Saving Oregon’s Small Family Farms Requires Big Changes to Oregon Law

If you drove around the Oregon countryside on any weekend in October, you no doubt saw the annual parade of cars pulling into the local pumpkin patch.  Pumpkin patches are a time-honored tradition in America.  People from cities and suburbs head out to the local farm with their kids or grandkids in tow.  They buy a pumpkin, take a hay ride, check out the farm animals, and meet the local farmers. 

For local farmers, pumpkin patches (or tulip festivals, apple harvests, u-pick stands, wineries, cideries, breweries, etc.) are vital for many reasons.  For example, the retail operations fund the farm operation, enabling the farmer to stay in business.  The public also gets to see how a small family farm operates, and why sometimes uses that are smelly, dusty, and noisy are absolutely vital to a local community.

Judging by the number of cars going out to the country every weekend to visit a local farm, winery, or brewery, you’d think that Oregon law would make it easy for Oregon family farms to provide a service that the public obviously loves and supports. But that isn’t the case – Oregon law actually makes it difficult for farms to offer direct consumer sales to the public.  Even worse, Oregon laws that are intended to “preserve” farms have the exact opposite effect, eliminating small farms and forcing consolidation into large corporate farms. This isn’t good for Oregonians or agriculture.

America’s small farms are in peril.

The most current Ag Census available shows that the number of farms in America is decreasing, but the size of farms is increasing. This is what we call consolidation. Consolidation can occur through shifts in ownership, as operators of large farms purchase land from operators of small and midsize farms. This transfer of ownership can happen when farmers retire and don’t have family to take over the business, when farmers move out of state, or when farmers just get out of the business altogether.

Unfortunately, Oregon’s regulatory policies are doing very little to support our farm families. In fact, they make things worse.  Every year, increased regulation threatens to overburden the folks we depend on to grow our food. From significant record keeping, costly mandates, and a hyper-litigious environment, it’s a full-time job just to stay in compliance, let alone turn a profit.

Oregon’s land use laws hurt small start-up family farms.

But it’s not just business regulations working against family farms. Oregon’s land use system was designed to encourage consolidation of land ownership in the hands of very few and make it extremely difficult for “urban activities” (or people living in urban areas) to find their way to the farm. Going back to 1973, the Oregon Legislature determined that the exclusive farm use (EFU) zone was designed to preserve the limited amount of agricultural land to the maximum extent possible, and as such, there needed to be substantial limitations on other uses of rural land. This is why we see Oregon land use laws that limit the profitability of commercial activities allowed in conjunction with traditional farm uses, create unrealistic standards for farmers to live on farm, and require excessively large minimum parcel sizes.

Oregon land use law requires every county to maintain an 80-acre minimum parcel size on all land zoned for farmland. That’s a significant parcel.  It’s also prohibitively expensive and a major barrier to entry. 

In the Willamette Valley, where many of Oregon’s specialty crops are grown, farmland prices range from $20,000 to $35,000 per acre.  That means a young farmer wishing to start a family farm must have access to somewhere between $1.5 – $3 million just to buy the farmland needed to start the operation. That doesn’t even count all the equipment needed to start the operation or your labor costs, which can triple if you want to go organic.

But that’s just the start – it gets worse.

Oregon land use law also prohibits a farmer from building a home on their farm unless the farmer makes $80,000 in farm income for at least two consecutive years.  That means an enterprising young farmer must live in town for a while before they can build a home and be on the farm where they’re needed.  That also means our young farmer must pay rent while also trying to make the payment on the 80-acres they had to buy, because Oregon law wouldn’t allow them to buy a smaller, more affordable parcel to begin their operation.

These two laws, by themselves, make it virtually impossible for start-up farms to begin in Oregon. Is it any wonder why the average age of Oregon’s farmers are approaching senior-citizen status? Oregon has made it too difficult for young farmers to get a start in the industry, and the ones to blame are the open-space preservationists who would rather have fallowed fields than a farm that actually makes money.  

For a place where many loathe “big mega-farms” we aren’t doing much to support anyone else. In fact, we’re making it worse, and preventing young farmers from entering the business.  

Oregon law is stuck in the past.

We want to be clear – we don’t think big is necessarily bad. There’s definitely a place for large corporate agricultural operations. In fact, sometimes a large farm is the only farm that can possibly stay in compliance with the spiderweb of regulation impacting the ag industry. Our concern is that Oregon is a state that grows a significant amount of specialty crops that aren’t grown by large corporate farms. Our small farms usually just have mom, pop, and the kids, but are not immune from the regulatory impacts and costs.

Our inbox is constantly full of emails from farmers asking whether they can use their land in creative ways to diversify their income. From creating on-farm cafes where pastries or pizzas are made from ingredients grown on farm, to 5-star farm-to-table dinners with live music and entertainment, farmers want to diversify to make money and stay in business. Unfortunately, too often our response must be, “Sorry, you can’t do that because Oregon regulators think that makes you not a ‘real’ farmer.” Completely illogical and antiquated. 

OPOA fighting for all of Oregon’s farm families.  

So, what do we do?  Here’s three common sense ideas that OPOA continues to advocate. First, why don’t we lower the minimum parcel size requirements to a point where a young farmer can actually afford entry into the industry? We don’t need an 80-acre minimum parcel size standard. From our understanding, no other state is doing that, including states where the agricultural economy is much larger than Oregon’s.

Second, it should be automatic that a farmer can build a home on their farm – no questions asked. Requiring a farmer to meet an unrealistic level of farm income stifles entry into farming, and hurts the industry. 

Finally, we need to quit trying to over-regulate agri-tourism and other commercial activities that farmers use to earn extra income to keep the farm operation alive.  Both the farmers and the public absolutely love these activities – why the heck are we letting the “farmland advocates” try and stop them? 

OPOA will never support farmland preservation if it means fallowed fields and decommissioned equipment. We aren’t interested in subjugating Oregon families to a life of hardship just because of the zoning of their land. From rural landowners to suburban homeowners, we help all property owners realize their dream and investments in their land. Come join us in this fight.

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.