Some of the Oregon's richest farmland and the state's nationally heralded land use laws are under attack due a measure passed by the state legislature in its 2023 session. Ostensibly SB 4 was meant to provide grants and loans that semiconductor companies could access to acquire and develop land for new facilities and carry out research. These companies could then use that money as a gateway to apply for some of the $52 billion available in the federal government's 2022 CHIPS and Science Act to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

So far, that makes sense, right? Spend a little and possibly gain a lot of new business from a burgeoning industry.

What's alarming farmers, advocates and land use watchdogs is the second part of SB 4 that gives Governor Kotek sweeping powers to unilaterally shift a city's urban growth boundaries (UGBs) without a public process and no assessment of impacts on public utilities—semiconductor facilities use vast amounts of water and electricity—area farmers, the food system, and the environment. Then there's the influence that monied developers could potentially have on susceptible city and state officials. (But that wouldn't happen here in Oregon, right? Right?)

The website Friends of Smart Growth, established to promote a holistic, responsible, longterm approach to the state's lands, states that "Oregon’s working lands are imperiled, nowhere more so than in Washington County. Right now the city of Hillsboro has asked the governor to use her supposed authority under SB 4 to circumvent land use laws, good planning, and the public process to add 373 acres of first class farmland that are classified 'rural reserves' for the next 35-plus years."

Furthermore, "it allows the governor to unilaterally bring our farms, ranches, forests, and watersheds into urban areas with no guarantee that it will result in high-quality jobs for Oregonians or that it would leverage federal funding to the state. There is also no requirement for the governor to look first to the lands available inside UGBs," according to 1000 Friends of Oregon.

ACTION ITEM: Friends of Smart Growth is asking farmers, eaters, residents and lovers of Oregon's working and wild spaces to sign a petition urging the public to protect the state's farmlands and respect the land use system that has built a vibrant and livable Oregon. Sign it here.

UPDATE: Friends of Smart Growth has sent out a notice about a public meeting with Gov. Kotek at 6 pm on Thursday, October 10, at the Hillsboro Civic Center. It is the one opportunity the public will have to express an opinion on this issue. Members of the public can testify in person or virtually (information here). There is also a rally starting at 5 pm outside the center. The public can submit written testimony by Oct. 30 by e-mail or by mailing a letter to 900 Court Street Suite 255 Salem, OR 97301.

Issues to mention are:

• Hillsboro already has the land: There are 10,000 acres of industrial land inside existing UGBs, including hundreds of acres of large lots in Hillsboro.
• Hillsboro would have had more land if it hadn't squandered hundreds of acres on wasteful data centers.
• Residents will likely ultimately pay for a lot of the increased cost of water and infrastructure for this expansion.
• The facility does not need this much land: a similar facility in New York takes up just 73 acres.
• At stake is some of the best farmland in the world: it can grow anything while sequestering carbon and providing habitat.
• Intel should not receive more giveaways: Intel got $8.5 billion in federal CHIPS Act dollars this year and $800 million in state property tax breaks over 5 years, but is laying off 15% of its workforce. Intel's success doesn't depend on 373 acres of farmland.
• The process is undemocratic: There is only one hearing, details are posted only 1 week beforehand, and appeals are severely limited. 

Top photo from Friends of Smart Growth. Photo of semiconductor facility from Wikipedia.

In what was being termed one of the biggest threats to Oregon's land use system in 50 years, the City of North Plains, just outside of Hillsboro, attempted to double the size of the city by proposing the biggest-ever Urban Growth Boundary expansion by percentage basis and the largest by acres in the metro counties.

"A single increase of this magnitude to a city’s boundaries is unprecedented in Oregon, and most of the expansion would be for industrial and commercial use, with only about 167 acres set aside for housing," according to a 1000 Friends of Oregon article on the battle between residents, developers, city bureaucrats and state regulators.

