lumbercompaniesacenturyagospawneda familythat led
toBoiseCascadeCorp.
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parents’ farm and will passeverything on to his sons,andhe isproud “tobeable tochange that and forge the fu-ture— andwe knowthat fu-ture is in agriculture.”
CHANGING LANDSCAPEMidsize family farms
such as Sunny View are be-coming less common.
According to the latestU.S.Department ofAgricul-ture census, the family- orfarmer-owned operation isstill king in Idaho,makingup83.5 percent of all farms inthe state. But that’s downfrom a peak of 88.1 percent10 years earlier and the low-est since at least 1997.
“The trend has been thatyou’ve got larger operationsthataregrowing, smallerop-erations that are growing ...and themiddle-sizeones arethe ones that are disappear-ing,” saidNeilRimbey,Cald-well rangeeconomist for theUniversity of Idaho Exten-sion.
Meanwhile, corporate-owned farms are makinggains.Theywere 7.2 percentof all Idaho farms in 2012, upfrom a low of 4.9 percent 10years earlier and the highestshare since at least 1997.
Rimbey cautions that“corporate-owned” isn’tsynonymous with “large”and that some corporationsare family businesses. “Itisn’t a move to corporateagriculture,” he said. “Thereare still operations that arefamily farms or ranches thatyou would categorize as bigoperations.”
Sid Freeman notes thatsome family farms may be-come corporations becauseof liability. “One mishapcould endup costing you lit-erally the farm,” he said, andthe Freemans are looking atincorporating for that rea-son.
THE VANISHING MIDDLELarger farms have
economiesof scale toweath-er volatility and rising costs,while small farms are bol-stered by the popularity offarmersmarkets and hobby-esque farming, economistssaid.
“I thinkwe’re going to seegreater incomesoff of small-er-size farms” because ofthe trend toward local, sus-tainable food production,SidFreeman said.
The farms in between?They’re caught in somestrong winds. Baby boomerfarmers are getting older,and their children aren’t aseager to take over the farms,economists said.Thedollarsthat farmers and ranchersspend on their crops or live-
stockhasmore thandoubledin thepast 15years.All of thisbreeds temptation to sell toaneighbor or well-fundedcompetitor.
“We’re seeing some ur-banization of farm ground,too,” said C. Wilson Gray,TwinFallsdistrict extensioneconomist for theUniversityof Idaho. “Farm ground be-ing converted to subdivi-sions (is) kind of a slow-moving factor in reducingthe amountof farmground.”
The average farm in 2012spanned 474 acres, 20 acreslarger than in the previouscensus in 2007, though just afew acres larger than in 1997and 2002.
John Thompson, publicrelations director for theIdaho Farm Bureau, said thefederal estate tax — some-thing the bureau has longpushed to be repealed — isenough to keep someyounger generations fromtaking over their parents’farm.
“Your family alreadyowns the farm, andyou can’tturn it over (to children)without paying the govern-ment a big pile of money,”Thompson said.
Rimbey said ranchersface similar challenges.“Their kids don’t want tocome back (after college)andhaveanything todowithit,because they’ve seen theirparents squabblingwith fed-eral and state agencies overgrazing,”he said.
Having to pay money tokeep the business— and thelifestyle of being a farmowner—is toodiscouragingfor some,Thompson said.
“Kids don’t want to workthat hard for a little amountofmoney,” he said.
Idaho’s 24,816 farms hadnet cash income of $2.7 bil-lion in 2012, about $109,000each, according to the US-DA. The median hourly payfor an agricultural manageris $26.38, according to the
IdahoDepartmentofLabor.And it’s not a trend that’s
easy to reverse.“For a young guy or gal to
get into farming, there’s ahuge investment up front,”Thompson said. “A lotof thecrops we raise in Idaho —potatoes and sugar beets inparticular — takespecialized equipment” at ahigh price.
That’s partly why SidFreeman’s parents were“overwhelmed” when theylearned his children hadshown an interest in some-day owning their home andthe “homeplace” farm.
“They were very, veryhappy about that,” Sid Free-man said. So happy, in fact,that they made their son a“very good deal” on theirproperty. (He previouslyrented farmland from them.)
WISDOM PASSED DOWNWes Freeman knows it
will be years, maybedecades, before he takesover.He is preparing byma-joring in business whilespending his summers onthe tractor.
His peers often questionhis career choice. His re-sponse?Toaskwhether theylike themeals they eat.
“My earliest memoriesare setting water (siphontubes for irrigation) withmom anddadwhen Iwas 5,”he said.As he and his broth-er took part in 4-H and Fu-tureFarmersofAmericaanddid chores on the farm, theylearned from their parentsandhired farmworkers.
“When it comes to end-of-the-yearbookwork, that’swhere I have a lot left tolearn,”WesFreeman said.
He adds that in Caldwell,smaller independent farmsare still thriving. It’seasier tosurvivewhen you can tradewith neighbors—hiring thefarmer next door to use hisnew tractor on your land, inexchange for his hiring you
to haul his spuds later in theyear.
Wes Freeman has heardthat farmingnearAdaCoun-ty and in parts of East Idahoismore competitive.
