Some bids are higher for
many of the lots offered
By JILL AHO
H&N Staff Writer
February 26, 2009
Fewer farmers bid on Bureau
of Reclamation lease lands in the Tulelake and Lower
Klamath National Wildlife Refuges this year than
last.
Seventy-five fewer bids
were submitted, but many of the lands went for more
than they did when last available for lease in
2002.
Three lots are coming out
of the refuge’s Walking Wetlands program, where farm
lands are taken out of production and flooded for
two years, leaving the lands organically certifiable
and nearly pest-free. All three lots went to Walker
Brothers, with bids as much as five times what the
lands garnered during the last round of leasing.
Walking Wetlands
Marshall Staunton, who
operates Staunton Farms with his brothers, said the
operation usually bids higher on lands coming from
the Walking Wetlands program.
“There are fewer pests and
the land’s more fertile,” he said. “By harvest, it
could be organic if you want it to be.”
Staunton said organic
farming is a small portion of the approximately
5,000 acres Staunton Farms cultivates.
“It’s totally different,”
he said. The hardest
things to control without conventional techniques
are pests and weeds.
“The yield sometimes isn’t as good as
conventional,” he said, adding, “but it seems to be
growing.”
Several of the bids for
Area K , comprised of grain and grass hay lots
designed to provide both a yield for the farmer and
food for wildlife, were more than double what was
bid during the last round.
Walter Woodhouse, who
represented his father Terry’s farming operation at
the bid opening, was unsure how competitive his
father’s bids would be.
“It’s good ground, probably the best
ground in the Basin,” he said.
The Woodhouses were
top bidder for five of the available lots.
Economic pressures
Kevin Moore, spokesman for the local
Bureau of Reclamation office, said it would be
interesting to see how the bidding turned out with
current economic pressures.
“What I’ve noticed is as
the price of commodities rise, the amount of the
bids have increased,” he said. “There are many
people who don’t think the lease lands ought to be
there, but the economic benefit from the
agricultural community is large.”
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