As landscape shifts, Oregon struggles to protect farmland

But it's not 1970 anymore. Nursery stock and vineyards have eclipsed fields of berries and green beans. High-tech factories consume large swaths of land while creating robust employment. And suburban growth continually pulses outward into areas once considered far-flung.

A lot is at stake for both farmers and urban dwellers, who see rural vistas as part of Oregon's identity. Yet Oregonians' affinity for bigger backyards as well as country views clearly creates a conflict.

Nobody feels the competing tugs more than Lynn Lundquist.

The former House speaker grows grain and mint on 300 acres in Central Oregon's Crook County. He also represents some of the state's biggest corporations as head of the Oregon Business Association.

Oregon needs to make land available for economic growth and rural living, Lundquist said. But, in his mind, that doesn't mean selling out agriculture.

"We should still want to protect valuable farmland," said Lundquist, who has a Measure 37 claim pending on his property. "Whether farmland represents 10 or 20 percent of the economy, that's not the issue. It's an important sector. And it's important for other reasons as well: open space, the environment, livability."

 

Protections divide Oregonians

Those ideals guided the creation of Oregon's planning program in 1973, and the rural land regulations that carried it out.

The state tied its land-use laws to a long-running soil evaluation scale from the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service. Traditionally, the system was used to help farmers manage their land.

Rural property gets divided into eight groups, based on assessments of everything from soil depth to slopes to erosion. Oregon set a broad cutoff for its natural resource designation, protecting 93 percent of privately owned property for farming or forestry.

Owners generally have to keep their land in chunks of at least 80 acres -- more than 700 Portland-size lots -- and, if it's considered high-value, build houses only to support commercial agriculture. In other states, country homes on couple-acre lots are typical.

Many farming advocates say this is the numerical side of treating agriculture as an industry. Forcing farmers to operate among patches of housing and businesses, they say, would be lethal.

There are no subdivisions near Imperial Stock Ranch, which covers an area larger than Eugene in Wasco and Sherman counties.

Owner Dan Carver said his remote location allowed him to transform property considered mediocre by the soil scale. The land is productive, and fish thrive in the ranch's creek.

Giving up on property without rich soils would reward poor land managers, Carver said.

"I hate to see the state get involved in trying to draw those lines," he said. "You're never going to make everyone happy. What we have in place today is perhaps the best solution we could ever have."

This argument doesn't carry much weight with critics, particularly outside the fertile Willamette Valley. They say growing season, crop productivity and water availability would better gauge a parcel's potential.

Ron Bjork says hay is about all he can grow on his 80 acres in Jackson County, where he's been farming for more than four decades. He complains of trying to plow rocky soil and keep dry patches usable with limited water.

Southern Oregon should have preserved farming in the Rogue Valley floor -- where cities sprouted -- and allowed development in the surrounding hills, Bjork said.

As president of the county farm bureau, he's watched the number of full-fledged farmers decline. But membership rises as wealthy families buy farms for the rural lifestyle.

"The laws have forced people to build in towns, closer together, with less backyards, less everything," Bjork said. "Most people I talk to want to get out and have an acre or two. But that's not the way Oregon is."

 

Economy, politics shift

 

In the early 1970s, the population of Gresham -- now Oregon's fourth largest city -- had barely hit 10,000. The Nike swoosh was in its infancy. Oregon forests housed trees instead of high-tech companies. Natural resources dominated the state's economy.

As Oregon evolved, agriculture stayed strong. The industry sold $3.8 billion of goods last year and provided one in every 12 jobs, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

But farming is now one piece of a complicated economy.

High-tech and electronics companies, the state's top financial catalyst, have bemoaned a lack of available land. Gov. Ted Kulongoski responded with a program to identify what he called "shovel-ready" sites for industry. In the Portland area, a 1,900-acre urban expansion for business last year broke tradition by using farmland.

Meanwhile, low interest rates and rapid population growth have fueled a housing frenzy that spans central cities and suburban fringes.

Keith Fishback watched urban life creep toward his fields in the Bethany area of Washington County during the 1990s. As a nurseryman, he says, he struggled to spray and harvest plants with traffic whizzing by and neighbors complaining about the disturbance.

As Fishback transitioned his operations 20 miles west to Banks, he lobbied to allow suburban growth on Bethany farmland. Fishback, who's involved in a lawsuit against Measure 37, said it makes sense to strategically sacrifice some ground to intense development and keep the rest pristine.

A recent visit to a commercial customer in New Jersey illustrated the difference, Fishback said last week from his new 500-acre operation. The client's nursery was surrounded by five-acre plots.

"Where do you expand?" Fishback remembers asking.

The answer: "We don't."

Banning low-density development has created tension, though, by stopping relatives from building on family land. It also prevents longtime landowners from splitting off lots as retirement income.

Lake Oswego attorney Dorothy Cofield, who represents several Measure 37 claimants, said her clients chafe at being told whether their land is conducive to crops.

"They'll tell me, 'My land isn't good. It's got lots of rocks, it isn't very productive,' " she said. "I tell them, 'It's not what you as a farmer think. It's what the soil class says.' "

 

Reform isn't easy

Lumping farmland into three categories, as prescribed by SB1037, shows the difficulty of picking cutoff points. Using soil type alone shortchanges some of Oregon's most important crops.

Cattle, a top moneymaker, graze on poor growing land. Cranberries thrive in bogs along the southern Oregon Coast. And vineyards -- which didn't exist when Oregon launched farmland protections -- took root on hillsides with midgrade soils that bring out character in wine grapes.

When Dick Shea was scouting land to expand his Yamhill County vineyard 10 years ago, he took a soil sample to a lab for testing. He ignored the scientist's warning that the dirt was poor.

"I wasn't terribly worried," Shea said. "I was already doing really well. I said, 'What's important to me is getting exactly what I already have.' "

Growers in the wine and cattle industries have worked with state legislators to account for their crops' value.

Vineyard representatives propose including an industry description of desirable properties in the state's definition of top-tier farmland, said Harry Peterson-Nedry of Chehalem Wines in Newberg. Ranchers have discussed measuring the number of cattle an acre of land can feed every month.

Meanwhile, the federal agency that evaluates soil class hopes to work with state officials on special crop designations. Upheaval in Oregon's land-use system adds extra pressure, said Steve Campbell of the Natural Resources Conservation Service Portland office.

At this point, industry groups aren't happy about SB1037. And Measure 37 backers want more flexibility in farmland development, while planning advocates say the bill already goes too far.

"Politically, it's a very difficult vote to take on either side," said Sen. Charlie Ringo, D-Beaverton, the sponsor. "It's too bad, because the state needs to deal with this."

Laura Oppenheimer: 503-294-5957; loppenheimer@news.oregonian.com 

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