Local residents and farmers opposed to the land grab banded together under the banner Friends of North Plains Smart Growth, which quickly organized a coalition against the city's ballot measure on the expansion, explaining to voters what the city was attempting and notifying residents of upcoming public hearings.

Led in large part by farmer Aaron Nichols, whose 15-acre Stoneboat Farm was just one farm removed from the city's proposed boundary expansion, the opposition effort became what he called his "second job" for a year, learning the labyrinthine intricacies of Oregon's land use system, first notifying the 500 families served by the farm's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscriptions and then contacting local media and conservation organizations.

Citing an almost complete lack of public engagement, Nichols testified that "of the 26 meetings North Plains pointed to as public evidence, only three of these were public hearings that both followed proper noticing requirements and had an opportunity for the public to engage." His testimony charged that the plan itself was "poorly supported" and that much of the basic evidence was exaggerated or was simply missing, pointing out that even Dr. Brenda Bateman, the director of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) stated that the city's plan relied on "incorrect facts."

Just-released figures from the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture show that the number of farms in Oregon decreased by six percent since 2017, and the acreage those farms occupied was down four percent in the same period. 1000 Friends of Oregon detailed that only about 16 percent of Oregon (excluding federal lands) consists of high-value soils, with only about four percent of those rated as prime farmland, and that efforts like those of the city of North Plains endanger those remaining valuable soils.

Putting those figures into perspective, 1000 Friends said that "while cities normally need to prioritize expanding onto non-resource lands or lands with lower-quality soils when proposing a UGB expansion, North Plains is surrounded almost exclusively by high-value farmland and prime soils. This means that any expansion would almost certainly pave over some of the best soils in the state and raises the ethical bar for proving that the expansion is what’s best for the greater community."

Expansion advocates tried to propose a separate bill (HB 4026) that was characterized as "intentionally designed to circumvent and suppress democratic participation by blocking future ballot referendums." Nichols said the efffort was a warning to those who might face challenges to their own local urban growth boundaries: "What [HB 4026] does, in fact the only thing [it] does, is have the legislature insert itself into a local issue to put a roadblock in the way of a community group. This bill forces our group to sue the state and, though as we and the city know full well the law will be quickly overturned, the city hopes that we will either be unable to raise the money for the lawsuit or it will exhaust our resources and harm our campaign. It is obvious that…placing a hurdle in the road for one side in one election, is not the place of the Oregon Legislature nor worth the time used on this bill."

On May 22nd of this year, the voters of North Plains rejected the city's ballot measure by a margin of 70 percent.

The city's response to the vote indicated the battle is not over: "The recent dialog on Measure 34-327 has highlighted a shared commitment among North Plains residents to prioritize our community’s livability and managed growth responsibilities,” said Mayor Teri Lenahan. “We are very early in assessing next steps for a future UGB expansion area." A hearing to discuss next steps is scheduled for Monday, July 15.

The 82nd Oregon Legislature adjourned its 35-day session, as the official phrase goes, "sine die"—without a future date designated for resumption—with a notable lack of the drama that marred last year's gathering. In other words, no Republican walkouts that ground to a halt any significant action on some critical issues, and with at least a nod to compromise, though some of those may spell disaster for Oregon's farmers and agricultural lands.

Housing: Loss for Farmers and Agricultural Lands, Win for Developers

Perhaps most notable was Oregon Governor Tina Kotek's vow to get a housing bill passed to ostensibly ease the statewide problem of high costs for housing and low vacancy rates, along with a vague nod toward "doing something" about its unhoused citizens.

This so-called "smart housing policy," SB 1537, included a provision that would allow cities to override long-established land use laws and processes, expanding their urban growth boundaries (UGBs) by at least 75 or 150 net residential acres each, depending on population size. Not surprisingly, this could lead to municipalities being influenced by greedy developers eager to enrich themselves at the expense of our rich agricultural lands near population centers, which was one of the main thrusts of establishing UGBs in the first place.

The catch—And you knew there was one, right?—is that in reality only 30 percent of this new housing is required to be "affordable," putting the lie to proponents' claims it would magically solve the so-called housing crisis. Plus, as anyone who's watched big apartment buildings and condos sprouting up in their neighborhoods, the affordable housing requirements can be reduced or waived for any number of reasons.

In a press release from 1,000 Friends of Oregon, "the idea to sprawl outside urban growth boundaries, including into the wildland-urban interface, where wildfire risk is higher and development patterns worsen environmental impacts, should never have stuck. But we know why it did: It’s a giveaway to homebuilders."

This was despite advocates identifying 3,000 acres of land suitable for housing within urban growth boundaries, and their insistence that those sites should be the first priority for development.

Not only is this a big loss for Oregonians' ability to directly challenge actions taken by our representatives, it's a blow to our access to food grown close to where we live, as well as to the income of small farm families and their ability to access the rich agricultural land near market centers. And what about the climate? It will suffer, too, since farmers will have to transport goods farther to get to those markets, and scraping away carbon-sequestering topsoil and replacing it with sprawling developments is the wrong way to go.

In what seemed like a good thing, near the end of the session an unpopular section of the bill that forbade cities from putting before the voters any changes to the existing UGB was expunged. And that's a good thing, right?

Well, yes, but in a sneak attack right at the end of the session, the expunged text was "stuffed" into a different bill and passed. A very, very bad thing (see below).

Sneak Attack: Land Use Exemption in Hillsboro

The Hillsboro area of North Plains, similar to the rest of the Willamette Valley, has some of the richest agricultural soils in the state. A last-minute measure, HB 4026, was passed at the very end of the session, a so-called "gut and stuff" maneuver in which the text of an existing bill is replaced with different language, often to serve a special interest group.

In this case, the text was removed from the Governor's so-called "housing" bill that removes the option for a community send a land use decision by a city to the voters via a referendum (see above). Stripping public participation from the process is rarely a good sign, and it was clearly in direct response to a ballot measure that the people of North Plains worked to bring to the upcoming May ballot over a deeply unpopular land grab decision by their city council.

Because of this new law, the community's ballot measure is not going to be able to move forward, putting valuable farmland in jeopardy again. In response, the people of North Plains are mounting a local effort to fight it and allow their ballot measure to stand. To sign a petition supporting the ballot initiative, go to Friends of North Plains Smart Growth.

UPDATE: Washington County Circuit Court, judge Andrew Erwin, granted a temporary restraining order on March 21 that allows the North Plains referendum, Measure 34-327, to remain on the printed ballot this May. This means although North Plains citizens will be able to vote on the measure in May, they will need to win their court case in order to have the votes legally count.

Preserving Agricultural Lands

A bill requesting $10.8 million for the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program (OAHP)  for the next biennium, HB 4060, survived by the skin of its teeth at the end of the session. OAHP has four components: technical assistance, succession planning, conservation management plans, and easements. It is crucial not only for the preservation of Oregon's farmland, but the incorporation of environmental stewardship into working lands management.

It is one of many tools the state should be using to address the farmland crisis our country, and Oregon especially, is facing today. From 2017 to 2022 the nation lost two percent of its farmland to development and other uses, but shockingly in Oregon we doubled that national trend to lose four percent of our farmland acreage. Allocating funds to current landowners through easements will permanently preserve land for farm use, make it immune to UGB expansions and zoning changes, as well as making it available at the agricultural value (a lower price) for the next buyer.

Sadly, the budget request died in the Ways and Means Committee, but the program was saved at the last minute with $6 million allocated in the final budget bill signed by the governor.

Dead: Funding for Locally Grown Food for Oregonians on Food Assistance

The Double Up Food Bucks Program is a SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) matching program for fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, farmstands, CSAs and select grocery stores. Established in 2009 and currently available at 75 markets across the state, it provides additional resources to SNAP users to purchase fruits and vegetables, puts more money in the community food system, and makes healthy food more available across the state.

In the 2023 session the legislature did not fulfill the full request from the program and, in order to qualify for federal matching funds, the Farmers Market Fund—with allies like Friends of Family Farmers, Oregon Hunger Taskforce, Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon and the American Heart Association—requested an additional allocation of $1 million from the state. Shockingly, even with overwhelming support from stakeholders and advocates, the request was not included in the final budget.

Go to the Farmers Market Fund website to find out how to support this valuable program in their applications to foundations and other donors to cover the gap in their budget.

There are just two weeks left in this legislative session and three pieces of legislation need your help.

Protect the Willamette Valley from Canola Contamination

Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Protected District (HB 4059) needs to be passed before the current proposal "sunsets" this year. The Willamette Valley is one of the most important regions in the world for large-scale vegetable seed production. Prior to 2015, growing canola was prohibited in the Valley due to its ability to cross-pollinate with crops in the brassica family like broccoli, kale, cabbage and others, risking the livelihoods of vegetable farmers and seed producers. In 2015 a law was passed allowing a very limited amount of canola to be grown with strict rules requiring distancing from brassica growers.

In order to protect farmers and growers of vegetable seeds in the brassica family from fear of crop contamination or rejection of contaminated seed by national and international markets, strong protections and compliance tools must be developed. Maintaining the Willamette Valley Protected District and limiting canola production is crucial to preserving the state's specialty seed growing industry. More information here.

ACTION NEEDED: Submit your testimony by e-mailing Senator Jeff Golden, Chair of the committee and entering "HB 4059_A" in the Subject line, then copy and paste the text below into the message, filling in the brackets as needed.

To Chair Golden, Vice Chair Girod and members of the committee:

My name is [name] and I am writing in support of HB 4059-A. I am a community member in [town]. The Willamette Valley Specialty Brassica seed industry is vital to the agricultural landscape of Oregon and we are so lucky to have the land, expertise and conditions to support this unique industry. We should protect these farmers’ ability to grow the seeds that produce millions of pounds of food across the world. 

Because a reasonable agreement could not be reached after the work group process, extending the current regulations is the only viable option. This topic means so much to me because [insert your reason here, such as "I want to be able to buy locally produced organic seeds for my garden that are adapted to our climate" or "I want to buy organic crops from local farmers to put on my table," etc.].

We know that HB 4059-A is not the end of the road and we will have to find a more permanent solution in the next few years. I urge legislators to listen to the specialty seed growers in this process. Just because they are not the biggest, most industrialized farms does not mean that they have any less value in the system. Please respect their knowledge of the plant biology, industry standards and best practices that have made this a thriving industry here in our state. In particular, we need future policy to address the issues outlined in scientific studies that threaten organic production in the Willamette Valley.

Thank you,

[your name]
[your address and town]

Support Smart Housing Policy

Governor Kotek’s 2024 housing bill, Senate Bill 1537, offers Oregon much-needed infrastructure funding and climate-smart housing incentives but it also allows cities to override long-established land use laws and processes to expand their urban growth boundaries (UGBs) by at least 75 or 150 net residential acres, depending on population size. This could lead to municipalities open to influence from developers eager to enrich themselves at the expense of our rich agricultural  lands near population centers.

Though there are many crucial components in this bill that address the existing housing crisis, advocates are stressing the need to prioritize affordable housing within the existing UGBs first and foremost. Oregon’s land use laws and the concept of Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) has protected valuable farmland, they argue, saying that once farmland is lost, we can't get it back. Farmland with close proximity to urban markets supports a robust local food system, benefitting urban residents who gain access to locally grown products and farmers who have ready access to a large customer base.

ACTION NEEDED: Ask your legislator to support smart housing policy by adding your name to this letter from 1000 Friends of Oregon.

Fresh Local Food for Hungry Families

Double Up Food Bucks help those who currently receive food assistance through the SNAP program to afford additional fruits and vegetables. A healthy diet is a crucial part of building a healthy lifestyle and that is why it's critical this program receives continued funding. There are federal matching dollars available, but only if legislators allocate more state dollars.

