|
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 |
Prosperity before protection
October
9, 2008
Capital Press Editorial
Oregon's review of its land-use planning system must move quickly if it is to produce a package of meaningful recommendations for the Legislature that convenes in January. We wish the 10 task force members well as they sort through responses from their first round of regional meetings that concluded in early October.
The job is even more daunting should the task force take to heart the message Southern Oregon orchardist Dave Lowry delivered two weeks ago. Lowry urged that, rather than stick with policy that "protects" farmland, Oregon ought to adopt policies that promote high-value farming.
We like that idea.
If a farmer or rancher can't make a profit, zoning farm and ranch property for "exclusive farm use" doesn't guarantee that land will in fact be farmed. It may end up producing weeds and harboring pests that attack surrounding farm crops. Idle farms take away from the economic base needed for a successful irrigation district whose services are critical to remaining agriculture operations. Loss of viable farms chips away at the producer base needed to sustain packing houses, canneries and food processors.
The task force earns kudos for a preliminary finding that "market-based incentives" can encourage sustainable operations in farm and forest land-use zones. But how to turn that statement into public policy, given 35 years of ever-increasing laws, rules and court decisions?
Changing things is even more difficult if you take the advice of Oregon State University's Institute for Natural Resources. Teams of experts, on behalf of the task force, tried to measure whether the land-use system has met its goals after three decades. The answer, contained in a draft report issued a few weeks ago, is a conditional "yes," it's working in areas of farm and forest protection.
"While recommended changes deserve full consideration, they need to be made with careful deliberation regarding how those changes might affect the state's ability to maintain a system that, based on intensive, objective analysis, generally meets its goals," said the report.
One of the most notable shortcomings found in that study, however, is in Oregon's reliance on U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service soil surveys as the basis for deciding what is farmland and what isn't. The study team found little research that linked NRCS soil types with economic viability of agricultural land. Since soil types are used to further distinguish zoned farmland between "high value" and all the rest, that data gap needs further examination.
Lowry argues that since farming costs have risen rapidly in recent years and the global marketplace makes selling agricultural products more competitive, the ag survivors in Oregon - and elsewhere - are operations that invest in improvements.
Improvements, whether cropping systems or the latest technology, are costly. You need access to capital. From this notion comes the land-use theory that if some ag land could be converted to non-farm purposes, that would provide capital for improvements on the remaining farm operation..
One indicator of that possibility is a 2002 Western Oregon survey that found a full 7 percent of ag lands identified for other, non-agricultural uses, in city and county comprehensive plans.
There are ample examples of how investment in a farm or orchard can transform it.
It can even be found in the pear orchards that the Lowry family knows so well. Fifty years ago, older Bartlett pear trees, many in clay soil compacted from decades of flood irrigation, dominated the over 10,000 acres of Medford District orchards. It wasn't just the shrinking of the canned pear market that triggered change, but a variety of profit-oriented decisions. New, dense plantings, heavy to winter pear varieties with longer storage life, appeared along with pressure irrigation and even active composting to renew orchard soils.
The orchards shrank to perhaps 7,000 acres, but those new, dense plantings yielded about the same tonnage as the older generation of orchards. Fruit sold into fresh markets from expensive new storage facilities brought prices much higher than those seen at the cannery, and the marketing season was extended by months every year.
If state and local governments are to encourage profitable farming, efforts such as Oregon's "Big Look" are important parts of revising public policy. So are comprehensive reviews of water policy, regulations that impact farm labor and those that influence the overall business climate.
If the task force is to get at promoting sustainable use of Oregon's farms and forests, it will also have to change some perceptions seen in the consultant's questionnaires, which are posted on the task force website, www.oregonbiglook.org. In many cases, queries don't even ask the right questions.
For example, the very first set of questions on "farm, forest and natural areas" is built around the presumption that natural areas need more protection. The questionnaire neither defines natural areas nor makes a case that some of those areas are in need of more protection than is now provided by current local land-use codes. All of those comprehensive plans that are the underpinning of those local ordinances were judged against the existing statewide planning Goal 5, last amended in 1996.
As part of protecting "natural resources, conserving scenic and historic areas and open spaces," the goal calls for inventories of all of those resources as the starting point of existing comprehensive plans.
Perceptions, including one the task force consultant apparently has, that current protection isn't enough, need to be overcome if the Legislature is to see recommendations that encourage economically sustainable agribusiness.
