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Major agricultural lender forecasts improved growth for Oregon nurseries in 2015

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Oregon’s gross nursery sales look like they will exceed $800 million in 2014, and they could very well go even higher than that in 2015, Bob Boyle told OAN members at the November 21 meeting of the OAN Willamette Chapter, which took place in Salem. “I think I’m as bullish now on the industry as […]

Obama primetime address to announce next steps on immigration

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President Obama plans to announce his next steps on the issue of immigration reform in a live television address tonight. The broadcast will take place at 5 p.m., White House officials announced. “Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken,” the president said in a video released on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, Washington has allowed the problem […]

Obama to issue executive order on immigration

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As soon as next week, President Obama will issue his long-promised executive order on immigration, according to a report in the New York Times. The order comes after the failure of the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives to act upon bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform that was passed by the U.S. Senate in 2013. It’s expected […]

DOL inspectors rumored in the valley

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According to an alert sent by the Farm Employer Education & Legal Defense Service (FEELDS), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is actively investigating farms in the Willamette Valley this week. Their focus thus far has been on blueberry farms, but that could change. Concurrently, DOL has requested an appeal to a federal judge’s ruling that the […]

EPA proposes new pesticide rules

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For the first time in 20 years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new worker protection standards for the application of pesticides. These new rules would apply on farms, forests, nurseries and greenhouses, and would cover workers who handle and apply pesticides, as well as those who handle treated products. “The EPA and the […]

House approves bill creating Pollinator Health Task Force

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As reported recently in the Capital Press (Salem, Ore.), a proposal to reclassify neonicotinoids as “restricted use pesticides” has been removed from a bill currently before the Oregon Legislature. The classification would have meant that only licensed applicators could use the class of chemicals. Instead, the bill calls for creation of a Pollinator Health Task […]

USDA revises Phytophthora regulations

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Update, Jan. 15: The Capital Press agricultural newspaper (Salem, Ore.) has published a news story about the change in rules and what it means, including more in-depth comments from OAN Executive Director Jeff Stone. ——————————— The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced that it has revised regulations (PDF) that are intended to […]

Obama open to piecemeal immigration reform

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President Barack Obama said Tuesday he would go along if Congress divides immigration reform into separate bills, as long as all the components of comprehensive reform are accomplished. “If they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don’t care what it looks like, as […]