ACTION NEEDED: Message your state lawmakers today and ask them to support the $1 million funding request for this important program.

The Oregon Legislature convened for its 82nd session this week. They'll have 35 days to complete their work—by law they cannot extend the session beyond that in even-numbered years (160 days in odd-numbered years)—with several bills requiring action that will affect our food system. Some of those are:

Oregon Agricultural Heritage Fund (HB 4060). This bill is requesting $10.8M for the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program (OAHP) for the next biennium. OAHP has four components: technical assistance, succession planning, conservation management plans, and easements. This program is crucial not only for the preservation of Oregon's farmland, but the incorporation of environmental stewardship into working lands management.

Two of those components are particularly critical:

• Conservation management plans help farmers and ranchers develop plans for the long term viability of their farm ecosystems along with a plan to pay for improvements with matched federal funds.
• Conservation easement is a vital tool to protect farmland for agricultural use in perpetuity and lower the price of farmland for the next generation of producers.  

If passed, this bill will broaden the tools available to lower land prices for people wanting to start farming or grow their existing farms; preserve farmland for production; and keep farms close to city centers. Advocates say we must take steps to preserve our high value soils and farmland permanently or we risk losing land accessible to the community food system in the future.

Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Protected District (HB 4059). This bill directs the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) to study issues around the Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Protected District, and whether to allow expanded growing of canola within the district. The ODA is directed to report back with recommendations in September of 2025.

The Willamette Valley is one of the most important regions in the world for large-scale vegetable seed production. Prior to 2015, growing canola was prohibited in the Valley due to its ability to cross-pollinate with crops in the brassica family like broccoli, kale, cabbage and others, risking the livelihoods of vegetable farmers and seed producers. In 2015 a law was passed allowing a very limited amount of canola to be grown with strict rules requiring distancing from brassica growers.

In order to protect farmers and growers of vegetable seeds in the brassica family from fear of contamination or rejection of contaminated seed by national and international markets, strong protections and compliance tools must be developed. Maintaining the Willamette Valley Protected District and limiting canola production is crucial to preserving the state's specialty seed growing industry.

Housing, Land Use and UGB Expansion (SB 1537). This bill is aimed at adding much-needed affordable housing through infrastructure investment, developing climate-smart practices and instituting accountability systems. However, a dangerous loophole was added that allows for the governor to unilaterally decide to expand the current Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), sidestepping current laws and processes that limit urban sprawl, allowing it to expand into valuable agricultural land.

Though there are many crucial components that address the existing housing crisis, advocates are stressing the need to prioritize affordable housing within the existing UGBs first and foremost. Oregon’s land use laws and the concept of Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) has protected valuable farmland, they argue, saying that once farmland is lost, we can't get it back. Farmland with close proximity to urban markets supports a robust local food system, benefitting urban residents who gain access to locally grown products and farmers who have ready access to a large customer base.

Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (Summer EBT). Part of Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) budget, this program would help nearly 300,000 Oregon children by providing additional money for families during the summer break. While this is not a bill before the legislature, legislative approval of the portion of the ODHS budget for administering half the cost of this program is required in order to unlock the federal dollars that will fund it.

An article in the Oregon Capital Chronicle quoted Jake Sunderland, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Human Services, who said, “The Oregon Food Bank reports that one in five people in the state face hunger. During the summer months, many children in families with food insecurity do not have easy access to the healthy breakfasts and lunches they get at school during the school year.”

Jacki Ward Kehrwald, spokesperson for Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, was quoted in the same article. "We really believe this is a no-brainer since the program expenses are all provided federally, and Oregon just needs to invest in half of the setup and administrative costs," she said.

Take action by letting your legislator know you want Oregon to reduce child hunger this summer.

Thanks to Friends of Family Farmers and Oregon Food Bank for their help with information for this post. Top photo from Friends of Family Farmers; UGB photo from Metro; photo of children from Oregon Food Bank.