“Where we’re at, we’reblessed to have prettydecent neighbors. It’s not acutthroat deal,” he said.“The future is bright.”
AudreyDutton: 377-6448,Twitter:@IDS_Audrey
FAMILYFARMSCONTINUED FROMA1
1997 2002 2007 2012
52.857.656.554.1
Farmers grow olderThe average age of Idahofarm operators has increasedby almost a decade since the1980s.
AVERAGE AGE
1997 2002 2007 2012
20,71621,30822,04121,669
Family farmsFamily– and individual-owned operations dominatethe market in Idaho, butthat’s changing slowly.
NUMBER OF FARMS
1997 2002 2007 2012
1,792
1,533
1,218
1,523
Corporate farmsThe number of corporate-owned farms is rising, thoughit remains small in compari-son to family-owned farms.
NUMBER OF FARMS
DARINOSWALD/ [email protected] sonWesFreeman, right, fixan irrigationlineataportionof landon their farmnearCaldwell onFriday.
“For the first time, wehave directly shown that ex-ercise can effectively lessenor prevent the developmentof physical disability in apopulationof extremelyvul-nerable elderly people,” saidDr. Marco Pahor, thedirector of the Institute onAging at the University ofFlorida,Gainesville, and thelead authorof the study.
Countlessepidemiologicalstudies have found a strongcorrelationbetweenphysicalactivity in advanced age anda longer, healthier life. Butsuch studies can’t prove thatexercise improvesolderpeo-ple’shealth, only thathealthyolderpeople exercise.
Other small-scale, ran-domized experiments havepersuasively established acausal linkbetweenexerciseand healthy aging. But thescope of these experimentshas generally been narrow,showing, for instance, thatolder people can improvetheir strength with weighttraining or their endurancecapacitywithwalking.
UNIQUE STUDYSo, for this latest study,
the Lifestyle Interventionsand Independence forElders trial, scientists ateight universities and re-search centers around thecountry began recruiting
volunteers in 2010, using anunusual set of selection cri-teria. Unlike in many exer-cise studies, which tend tobe filledwith people in rela-tively robust healthwho caneasilyexercise, the scientistsrecruited volunteers whowere sedentary and infirm,andon the cuspof frailty.
Ultimately, they recruited1,635 sedentary men andwomen ages 70 to 89 whoscored lower than a nine ona 12-point scale of physicalfunctioningoftenused to as-sess older people. Almosthalf scoredaneightor lower,but all were able to walk ontheir own for 400meters, ora quarter-mile, the re-searchers’ cutoff point forbeing physicallydisabled.
Then the men andwomen were randomly as-signed to either an exerciseor an education group.
Those in the educationassignment were asked tovisit the research centeronce amonth or so to learnabout nutrition, health careand other topics related toaging.
The exercise group re-ceived information aboutaging but also started a pro-gram of walking and light,lower-body weight trainingwith ankleweights, going tothe research center twice aweek for supervised groupwalks on a track, with thewalksgrowingprogressivelylonger.Theywerealsoaskedto complete three or four
EXERCISECONTINUED FROMA1
more exercise sessions athome, aiming for a total of150minutesofwalkingandabout three 10-minute ses-sions of weight-trainingexercises eachweek.
Every six months, re-searchers checked thephysical functioning of allof the volunteers, withparticular attention towhether they still couldwalk 400meters by them-selves.
DURATIONLENGTHYTheexperiment contin-
ued for an average of 2.6years, which is far longerthan most exercise stud-ies.
By the end of that time,the exercising volunteerswere about 18 percent lesslikely to have experiencedany episode of physicaldisability during the ex-periment. They were alsoabout28percent less likelytohavebecomepersistent-ly, possibly permanently,disabled, defined as beingunable to walk those 400meters.
Most of the volunteers“tolerated the exerciseprogram very well,” Pahorsaid, but the results didraise some flags.
More volunteers in theexercise group wound uphospitalized during thestudy than theparticipantsin the education group,possibly because theirvital signs were checkedfar more often, the re-searchers say.Theexerciseregimen may also have“unmasked” underlyingmedical conditions, Pahorsaid, although he does notfeel that the exercise itselfled tohospital stays.
business into Boise Inc.,which last year was boughtbyPackagingCorp.ofAmer-ica. A private-equity firmcreated Boise Cascade LLCto operate the old corpora-tion’s wood-products andbuilding-materialsdivisions,
then sold them back intopublic ownership last yearas Boise Cascade Co. Thenew company occupies partof the same Boise plazabuilding Downtown wherethe Boise Cascade empirewas run.
The IdahoStatesman rangin 1914with a rosy economicforecast, including cartoonsand portending big things
from the Barber-Payettemerger, saying, “The lastdoubt was removed as to thefuture ofBoise as a center ofcommerce and industry.”
ZachKyle: 377-6464
BOISECASCADECONTINUED FROMA1
!EXPLORETHESTATESMAN’S
HISTORYINANINTERACTIVETIMELINEIdahoStatesman.com/150years
Idaho Statesman
Thiscartoonwaspublished Jan. 1, 1914.
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