|
Become a friend of the Klamath Bucket Brigade All donations are tax deductible |
|
This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
Family farmer fosters co-ops across Idaho
Experience, advice help potato growers join
forces across nation
Dave Wilkins
Capital Press
September 25, 2008
 |
He was swathing hay one recent morning when he got a call from a reporter trying to track him down for an interview.
During the interview, he got two more calls: one from his wife and another from the president of United Potato Growers of Idaho telling him that he was needed on a conference call in 30 minutes.
Telford, 60, farms about 5,000 acres scattered across south central Idaho from Arco to Paul, with three of his sons. They grow hay, wheat, sugar beets, corn and potatoes - both commercial spuds and certified seed potatoes.
Telford has been a strong advocate of agricultural cooperatives for years.
He was one of about 40 growers who bought the Sun Valley Potatoes Inc. fresh pack shed in Paul, Idaho, in 1998 and converted it into a co-op.
He's also a member of the United Potato Growers of Idaho board of directors and sits on the co-op's seed executive committee.
United was established as a co-op in late 2004 by a group of growers seeking to control supplies and improve prices.
It was long overdue as far as Telford was concerned. He had been pushing for such an organization for years.
After a huge crop sent Idaho potato prices tumbling eight years ago, he spearheaded the formation of a co-op called Potato Management Co.
He envisioned a system of regional potato marketing orders that would manage the nation's spud supply by coordinating changes in quality standards.
The proposal never materialized, but it was an important step in moving the industry closer to supply management, said Keith Esplin, executive director of a political action committee for the Idaho potato industry.
"Mike is definitely not afraid to think outside the box, to think of new paradigms and whole new ways of doing things," Esplin said.
Telford became a key adviser to the group of grower-shippers who started United. PMC was merged with the new co-op.
"Even before he got involved with United, Mike was feeding some ideas into the group," Esplin said. "He's really been an idea person on this issue for a long time."
PMC failed to gain traction in large part because of antitrust concerns, Telford said. Growers worried that they would run afoul of the federal government if they made any attempts at setting prices.
Such concerns are unfounded, he said, because agricultural cooperatives are protected by the Capper-Volstead Act, the 1922 law which allows farmers to collectively market their products.
PMC wasn't the first attempt at potato supply management in Idaho, Telford said. Through the years, many other growers have tried to get something going. Past efforts included the formation in 1997 of Snake River Potato Growers Inc.
Why did United finally succeed while prior supply management efforts failed?
"The stars just finally lined up. You had the right people at the right time," Telford said.
It helped that several large Eastern Idaho grower-shippers, including Albert Wada, Keith Cornelison and Blaine Larsen, were founding members.
Soon after the co-op's launch, other United co-op affiliates began to spring up in other growing regions, including Colorado, Wisconsin, the Columbia Basin in Washington and Oregon and the Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon and Northern California.
United Potato Growers of America and United Potato Growers of Canada now represent growers across North America.
United is the first organization to effectively take into account "the whole pile of potatoes," regardless of growing region and end usage, Telford said.
Telford provided valuable guidance during the formation of the United co-ops, serving as a kind of "guru or philosopher," said Buzz Shahan, chief operations officer for UPGA.
"Mike knew what would not work," Shahan said. "We would never have had that counsel without his exposure earlier."
U.S. potato farmers are now enjoying some of the best prices they've ever seen. At the beginning of the decade, Idaho farmers were dumping potatoes because there simply wasn't a market for them.
Telford acknowledges that record prices for competing crops, including $10 per bushel wheat, have been a powerful force in reducing spud acreage and strengthening the market in the past two years.
But he insists that the United co-ops have played a big role, too. If the co-op's value isn't apparent to growers now, it will be when things get tough again, he said.
"The real trick is that people don't get complacent and feel that we don't need (United) anymore," Telford said.
"Things don't stay the same," he said. "I don't want to be a pessimist, but I think in all reality that things will not continue to be this good."
As Telford sees it, there are only three ways that farmers can survive in the long run: "You can either get mega big, get super specialized in some niche or you can get together with your neighbors so you can compete in the modern world," he said.
Staff writer Dave Wilkins is based in Twin Falls, Idaho. E-mail: dwilkins@capitalpress.com.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml