We’ll start this post by telling you something that we’ve told property owners for years: it’s much easier to kill a bill than to pass one.

Killing a bill doesn’t require much skill. Passing a bill is much harder. It requires you to understand the law, work across the aisle, build coalitions, and make changes when there are issues. You’re not allowed many missteps, and you need to constantly be working to improve your bill in the short time you have. 

Even if you’ve never set foot in Salem, any business owner or entrepreneur knows what we’re saying— it’s much harder to create something good than it is to sit back and throw stones. 

With that said, we are very proud that the “Farm Store Bill” is moving through the process. On Monday, HB 4153 moved out of committee with the -3 amendment on an 8-3 bipartisan vote. 

How did the -3 amendment improve the bill?

The -3 amendment addressed many of the concerns we heard from the public who were worried about how the -2 affected existing farm stand permits or precluded opportunities for the simplest of farm stand operations. 

Some organizations also testified that their members are happy with the status quo; they don’t mind the income limits because they don’t want a larger-scale “farm store” operation.

We took those concerns to heart and made improvements.

The -3 resolved these issues by:

1. Leaving the law on “Farm Stands” in place as it is today:

• • This should give farmers with existing farm stand permits total peace of mind that this bill will not affect their permits. 

• • By allowing farmers to obtain “farm stand permits” as the law exists today, it allows farmers with the simplest farm stand set up to continue or obtain these permits. For example, a property owner with less than 10 acres in production can obtain a farm stand permit to sell farm products, local crafts, and host pickling classes to supplement their income. They just need to work within the bounds of the law as it is now.

2. Creates a new separate “Farm Store” permit for those family farms who want the opportunity to level-up and do more: 

• • If your farm stand is outgrowing current legal limits, the new “Farm Store” permit is now an option.

• • This option resolves the major issues we have been trying to fix, giving property owners more freedom to sell local goods and host agritourism events, without limiting their income or use of structures.

• • This permit still requires the same trade off as the -2 amendment: to qualify, you must show that a meaningful amount of farming is actually happening on your property. This honors the legislative compromise made to ensure that the property remains a working farm first and a retail operation second. 

OPOA supports this tiered framework because it doesn’t take any existing opportunity off of the table – it simply provides a new clear, legal permitting pathway for the farm families who have outgrown the smaller-scale “farm stand” model and want to operate a “farm store” on their farm.

Why isn’t the new Farm Store opportunity going to be available to everyone?

We’d LOVE for this new Farm Store opportunity to be open to every farmer in Oregon, but a wave of misinformation and relentless negativity has made that impossible.

Instead of highlighting the benefits of the bill or working with us in partnership to expand these rights, the opposition doubled down on speaking negatively about this bill.

When the conversation is poisoned by that kind of negativity, it’s incredibly difficult to win more opportunities for property owners.

More critically, in their pursuit of amending the bill, they actually suggested new restrictions on farmers that would make the problems we are trying to solve worse. This was a non-starter. See notes on the -6 amendment below.  

There’s also the usual Salem politics around land use. 

At its core, HB 4153 is trying to fix a land-use system that is over 50 years old. That system is built on mandatory statewide goals that strictly limit private property rights—especially on Exclusive Farm Use (EFU) land.

We hear the frustrations with the underlying system and the suffocating regulations placed on farmers. We agree completely. But the harsh reality in Salem is that there currently isn’t the political will to completely overhaul the system or fully “unlock” EFU land for other uses.

After the hearing, we heard from property owners frustrated with the minimum farm use requirements. These property owners have EFU land encumbered by wetlands and non-farmable areas. We totally sympathize with these property owners whose land is trapped in “EFU” zoning when it shouldn’t be.

Unfortunately, there is not enough support to allow a Farm Store on properties that that are not capable of being predominantly farmed. This was one of the major reasons why we amended the bill to allow these properties to still be eligible for a farm stand under existing law. 

We would love to find a way to unencumber rural lands with improper zoning designations, but that will have to be a fight for another day. 

What was the -6 amendment and why didn’t it get adopted?

We want the small farmers to pay close attention here. We understand that there are organizations out there telling you that they tried to put forth a viable amendment to give your small farm more opportunities. 

