Oregon's Outdoors In the News

A s we speak, Oregon farmers anxiously await election returns Nov. 6. If Measure 49 fails, it will be the cue for many to start heading for the exits. Leave agriculture, and re-enter the scene in the only role some may have left, as developers.

You can't blame them. They have business decisions to make. After the ballots are counted that Tuesday night, farmers will know whether to keep growing their farms, or join the land rush ignited three years ago by Measure 37.

It's that simple. "What I do from here on out depends on that election," says Hood River pear grower Mike Oates. If voters approve Measure 49, he'll upgrade his orchards. If voters reject it, he'll start shrinking the operation and planning for the implosion of agriculture in Hood River County.

"What prudent businessman/farmer would put up $15,000 per acre to reinvest in orchard renewal if the threat of a conflicting use, such as a subdivision, could go in adjacent to your farm?" Oates e-mailed recently.

Housing claims spawned by Measure 37 now imperil, directly or indirectly, half the orchards in Hood River County. In all, the state stands to lose a staggering 500,000 acres of farmland, thanks to Measure 37, much of it in the Willamette Valley. But opponents of Measure 49 say: Hey, it (mostly) hasn't happened yet.

Why worry?

Farmers like Oates are worried because the uncertainty has already shaken their business plans. They don't know whether to buy that new tractor, lease that other field, hire more workers -- or sell their farms.

Measure 49 would put a stop to the worst damage permitted by Measure 37, including commercial and industrial development on farmland. And Measure 49 would limit claimants in most cases to building three houses. That restriction, a new analysis of Washington County Measure 37 claims suggests, could roll back more than 80 percent of the new housing heading toward farm fields there.

If voters reject Measure 49, though, they'll be saying: Bring it on. In effect, they will tip the farming industry -- nurseries, pinot noir, hops, Christmas trees, berries -- toward its new incarnation as an auxiliary of real estate.

As for the 220 farm products produced in Oregon, maybe some can be shipped from someplace else -- China, for instance. As Andrew Miller, CEO of anti-49 Stimson Lumber, helpfully pointed out at a public forum in Hillsboro last month, "It's difficult to grow apples or pears when the Chinese are growing them by the million."

Yes, it's difficult. But Oregon's land-use protections have made it easier, by keeping large blocks of land in farming, giving farmers handsome tax breaks and minimizing suburban development pressure. That has boosted the prosperity of individual farmers and our state.

Miller's company, by the way, is pursuing its own apples -- of the silver and gold variety. Stimson Lumber has filed claims under Measure 37 to build subdivisions on somewhere between 55,000 and 110,000 acres of forest land; the exact number is in dispute. Either way, though, as The Oregonian's Eric Mortenson recently reported, Stimson is the largest claimant in Oregon. The company is helping bankroll the campaign to stop Measure 49.

Up until now, Oregon farmland has worked like a savings account. We can blow through it all at once and build suburbs -- and that's the business model of Measure 37 -- but it makes more sense to keep the land producing and paying off in farm income for generations.

By approving Measure 49, voters can tell the bulldozers to back up, be gone -- and farmers like Oates to keep going. Keep growing, take care of business and make that business farming.