Oregon continues to lose farmland to development and other conversions, but the pace has slowed dramatically since statewide land-use planning kicked in, a state Department of Agriculture specialist says.

Data from aerial surveys done every three years by the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service show Oregon has lost 700,000 acres of agricultural land since 1982, or about 4.4 percent of the state total, said Jim Johnson, land-use specialist with the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

California has lost 2.6 million acres during that time, Johnson said, and Washington has lost 552,000 acres. Idaho figures were not immediately available. For the study, agricultural land is defined as land used for crops, pasture, rangeland or as conservation reserves.

Johnson said the impact of Oregon’s statewide land-use planning system is evident in the data. The system is intended to prevent urban areas from sprawling onto prime farmland, primarily through requiring cities to adopt comprehensive land-use plans and establish urban growth boundaries. While cities and counties may expand growth boundaries, the process is strictly defined, slow, contentious and subject to legal challenge.

The system has persistent critics, largely because it eliminates or restricts development options for many rural property owners, but there is no doubt it’s done what was intended. Travel outside any Oregon urban area and there is a sharply defined point where development ends and farm or forest land begins.

The loss or conversion of land for crops — usually the most valuable, flattest and easiest to develop — slowed as cities adopted comprehensive land-use plans in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Johnson said. Almost 400,000 acres of crop land was converted from 1982-87. About 60,000 acres of crop land was lost from 2007-10.

“You can tell when land-use laws kicked in, you can really tell,” he said.

Johnson said development pressure will continue in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, from Portland to Eugene, where most of the state’s people live and also home to extensive, valuable and diverse farming operations. As population increases and cities expand growth boundaries, “We’re going to lose a lot in the Willamette Valley,” he said.

Other rapidly growing areas, such as Hermiston in eastern Oregon, will face the same problems.

“Sometimes those cities forget why they exist in the first place — agriculture,” Johnson said.

Agricultural land also will be lost to “non-farm development” such as energy facility sitings, parks and recreation areas and gravel mining, Johnson said. The cumulative impact of such land conversion deserves attention, he said.

“It’s not just the footprint of the development, but the shadow cast by development” that has an impact on farming, Johnson said.

Click here to read the original article in the Capital Press.

Congressional negotiators reached a final deal Monday on a five-year, $500 billion farm bill that cuts $24 billion over a decade, with the largest cuts coming in the food stamp program.

WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators completed work on a new five-year $500 billion farm bill Monday, bringing closer to an end more than two years of struggles over the much-delayed legislation.

The farm bill would save an estimated $24 billion over 10 years, with about a third of the spending cuts coming from the popular food stamp program. The proposed legislation also would mark the end of $5 billion in annual direct payments, increase the number of crop insurance programs available to farmers and require farmers to follow conservation compliance measures to receive subsidies.

The 41 House and Senate lawmakers on the conference committee completed the legislation Monday, with the bill expected to advance to a vote in the full House Wednesday. The Senate could act as soon as next week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday that the farm bill is one of his top priorities.

“We are so close to having a new bill that we need to concentrate on getting it done,” said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat who is a member of the farm bill conference committee. “This is basically a sound, balanced, bipartisan bill.”

Craig Hill, president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, said a farm bill is “desperately needed” to provide a stable source of funding for nutrition programs and give agriculture producers a strong safety net while allowing them to more easily make long-term plans.

“We support swift movement forward on this immensely important legislation, because so much is hanging in the balance when it comes to food production and food security of our nation,” Hill said. “We cannot keep delaying a farm bill passage; the time to act is now.”

Final passage of the farm bill would cap a lengthy process that has seen discussions collapse more than once, most recently last summer when the GOP-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate were far apart on how much to cut food stamps — officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The program is used by an estimated 47.5 million people. The House had been looking for nearly $40 billion in cuts while the Senate targeted $4.5 billion.

The compromise on food stamps was settled by farm bill negotiators weeks ago. Lawmakers are expected to cut about $8 billion during the next decade in food stamp spending by making changes to a heating assistance program used by some states to determine whether an individual qualifies for the SNAP program.

In some states, if a resident receives as little as $1 a year in heating assistance, they automatically qualify for an average of $1,080 annually in additional food stamps. The farm bill is expected to set the new minimum at $20, limiting potential abuse of the food stamp program.