You need to look at the fine print of the -6 amendment to understand why this isn’t the case. You can read it HERE.

Look at page 6 lines 27-30 and then on to the next page. Look at the italicized language. They are deleting existing law. This means they are restricting the existing farm stand statute to only allow farm stands to sell farm crops. Not sell incidental retail items or host fee-based promotional activities, like pickling classes or other agritourism events.

This is a huge step backwards on giving small farms with farm stand permits more opportunity. It also reinforces the panic and confusion about how this would impact existing farm stands that we already heard from the public.

Under the -6 amendment, if farmers want to sell retail items or host fee-based promotional activities they must get a new “Farm Store” permit. However, the -6 buries the Farm Store permit under extreme, unrealistic restrictions – functionally making it impossible for most farmers to actually use or to maintain compliance with the law.

It’s a classic move: “support” the idea in name to save face with the family farmers who want it, while ensuring it will never be successfully used in practice. 

Look at the bold language on page 2 lines 27-30 and on page 3-4. This is how the -6 amendment would restrict and regulate family farms who have farm store permits:

• Farm store operations may not exceed more than 2,500 sq feet— less than half the size of many of the farm stores operating now.

• Limits the income from agritourism events to only 35% of the total sales of the farm store.

• Requires agritourism events to pass the “farm impacts” test in ORS 215.296, subjecting them to a lengthy and expensive application process that sets both the farmer and the county up for lawsuits.

• Farmers must comply with excessive permit conditions on access, egress, parking, traffic (requires a consultant to conduct a traffic impact analysis on public roads), noise, record keeping and “financial compliance” (audits by code enforcement), hours of event operation, and attendance limits.

The -6 amendment takes the reasonable siting standards in the -3 version and weaponizes them into toxic bureaucracy. Under this proposal, a farmer wouldn’t just need a permit— they’d need a legal team and a fleet of consultants to obtain or maintain compliance with these permits.

• Limits farm-to-table meals and “seasonal” and “holiday” events to only 18 events in a calendar year – drastically limiting opportunities for farmers to host the public on their farms.

• Does not allow the permit to transfer to another person or entity. Meaning if a property owner establishes a successful farm store, they are not allowed to transfer the permit over to their children’s farm operation when they retire or to a new farmer who buys the property from them. This diminishes all of the hard work and equity put into establishing the Farm Store and puts the next generation at an extreme disadvantage.

• Agritourism events may not be longer than a 72-hour period – shutting down seasonal festivals that are longer than 3-days.

• Here’s the real doozy. The -6 only allows agritourism events that:

“Do not, in combination with other farm stores, agri-tourism events or activities or other commercial events or activities authorized in the area, materially alter the stability of the land use pattern in the area.”

What does this mean? What’s the stability of the land use pattern in any given area? How could a farmer comply with this standard? How would a county comply with this standard? No one really knows because its subjective nonsense – meaning this is ripe for complaints and lawsuits. Or even worse – another DLCD rulemaking. 

After the DLCD rulemaking collapsed, OPOA and the Association of Oregon Counties sat down with a shared goal: create a clearer, standardized law that reduces conflict between property owners and local governments. Land use law is complicated enough – we wanted to make the law easier for folks to get these permits and for farmers to comply with the law. Unfortunately, the opposition’s -6 amendment would do the exact opposite.

Luckily, the -6 amendment was so extreme and untenable it didn’t have the votes to move forward, which is why the Committee Chair declined to have it presented or voted on. You can watch his statements about this at the work session HERE.

So, what happens next?

HB 4153 has been moved down the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. This is the committee that primarily addresses bills that might have a fiscal impact on the state and local governments. HB 4153 has a light fiscal impact as it will require the state and counties to expend resources to update their codes and do education for farmers on this new opportunity.

This is something OPOA supports, as we believe land use law would be greatly improved from property owners understanding their rights and having more resources – and less roadblocks – at their disposal. 

If the bill moves out of Ways & Means, it will go straight to the House Floor for a vote and then to the Senate Floor.

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not represent the opinions or positions of any party represented by the OPOA Legal Center on any particular matter.