Oregon's review of its land-use planning system must move quickly if it is to produce a package of meaningful recommendations for the Legislature that convenes in January. We wish the 10 task force members well as they sort through responses from their first round of regional meetings that concluded in early October.
The job is even more daunting should the task force take to heart the message Southern Oregon orchardist Dave Lowry delivered two weeks ago. Lowry urged that, rather than stick with policy that "protects" farmland, Oregon ought to adopt policies that promote high-value farming.
We like that idea.
If a farmer or rancher can't make a profit, zoning farm and ranch property for "exclusive farm use" doesn't guarantee that land will in fact be farmed. It may end up producing weeds and harboring pests that attack surrounding farm crops. Idle farms take away from the economic base needed for a successful irrigation district whose services are critical to remaining agriculture operations. Loss of viable farms chips away at the producer base needed to sustain packing houses, canneries and food processors.
The task force earns kudos for a preliminary finding that "market-based incentives" can encourage sustainable operations in farm and forest land-use zones. But how to turn that statement into public policy, given 35 years of ever-increasing laws, rules and court decisions?
Changing things is even more difficult if you take the advice of Oregon State University's Institute for Natural Resources. Teams of experts, on behalf of the task force, tried to measure whether the land-use system has met its goals after three decades. The answer, contained in a draft report issued a few weeks ago, is a conditional "yes," it's working in areas of farm and forest protection.
"While recommended changes deserve full consideration, they need to be made with careful deliberation regarding how those changes might affect the state's ability to maintain a system that, based on intensive, objective analysis, generally meets its goals," said the report.
One of the most notable shortcomings found in that study, however, is in Oregon's reliance on U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service soil surveys as the basis for deciding what is farmland and what isn't. The study team found little research that linked NRCS soil types with economic viability of agricultural land. Since soil types are used to further distinguish zoned farmland between "high value" and all the rest, that data gap needs further examination.
Lowry argues that since farming costs have risen rapidly in recent years and the global marketplace makes selling agricultural products more competitive, the ag survivors in Oregon - and elsewhere - are operations that invest in improvements.
Improvements, whether cropping systems or the latest technology, are costly. You need access to capital. From this notion comes the land-use theory that if some ag land could be converted to non-farm purposes, that would provide capital for improvements on the remaining farm operation..
One indicator of that possibility is a 2002 Western Oregon survey that found a full 7 percent of ag lands identified for other, non-agricultural uses, in city and county comprehensive plans.
There are ample examples of how investment in a farm or orchard can transform it.
It can even be found in the pear orchards that the Lowry family knows so well. Fifty years ago, older Bartlett pear trees, many in clay soil compacted from decades of flood irrigation, dominated the over 10,000 acres of Medford District orchards. It wasn't just the shrinking of the canned pear market that triggered change, but a variety of profit-oriented decisions. New, dense plantings, heavy to winter pear varieties with longer storage life, appeared along with pressure irrigation and even active composting to renew orchard soils.
The orchards shrank to perhaps 7,000 acres, but those new, dense plantings yielded about the same tonnage as the older generation of orchards. Fruit sold into fresh markets from expensive new storage facilities brought prices much higher than those seen at the cannery, and the marketing season was extended by months every year.
If state and local governments are to encourage profitable farming, efforts such as Oregon's "Big Look" are important parts of revising public policy. So are comprehensive reviews of water policy, regulations that impact farm labor and those that influence the overall business climate.
If the task force is to get at promoting sustainable use of Oregon's farms and forests, it will also have to change some perceptions seen in the consultant's questionnaires, which are posted on the task force website, www.oregonbiglook.org. In many cases, queries don't even ask the right questions.
For example, the very first set of questions on "farm, forest and natural areas" is built around the presumption that natural areas need more protection. The questionnaire neither defines natural areas nor makes a case that some of those areas are in need of more protection than is now provided by current local land-use codes. All of those comprehensive plans that are the underpinning of those local ordinances were judged against the existing statewide planning Goal 5, last amended in 1996.
As part of protecting "natural resources, conserving scenic and historic areas and open spaces," the goal calls for inventories of all of those resources as the starting point of existing comprehensive plans.
Perceptions, including one the task force consultant apparently has, that current protection isn't enough, need to be overcome if the Legislature is to see recommendations that encourage economically sustainable agribusiness.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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