Originally published by USA Today on 1/24/2014: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/01/27/farm-bill-deal/4947383/

Risa DeMasi
Grassland Oregon Inc.,

Salem, OR, January 10, 2014 – Grassland Oregon Inc. is pleased to announce the hiring of Phill Lindgren as Logistics Manager. “As we have been experiencing rapid growth, it became imperative that we add an experienced logistics manager to our staff” stated Jerry Hall, President of Grassland Oregon. “We look forward to the wealth of knowledge Phill will contribute as we reorganize our shipping department to better meet the needs of our customers.”

Phill has over 24 years of experience in the seed industry, most recently as Logistics Manager at Seed Research of Oregon. ‘I am very excited to be joining the Grassland Oregon team and look forward to serving Grassland Oregon’s customers’ stated Phill. His expertise includes all facets of supply chain management including shipping/receiving, warehousing, and inventory control.

About Grassland Oregon Inc.

Grassland Oregon, Inc. is a leader in the development and marketing of science-based cover crop, turf, and forage seeds. With research locations across North America and exclusive global partnerships, Grassland Oregon is at the forefront in the development of products that deliver novel solutions for growing concerns.

For complete information about Grassland Oregon and their products visit: GrasslandOregon.com or contact Risa DeMasi at RisaDeMas@GrasslandOregon.com

Save the Date:

Washington State University
Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014
Compton Union Building
Junior Ballroom – 320
Pullman, WA  99163
10 a.m. – Noon

Click here for more information.

BY SERENA MARKSTROM
Bend Bulletin —

EUGENE — Jonny Steiger got a chance a few years ago to learn about farming and decide if it was the life for him through an Oregon program designed to “grow” a new crop of farmers to feed Americans.

“There’s a looming crisis in our farming community where there are not a lot of young people farming,” said Stu O’Neill, executive director of Rogue Farm Corps. “Young people aren’t growing up on the farm anymore.”

The average age of farmers in the United States was 57.1 in 2007, the most recent federal data available, said Bruce Pokarney, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The Oregon average — 57.5 — is slightly higher.

Rogue Farm Corps started its FarmsNext program to address the need for fostering a new generation of farmers and ranchers.

The program, which offers hands-on training and classes in sustainable agriculture for aspiring farmers and ranchers, has proven so promising that it has expanded to Lane County, with a South Willamette Valley chapter starting up. And it is getting requests to expand to other parts of the state.

Steiger, 33, decided after his internship that farming was indeed the life for him. He and his business partner, Tyson Fehrman, 30, today lease an 87-acre farm near Jacksonville and are themselves mentoring others through the FarmsNext program.

“We are training people who want to do what we are already doing,” Steiger said. “We’re training our own competitors.”

In Lane County, Organic Redneck in Leaburg, Berggren Farm near Walterville and Deck Family Farm in Junction City are all signing on to the nonprofit Rogue Farm Corps’ internship program. Each will host one or two unpaid students, who get training, a place to live and meals, as well as a $400 monthly stipend in exchange for their full-time labor.

Students in the program also can earn college credit for their internship, although enrollment in an institution of higher education is not a prerequisite of the program, which takes between 1,200 and 1,500 hours to complete, O’Neill said.

FarmsNext has a 2014 budget of about $120,000, O’Neill said, and is funded through a series of grants, private donations, tuition fees from students and membership fees from farmers.

Each student pays $1,500 in tuition. Farmers in the Rogue Valley pay $1,000 per year, O’Neill said, but first-year farms in Lane County will be subsidized by another nonprofit organization — Cascade Pacific, which is helping with the expansion into Lane County.

Cascade Pacific secured a $25,000 grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust that will cover a part-time employee, transportation costs for program instructors and a contract with Rogue Farm Corps, Cascade Pacific’s Jared Pruch said.

A Rogue Valley farms internship program has been around in some form since 2004, when it started off informally, O’Neill said.

“In 2010 we hit a point of change,” he said. “It became apparent the informal nature of it was running up against the realities of labor laws.”

The program unintentionally broke labor laws in such areas as paying hourly wages and carrying workers compensation insurance, he said. So organizers worked with state agencies to come up with the model it now uses.

Click here to read the original story from the Bend Bulletin.